Sacking A Down City: Benson and the Saints Look Southwest

The greatest villain in NFL ownerdom is Art Modell, the man who moved the Browns from Cleveland, a city that backed the team but loathed its proprietor, to Baltimore.

As of this week, the distinction of being the NFL owner most likely burned in effigy could very well pass to someone new with Tom Benson's "opening" of negotiations with the city of San Antonio for the permanent relocation of the New Orleans Saints.

Tom Benson is not exactly someone I would call a "true character." He comes off more crusty than colorful, with his most flamboyant trait being his victory dance, known as the "Benson Boogie," after a Saints win...a not so common sight since current Head Coach Jim Haslett's first season (2000).

Tom Benson has spent the last ten years either lamenting the lack of revenue the team has generated in New Orleans or issuing quarterly threats to leave New Orleans, perhaps going to Los Angeles, a city the NFL desperately wants to have a team yet whose residents don't seem the least bit concerned about the media market vacuum in their area.

After Los Angeles, the move pickings get pretty slim, with Portland, Salt Lake City, Orlando, and Sacramento being the second string cities. Barely mentioned as a real contender is San Antonio, a city with an indoor football stadium, the Alamodome, that lacks the optimal number of luxury suites to bring in the big bucks.

Despite NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's unfavorable comments about a move to San Antonio earlier this season, football fans in southern Texas have not refrained from obnoxiously waving "San Antonio Saints" signs at the first two games in the Alamodome.

Why don't they just do the "Benson Boogie" on New Orleans' grave while they are at it?

Benson, a former car salesman, pulled off the biggest lemon push in his old industry's history when he goaded his political ally Governor Mike Foster into inking a deal that would shovel millions of dollars in tax dollars to appease Benson's avarice.

With Hurricane Katrina destroying most of southern Louisiana, Benson's siphoning of the state treasury will likely come to a close. Even a strong governor like Foster would have a tough time selling to the legislature subsidizing an extremely profitable business with so many other pressing needs.

In a way, I have gotten accustomed to the cantankerous codger's not-so veiled relocation threats. Like hurricane warnings, the ominous demands leaving from Benson's flapping jowls are nothing new.

What really gets my goat is the attitude of some of the men in black and gold about a possible move.

"We'd rather play our home games here without a doubt because San Antonio wants us," said Saints Pro-Bowl Wide Receiver Joe Horn, in response to the slow ticket sales for the home games at Death Valley (LSU).

That's a nice thing to say Joe. Slam a community of refugees who have more vital expenses than plunking down their Red Cross money to see the Saints screw up yet another season.

All I got to say to smack-talking Horn is this: I can think of a new place to shove your little cell phone.

Guard Kendyl Jacox whined about not knowing where he will spend the night prior to a game.

Hey Kendyl, who the hell are you? I mean it. I have no idea who you are, but you are making your helmet-throwing psychopath predecessor (Kyle Turley) look like a scholar and a gentleman.

Poor millionaire Kendyl! I am sure the tens of thousands of Louisianans who don't know where they will be sleeping on any given weeknight, let alone the eve of the "big game," because the storm destroyed everything they owned are lighting candles for you at the St. Jude Shrine this very moment.

The Saints have made it a tradition to disappoint its fans on the field season after season, yet the fans still came; they still sold out the cavernous Superdome even when there was little reason to do so.

And now, with New Orleans in ruins, this pack of jackasses that does a poor job pretending to be a professional football team has now let their fans down off the field as well.

The Saints can not only go to San Antonio; they can go to hell too.which is where the San Antonio Saints fans will find themselves when the Captain Queeg of NFL owners tries to extort their city as well.

In conclusion, I would like to publicly offer my thanks to ex-Saints executive Arnold Fielkow, who was sacked reportedly for arguing for playing some of the regular season games at LSU.

Thanks Arnie for standing up for the state that made Tom Benson a far richer man by helping him land the team in the eighties. Benson is master of a franchise worth in the mid-nine figures, a wealth status he would have never attained just peddling cars.

The French Quarter Revisited

It's been over two months since I have traversed the streets of the historic French Quarter. For some, the Vieux Carre (French for Old Square) is a place to get drunk, others the home of the city's best strip bars, and for the well to do, THE locale to dine, as the original New Orleans neighborhood is home to some of the nation's finest restaurants.

The French Quarter for me is where I shop for out of print Louisiana genre books and walk around to gaze at beautiful architecure that is ancient by Euro-American standards, yet never gets old in my eyes.

Situated on the banks of the Mississippi River, bordering the southern edge of downtown, my brief day trip to the Quarter would take me through the heart of the city's business district, of which I had only gone through its periphery when retrieving my car from near the Superdown many weeks ago.

Downtown New Orleans is no longer the ghost town it was when I last past through. Power has returned to that area as have the off-time traffic signals on Canal Street. The meter maids, the primary pestilence of street parkers must have been part of the "Great Blue Exodus," as a security guard near where I parked told me not to bother feeding the meter.

While not operating at the same level of commerce as it did prior to Katrina's visit, there was some bustle as engineers, out of town police, and other personnel connected to the recovery effort were out and about. I had wondered about whether tourists had returned when the traffic signal turned to green and a rhino with an alcoholic beverage in his hand slowly shuffled past the front of my Ford Escort, answering my question in form and manner.

Some establishments have reopened with limited hours. Mother's, home of the city's best roast beef po-boy and the self-annoited claimant of the world's best ham- a title nobody would dare challenge when gawking at the line that conjures visions of the wait to enter Lenin's tomb, is open for lunch on weekdays. Nearby that eatery is a pile of rubble about 15 feet high marking where one of the unlucky historic buildings stood.

Harrah's is boarded up, as is the looted Canal Place Mall, the swankiest shopping center in Louisiana. As I walked down Canal Street, away from the river, I started to look for water lines on buildings but was told by a t-shirt shop owner that the water from the 17th Street Canal break had stopped 6 blocks from the levee, sparing the historic heart of New Orleans.

After making a brief stop to Beckham's Book shop, the best second-hand/ rare book store in the state, which had reopened Monday, I walked further into the Quarter, passing the statue of "Father New Orleans" and the boarded up Jackson Brewery tourist trap-mall.

My goal was simple: beignets, aka French Doughnuts. The words "mission accomplished" ran through my mind when I saw Cafe du Monde open for business with a large banner reading "The Beignets Are Back!" Patronizing the famous cafe-au-lait establishment is perhaps the most touristy thing an individual could do in New Orleans without having to go to confession, unless you are a member of the Church of Richard Simmons.

I plopped down at a reasonably clean table and placed my order with my smiling southeast Asian waitress, who greeted me with a "welcome back to New Orleans" before going to the back area to get my three beignets and large choco milk. As a kid I used to love coming to the cafe, though my expanding waistline has made this a not so common luxury over the years. I devoured two of the doughnuts and noticed that I had gotten powdered sugar all over my pants, though compared to the oil, sludge, and other toxic goop that has splashed on my slacks while doing "relic hunting" in St. Bernard, the white powder on my legs was a relative improvement.

Crossing Decatur, the street that runs parallel with the Mississippi and leads to the French Market at the Quarter's far end, I strolled past Jackson Square, where President Bush delivered his pledge to help rebuild New Orleans on national television. The former Place 'd Arms was devoid of the human clutter and it never looked more beautiful, as the statue of Andy Jackson tipping his hat on horseback gleamed in the sun.

My final run before returning to my car was Bourbon Street, the party capital of North America; where not so comely women flash their flesh for Mardi Gras beads on Groundhog Day and the any given saint feast day.

The first thing I notice was the lack of odor, as Bourbon Street usually has a pungent smell of puke, stale beer, and urine mixed with whiffs of ganja. For the first time in my life, my nostrils didn't detect its trademark fragrance.

Some of the city's most famous bars were closed, including the kareoke bar Cat's Meow and the home of the hurricane, Pat O's, though Tropical Isle, haven of the hand grenade- a beverage that has done some significant intestinal damage in my younger days, was open and dispensing its potent potable.

Another landmark of sorts, Big Daddy's, appeared closed, and its signature "swinging legs" were not operating. The only "gentlemen's club" that seemed to be fully functioning is the one owned by that destroyer of Speaker-elects, Larry Flynt's Hustler, which had a small crowd assembled at its entrance.

The t-shirt shops were open as well, pushing new arrivals poking fun at one infamous bureaucratic acronym in particular. The daiquiri shops were also alive, possibly preparing themselves for men and women in uniform to patronize them when they shed their official work clothes.

Like some of its most festive patrons at 5 AM in the pre-Katrina era, the French Quarter itself was beginning to stumble back to life.

The Return Home, Part I

Originally, I was hoping to check my residence out within a week of the storm. The first chance was when I trucked the supplies in and failed to get inside due to the deep mud surrounding my place, the corroded lock that would not open, and most importantly, the Army helicopter that had quit circling and began monitoring my every move.

Two days later I made it back to St. Bernard, this time heading straight to my grandfather’s house, the house where I had grown up and stayed on many occasions.

The mud had baked to almost concrete firmness, but in the areas around the house where the sun light was cooled by shadows from the neighboring house, the sludge was deep and I ended up retreating to my car.

For over two weeks, thanks in part to Hurricane Rita and the tidal surge rushing through the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that submerged the only land route to the parish and had busted the shoddily repaired Industrial Canal levee, I had not returned.

I need to add something else to the above. Part of the reason I didn’t go inside either house was that my heart was not ready for what lurked behind the doors. I tried to prepare myself for the worst, yet what I would go on to see after the waters brought forth from Rita had finally ebbed was beyond anything I could possibly imagine.

Realizing that I had to “get through it”, I jumped at my first opportunity to return when Paris Road, the causeway between Bayou Bienvenue and the marsh, had dried. The route to the parish took me through New Orleans East, one of the worst hit areas of the country. Rail cars were strewn around the track and the waterline was at least 10 feet on the noise barriers.

Thankfully my party left Baton Rouge late, which meant we mostly avoided the traffic pile up created by obstinate New Orleans officials and their police department, who refused to let parish residents cross the Jefferson-Orleans boundary. After two hours of protracted negotiations, penned in St. Bernard residents were allowed to cross through New Orleans en route home. The whole affair was further evidence of the state and city’s incompetence.

As I entered St. Bernard for the first time since before Rita, I saw a giant crucifix that had been removed from a church that had been posted on the St. Bernard-Orleans border and a spray painted sign below it that read “Keep the faith St. Bernard.” Oh how I wish Joe Cook, the local henchman for the ACLU and self-anointed enforcer of mandatory atheism, would have seen it. I can just imagine the rabble-rouser being led away in handcuffs for attempted looting as he tried to pull down the twelve-foot cross.

When we pulled in front of my grandfather’s house, we began donning our protective gear: breathing mask, gloves, and knee-high boots. My paternal grandfather had suffered a stroke back in 1998 that has left him bedridden and unable to care for himself. Being a leathery veteran of the Coast Guard and a man who made his living on the water, bad weather did not startle him; actually he liked storms, unlike his more weak-kneed grandson.

Despite his debilitated condition, he did not want to leave his house and we literally carried him out against his will, the only thing that kept the X on the front door from having a “1” spray-painted below it (the code sign for a found body). Pop’s luck was not shared by all ornery senior citizens who ha ridden out Hurricane Betsy forty years before, the previous benchmark for devastating storms in St. Bernard, back when they were spryer. Many elderly people who refused to leave or lacked having relatives drag them out kicking and screaming never left their homes.

All told, Hurricane Katrina would make Hurricane Betsy look like an afternoon shower.

Trying to soften the blow and possibly grasping to one of the last straws of hope that “everything was going to be fine”, I peaked inside via the mail slot. There wasn’t any light inside, due to the windows being boarded up, but I could make out enough to know that the inside looked as if a tornado had run through.

A flooding report posted on the internet had claimed that the water in my grandfather’s neighborhood had flooded to 3 feet. Since the house was raised three feet off the ground, this would mean that if the report was accurate, the amount of water inside would have been minimal. A trip to the back house nipped that delusion in the bud.

The back house, originally a garage that had been transformed into a two bedroom house, had a white wood front, near where I would practice pitching on its brick corner while in school. The visible waterline was 8 feet.

When the last of the boards had been removed from the windows, which would be our only source of illumination aside from our flashlights, we tried to enter the back door, though without success initially. Though the key worked and with a little effort the locks rescinded, the door wouldn’t open for two possible reasons: 1) the wood in the door frame expanded from the water or 2) something was blocking the door. It turned out to be both.

Figuring that the house was likely a total loss, the door was kicked in and we discovered that the washing machine had moved from its corner position and drifted to in front of the backdoor. After a few minutes of struggle, the entrance was no longer blocked and there I saw Katrina’s devastation inside my home. The refrigerator had be knocked over, the mud inside the house was several inches deep, tables and chairs were scattered all over the place. Almost everything was covered with a slick mud. As the fridge made the front area impassable, we needed to go through my late grandmother’s room.

Had she not already been dead, Granny would have died right there. The mold was all over the walls and the ceiling…or what was left of the ceiling, since most of it had collapsed, leaving the beams and the attic exposed. My grandmother’s room was also full of mud and her makeup table, television, and other pieces of furniture was all over the wooden floor, which had buckled up several inches in a few places.

Not paying any mind to what was below my mud-covered boots, I trudged through as the sound of smashing glass and broken wood filled my ears. After making it to the hallway, I saw a large picture of one of my uncles that had occupied the end of the narrow walkway and had a waterline halfway up, a height of five feet.

Once again I ran into door trouble, this time a 200 lb chest of drawers blocking my access. I threw my weight against the door and exerted all of my strength to finally pry the door open to see my preserved childhood in ruins.

The ceiling had collapsed in part of my room and only a giant bookshelf that was at the far corner of the room had remained in place. My bed had floated to the center of the room and collapsed furniture was scattered everywhere. Four weeks of water, mud, and God knows what else had caused mold to fester all over the room.

Most of what had hung on my wall five feet or above had remained in place but had appeared soggy. My TKE paddle and Holy Cross High School diploma had fell into the cesspool but they were retrievable. Also salvaged were a framed impeachment ticket from the 1999 Clinton trial; a signed campaign poster by President Bush; and my valedictorian trophy from kindergarten (I’ll take my academic accolades where I can find them).

Everything else was virtually lost. I made a beeline, rather a slow and steady trudge to the bookshelf where a smaller shelf had held several signed books by prominent figures, including a signed copy of John McCain’s Faith of my Fathers. The book I cared the most about was President Reagan’s first autobiography, which he had signed when I visited him in California in 1996. The bookshelf that had held that book had totally collapsed in the sludge. The books were most unidentifiable but I made out the copy and plucked it from the morass. The wet and disintegrating pages had merged into one, yet there was only one page in particular I cared about. Opening the front cover I turned to the vicinity of where he signed it and saw a bled out blur of his dedication and signature. Instead of taking the book, I carefully ripped out the page where he had inscribed his name, figuring that it would at least have some personal value to me.

I had also boxes and boxes of 8x10 signed photos with politicians that I had kept on the floor. These photos were a signature though gaudy trademark of my college apartment walls and council office. No need to go into detail of their condition.

A few scrapbooks that I had left there were totally drenched and molded but I took them anyway, hoping that I could remove the items within the album pages and put them in a new one.

My lamp where I had pinned dozens of collector’s item political buttons had been knocked into the mud and I didn’t bother removing it. I did notice where I had nailed a corkboard that held many other buttons, which had shown evidence of rust and mold and I took the board off the wall.

Before leaving my room I opened the closet door, with the remote hope that my baseball cards and comic books that I had invested my allowance had survived. I discovered a crumpled, soggy relic of my proud collection. I closed the door but before walking out, I spied a binder of baseball cards I had accidentally left on my bed on a previous visit, amazingly in good shape as weight of the cards had not been enough to keep the mattress from floating up with the water.

As I was about to exit the house through the front door, which had to be kicked open as well, I carried some of my family’s china out. I noticed that the dinner table that had moved a bit yet everything on it, mostly pictures, had not fallen off or even budged.

Since the water was 5 feet on the inside at the flood’s peak, the table must have also floated. Some of the pictures untouched were those of my nephew, late brother, and other family members in addition to a common rendition of Jesus Christ. There was also a Bible on the table, also undamaged; curiously enough the holy tome was opened to an interesting book…

To be continued.