Hey — it’s tradition, okay?
Thank God for seasonal traditions like this one, which have survived for all these years and are being passed from one generation to another. My holiday seems to leave me feeling a bit bereft, partly because of distance from my kids and partly because our city is so broken right now. Fixable, but broken nonetheless. And there’s such a huge gap between some parts of town and others — separated by only a few blocks. This has always been the case in New Orleans, but now the gap has more to do with electricity and roofs and waterlines than it does with economics.
Example: TBK (The Beautiful Kim) works at an upscale toy store on Magazine. For the past month, Magazine and other nearby streets have been increasingly jammed with shoppers, drinkers, eaters and stand-arounders, so that nowadays (except for some boarded-up places and bent power poles) it’s virtually impossible to tell there ever was a Hurricane Katrina. Their day-after-Thanksgiving sales total was up 30 percent from last year. That’s certainly a wonderful testament to the willingness of locals to shop at home and to the many great people from outside who want to shop in Orleans Parish and do their part to get things moving again.
But cross St. Charles and drive toward the river, up Louisiana or Washington or Napoleon, and watch the waterline get higher and higher. There are a few more lights on at night these days, but driving across darkened Mid-City is often like sailing a boat toward a light on the horizon — is it two miles or 10? The open doors and windows gape stupidly between the debris piles. And there’s simply No. One. There. And it goes on like this for miles — all the way to the lake.
It’s a schizophrenic experience, moving back and forth from the near-normal to the near-lifeless several times a day. So much busy, then so much nothing. But more of the busy is returning to the nothing — such as the creepy Chevron station at Canal and Broad, or what’s now a virtual Party Island at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl.
New Orleans has always been a city of extremes — and we’re experiencing the ultimate in extremes these days. For every drink or Christmas present being served on Magazine or Bourbon or Royal, there are 25 no longer being served on Carrollton or Canal.
That said, we bought our (fake) Christmas tree yesterday and I’m eager to put it up. It’s gonna be a highly weird holiday season, but I’m sure lots of new traditions will be born for a lot of folks this year. Decorated debris piles? Duct-taped refrigerators wrapped in twinkling lights? It’ll be fun to watch.
Related posts:
