The Last Normal Day: Reflecting on Pre-Katrina Life

The date August 29, 2005 is far more than just an important date for anyone that lived in the inundated parts of New Orleans around this time last year; it marks when life as we knew it changed forever. From that day forward, many will view their lives divided between pre-Katrina and post-Katrina years.

The physical reminders of the hundreds of thousands of people’s pasts, whether they were photographs, treasured family heirlooms or homes were washed away, many irreplaceable, to say nothing of the over 1300 lives that were consumed by the forgiving rising waters and the other maladies that came with America’s most destructive storm.

For this writer, my last day in the pre-Katrina world was Saturday August 27th.

That morning at 9 am I was anxiously pacing the floor at the Lod Cook Alumni Building at LSU. I had been largely oblivious to the approaching storm that had survived passing over the southern tip of Florida until watching the news that morning at the site of a quarterly state GOP meeting in Baton Rouge.

Regrettably those in charge of the meeting callously refused to cancel, supposedly in response to the urgings of committee members not residing in areas of the state threatened by the menacing cyclone. One even had the audacity to wisecrack that he thought the weather was beautiful and how he had wished he would have brought his golf clubs. Too bad he didn’t, I would have found a new home for his three-wood.

I would have bolted had it not been for a project I had been working on for over a year that was supposed to be considered, so for three hours I sat there and stewed until the meeting was adjourned just prior to a vote on the only reason I was even in attendance. I was livid though my immediate concern now was getting on Interstate 10 to New Orleans before the State Police enacted contra-flow (converting all lanes of the highway to a single direction).

The brisk drive down to New Orleans was surreal and reminded me of a scene from “Independence Day” as the westbound lanes of the I-10 was clogged with bumper to bumper traffic while I had the eastbound lanes virtually to myself.

My first stop was to take care of my Sabbath obligation at a church in Metairie. I had attended high school with the priest’s younger brother and we had scheduled a card game for that Sunday evening, which was going to be canceled. Just before Mass I saw the priest as he was proceeding to the altar, tugged his vestment and asked him to keep his homily “short and sweet.” Because the Archbishop of New Orleans had neither canceled Mass nor ordered his priests to leave town, Saturday vigil went on as usual though the faithful for the most part busied themselves with either evacuation or hunkering down for the worst. The Church, as most in the New Orleans area, was nearly empty.

After church I made my way to St. Bernard for the first of my last two trips before it would become a casualty of meteorological history. My first parish destination was my childhood home to check on my grandfather. When I arrived members of my family were putting the finishing touches boarding up the windows, a traditional hurricane exercise that on this occasion would be in futility.

Inside the house was my paternal grandfather Mickey Bayham, the man who had raised me. Once a tough as nails shipbuilder, his body had been wrecked by a combination of bad knees and a stroke brought on my diabetes. Having lost the ability to walk in 1999, Pop was confined to a bed though through use of an elaborate contraption could be moved to a wheel chair or motorized scooter.

Pop was watching television from his hospital bed as he fussed about the family’s intentions to move remove him to safety. He wailed that the neighborhood had never flooded, not even during Hurricane Betsy, which until 8/29/05 was the most notorious of hurricanes to visit the New Orleans area. Pop was a veteran of the Coast Guard and loved stormy weather and feared little to nothing.

As he was putting up a fight an aunt, I would find out later, suggested that maybe it would be better for everyone to stay with him in the house, which was raised three feet off the ground. That idea was summarily rejected by her spouse and we physically carried him to my uncle’s car as he continued to protest. After they left I walked into my old bedroom that contained almost everything I had from my childhood to my college years, yearbooks, comic books, TKE memorabilia and a trove of political collectibles, including a signed copy of Ronald Reagan’s autobiography. I glanced at a binder of baseball cards that I had left sitting on my bed from a previous visit but did not put it up with the others in my closet. Luckily I didn’t as that binder would be the only part of my baseball card collection to survive as the mattress they were on floated in the five feet of water that flooded the house.

Leaving the house that I called home for almost all of my life, I drove a few blocks down to the home of a friend of mine’s grandparents. Playing out in their living room was a drama that had begun since early that morning as the man of the house was locked into a war of wills with his wife over evacuating. She wanted out; he didn’t; and she was not leaving without him.

I had been involved via cell phone pleading with my friend’s grandfather to agree to leave, a request that he had stubbornly refused. I made a pitch in person that did not seem to move the stern ex-Airborne rifle instructor, who also seemed to be suffering from a case of “invincibilitis,” a mental disease common amongst elderly men that in far too many cases proved fatal. Seeing that my latest attempt was falling on deaf ears, I asked his teary-eyed wife to join me in the kitchen for a moment where I informed her of the possibility that I could have her husband arrested and dragged out against his will, causing the blue-haired church lady to go into hysteria. I took my leave.

Emotionally drained from political manure from earlier and the impending doom upon me and my community, I needed to get recharged. What better place I could find than my own version of Nirvana: Rocky and Carlos.

The famed-Sicilian eatery was as much of a landmark in St. Bernard Parish as the obelisk commemorating the American victory in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. Every Sunday morning, I would stride in with the Times Picayune in hand, order my meal (veal cutlet and French fries with a shredded lettuce salad) and read the paper for the next hour and a half. I was such a regular at the restaurant that the waitresses would begin cooking my food upon first glimpse of my entering the establishment.

With pandemonium all around and much to do, I questioned the wisdom of taking the pit stop but I had a feeling that said it would be a good idea. And so, I went to the newspaper machine in front the place, picked up the Saturday edition heralding the approach of the killer and had what is perhaps the finest meal I would ever consume.

Sated, I then went to the townhouse I rented in the middle of Chalmette. Ironically I was supposed to move out of it that weekend but dragged my feet some and worked out a deal that would allow me to stay until the middle of September. Besides I had yet to get that chip on the wall fixed from the time I bumped into it with my television while hauling my worldly goods upstairs from Hurricane Ivan the previous year.

The apartment was a mess and I was starting to feel the day’s exhaustion. Dejectedly I say on the middle of the staircase and just…stared. If Katrina was going to be as bad as they said it would be, I would have the limited time frame of only a few hours and the similarly limited spatial capacity of my Ford Escort to haul my possessions. After zoning out for a few minutes I decided that I would take not what was most valuable but what would be the hardest to replace, that being my three years of research on St. Bernard Parish history. And so I grabbed a laundry basket and began throwing in all assorted papers from hundreds of hours of risking epilepsy at a microfilm machine. I also disconnected my hard drive and brought down a bag of dirty clothes and some reading material I had meant to get to. As I was running like a mad refuge to my car with my obsolete computer, I watched as my neighbors were running into their apartment with an ice chest full of beer.

With my car partially loaded, one of the things I did not have at the moment was a plan for leaving. I’d get to that later as the night was still young, 8 PM and there was Mille Bornes to play and one last attempt to knock some sense into an old coot.

Upon arriving at my friend’s grandparents house I saw the old man still sitting steadfastly in his Lazy-Boy though at his feet were several suitcases. I asked his wife, still a nervous wreck, if they were leaving and she replied in the affirmative. Did my begging and that of their daughter and grandson finally sink in, I wondered? The old lady said that the appearance of their eccentric son, who had visited en route to his own evacuation, had finally won over her husband. Apparently when his father saw that his son, who was a Vietnam Vet that had seen everything, was not going to ride this one out, the old man came around to the idea of fleeing. Happy that the dreaded possibility of police forcing my friend’s grandfather out of his own house now moot, I could play some cards.

Now Mille Bornes is a French card game similar to Uno, except it involves cars. I generally call it “coup farre”, a term stated, or shouted, when a trump card is flopped. You’ll understand momentarily where this innocuous game fits into the grand scheme of things.

My friend the priest was packing up his own possessions at the church rectory and I went over to lend him and his brother a hand and to slip in a few games of Mille Bornes thereafter. Sacramental records, saintly relics and other items of community importance needed to be secured in addition to the priest’s personal items.

After an hour of moving books and whatnot, we finally got around to game. It would be most fortuitous, and not just because I would win most of the hands played.

While engaged in the typical skull drudgery that accompanies the game, all eyes were peeled to the Weather Channel as the category 3 storm was blossoming to a 5. The Gulf of Mexico itself was disappearing under the large splotches of red and yellow as Katrina made her way to the Louisiana coastline. This was not going to be like Ivan or any of the other powerful storms that had seemed destined to Louisiana before veering off to Mississippi or Alabama. This was the one New Orleanians had collective nightmares about.

Around this time I began to examine what exit options I had, which were not many. Driving was not an option. I had called my mother, who was essential personnel and could not leave, earlier in the day and had asked to borrow her car, to which she refused. I had retorted if the storm was as bad as everyone was saying it could be, she would lose it. She replied that she was going to park at a supposedly safe spot in the parish. My humble vehicle had a tendency to overheat and I was not about to suffer anxiety attacks over the radiator while crawling through 2 mph on the Interstate, which was perpetually backed up as of 11 AM Saturday.

My “coup farre” comrades offered to let me join them and their family at the Holiday Inn in downtown New Orleans, where they had reserved a room. But my spider-senses told me that was not a good option either. So now what?

I then had an epiphany. I remembered that I had just earned two weeks before a free frequent flyer trip on Southwest Airlines. I called a friend of mine in Arizona up and asked if I could crash at his place. As his wife had just given birth to their first child, he said he needed to clear it with the missus and that he would get back with me. Ten minutes later he called back in the affirmative. Now the catch was how I was going to get there.

Southwest Airlines’ 24-hour lines were jammed but I got through and asked about my travel alternatives out of New Orleans. Slim and none was their reply. I pressed on and the operator said someone had just canceled and a seat for Phoenix became available. I swooped up on the 4:50 PM flight and went back to playing cards.

Two hours later I began to wonder about the likelihood of that plane leaving. As the gusts were already starting to announce Katrina’s arrival, surely they would not be running planes that late on Sunday? But what choice did I have. I was now on edge, loathing the prospect of having to wait a hurricane out in the airport. I then called Southwest back and asked if they had any other flights available to anywhere else at an earlier time and it looked like I was going to Albuquerque for 11 am when the operator said an empty plane had just been added to the system at 2 AM for Phoenix, leaving New Orleans at 7 AM. A blessing had been bestowed upon me.

With five hours to go, the card games ceased as I began to finish up the details of my hasty departure. My friend, who was going to celebrate Mass Sunday morning, agreed to bring me to the airport when I began to wonder about the fate of my car and the items I had left back at the apartment. I took back off for what would be my final pre-Katrina visit to St. Bernard.

I somberly packed a few electronic stuff into my backpack and swept through the abode looking for anything else that I might want to take with me. I had not the strength in me to even think of moving the large television downstairs and my lack of appreciation of Katrina’s true strength resulted in an activity that almost seems comedic now. Fearing that I might have as much as three feet of water inside, I began moving things of value from the bottom part of my first floor to the tops of my bookshelves, also on the first floor. Talk about rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

I then went upstairs and committed what would be the only stupid thing I had done that day, aside from staying at the aforementioned meeting. Worried about the storm’s winds blowing out my second-story windows, I meticulously placed my most valuable political and history books in a cardboard box and place them away from the windows on the floor of my second story where they would now be safe from rainwater AND floodwater. Right?

My last act before locking the door was retrieving my stainless steel .357. Though I cherished that handgun, I did not pack it with luggage I planned on checking as I did not know what the policy was about transporting firearms on planes and was not about to risk anything that would preclude me from boarding that flight to Phoenix. Concerned about looters, I took the unloaded weapon, placed on the floor in a corner and threw a rag on top of it. I figured it would be safer there than in a drawer where a thief would be sure to look for valuables. And with that I bid farewell prematurely to the townhouse as I could hear the sound of partying next door.

While driving down St. Bernard’s main thoroughfare, I saw the government complex to my right. It was in that building where that I had worked every hurricane during my days as a councilman, grabbing naps on the office couch in between making checks on neighborhoods in my district during the midst of hurricanes.

No longer a part of the parish government after leaving office in 2004 and lacking an authority to do anything of consequence, hurricanes were now something for me to run from instead of work, though while zipping past the building I could not help but think of those black and white pictures of Hurricane Betsy’s legacy that hung in the committee room. During lulls in such meetings I would find myself gazing in amazement at the visuals of ten feet of water that submerged the western part of the parish and wondering if it was possible in this day and age for history to be repeated.

Instead of going to Metairie I met my ride at the New Orleans Center parking garage in downtown New Orleans. I was worried about my car and had earlier thought about dropping my car off at the elevated parking facility just steps away from the Superdome. Apparently others had the same idea, including a funeral home that had parked its fleet of new Cadillac hearses in one area, but after a few minutes of searching I found an optimal spot surrounded by concrete walls that would protect my windshields and windows from flying gravel. With my luggage loaded to the gills, I left my computer hard drive, tuxedo and research in my four-door economy car through looters and vandals were a source of concern. Seeing the George W. Bush stickers covering my bumper, I thought I should at least lessen the chances of my vehicle being torched by ne’er-do-wells by removing the Republican advertising from my car, though without success. Oh well, I guess the old car will just have to die in the faith.

Large rain drops from Katrina’s feeder bands splashed across the windshield of my friend’s van as we proceeded to the airport at 4 AM. Traffic looked like afternoon rush hour but the good news is that most vehicles were not planning on making exits off the Interstate before Baton Rouge allowing for a fairly smooth ride to the airport. While en route to the airport, I talked my friend into scuttling his plans to ride the storm out in downtown New Orleans and go to Georgia instead. Had they stayed, he and his family, which included two elderly people, would have been dispatched to the Superdome, soon to become the 8th ring of Dante’s Inferno.

The tension that had relentlessly gripped me starting Saturday morning began to ease as I was handed my travel ticket, thus beginning my almost two-week desert exile. But at that time, before Katrina had bared for the world her full wrath, I thought I would be back in a matter of days and dining once again at Rocky’s. In fact I almost booked my return on Southwest for the following weekend before thinking otherwise.

Though the day had been anything but normal as it would be a card game that ultimately led me to the safety of Arizona, the day of August 27th and twilight of August 28th would mark the final hours of the only world I had ever known. In the span of just over a day, the world that I lived in would change forever.

Having A "Blue Roof" Christmas

For those of us who lost most of our worldly goods and financial security
courtesy of a certain harpy named Katrina, times are tough on one's morale
to say the least. With the onset of the "holidays," AKA Christmas, a time
of year that can be magical for most though suicidal for quite a few, having
a healthy psyche is critical.

For plenty of families, this will be their first Christmas not spent at home
but in the tight confines of a FEMA trailer or a government financed room at
the Motel 6. An effective way for many people to deal with tragedy is
attaining mirth through a sense of humor.

Westbank landscaper Frank Evans thought he could provide some of this
medicine with his Christmas village display, which he has assembled for 13
years at Lakeside Mall in the relatively unscathed suburb of Metairie.

Evans attempt to incorporate a slice of the shared misfortune in his
elaborate and meticulously detailed holiday display briefly landed him in
hot water when a handful of mall patrons vented their spleens at the
Lakeside management for "mocking" victims of Katrina through his model
village replete with miniature blue tarps over the little homes and tiny
refrigerators bearing common post-hurricane proclamations such as "You loot,
I shoot."

Perhaps its most impressive aspect was an army helicopter that whirled in a
circle above with a rescuee dangling from a rope.

Sensitive to the angst of people who may or may not have lost a single
shingle from Katrina, Evans was asked to modify his display, christened
"Katrina Ridge."

Amazingly, nobody complained over the cross on the village church or the
words "Christmas" that brazenly appears on the diorama, which is the only
place in the entire mall you'll find the "C-word."

Unlike the celebrated cause of "campaign finance reform," there was a
spontaneous public outcry over the censuring of Evans's work.

Lakeside Mall wasn't the only entity to catch an earful. Some pro-Katrina
Village people suspected that politics might have played a part in the
display's yanking due to a small complex labeled "(Aaron) Broussard Pumping
Station No. 1 Only Works When It's Not Raining."

The embattled Jefferson Parish President, who has been shown as of late to
be a person of thin skin, immediately offered to host Evans's on parish
property, memorialized pumping station and all.

Over one thousand protests flooded the mall's management office demanding
that the trees and model cars be restored to their previous uprooted and
flipped positions. Once again the "blue roofs" were unfurled on the tiny
houses, with the only concession being that the house search "X's" be
covered, something Evans added to honor the many state National Guard units
who assisted in the house-to-house survivor checks.

In the one departure from reality, "Katrina Ridge" suffered no casualties
and all of the "X's" had zeroes below them.

Evans, who only receives reimbursement for the materials used to build the
display, has previously worked other contemporary and controversial news
items into his Christmas village, including references to Edwin Edwards
imprisonment, the hunt for Bin Laden, a chemical spill in Bogalusa, and the
2000 presidential election (one train running around the tracks had Bush's
name on it while a derailed locomotive bore Gore's name).

Not long after "Katrina Village" was established at Lakeside, the Audubon
Zoo did something similar in their Louisiana Swamp exhibit, throwing a blue
tarp over a faux cabin situated in the alligator pit, though word must have
not gotten back to those folks who wear their emotional synapses on their
sleeves.

And so art has magnanimously been grated permission to once again imitate
life and throngs have hit the New Orleans area mecca of commerce not just to
take advantage of the Gap's special on sequenced women's jeans but to also
elbow their way through the several rows thick of gawkers to catch a glimpse
of a benign presentation of what is America's most unique Christmas village.

So for those of you out there having to make do with a "Blue Roof
Christmas," try to look at the bright side and remember, Mary and Joseph
spent their Christmas Eve in more humble accommodations than a gutted house
in Lexington Place.

Returning Home, Part II

After leaving my destroyed childhood home one month after Hurricane Katrina leveled a parish of 70,000 residents, I ventured to a nearby townhouse I had rented to see what nature had done to it.


The interior of my grandfather's house had been inundated with five feet of water and since the house was built three feet above ground, the neighborhood where I grew up had been under a minimum of eight feet of water during Katrina's worst. I figured the apartment on the eastern side of Paris Road, where the ground is lower, and its contents would be in even worse shape.


St. Bernard Parish is a peninsula bounded in its western, suburban portion by the Mississippi River to the south, where the land is high, and to the north by the Forty Arpent Canal, Bayou Bienvenue, salt marsh, and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. It is because of the MRGO that there is currently salt marsh on the parish's northern periphery instead of acres upon acres of lush cypress swamp.


The closer one lived to the Mississippi River, the better his or her home fared. The closer someone resided to the 40 Arpent Canal, the better the chance that they returned to an empty slab. In addition to having a lower land elevation, the apartment was also further to the north than my grandfather's house.


I had to take a roundabout way there since five or six homes had floated two hundred yards over a canal and into a row of apartment complexes. What might appear surreal to most first timers is now simply a short-cut nuisance after a dozen recovery trips.


My first attempt at entry was "discouraged" by the combination of a lurking military helicopter and a corroded door lock. Since my first visit, rescue personnel had dropped by and removed my original impediment, smashing the doorknob in with a maul. I noticed where the "body teams" had painted an orange "x" with a zero below it, indicating that no bodies were found on the site. I also noticed the first unit, whose occupants were carting in ice chests of booze as I was frantically packing my bags to hit the road, had its second-story front window busted out, leading me to assume that the storm partiers had to be rescued (an assumption later confirmed).


Along side the yellow brick walls was a one foot thick remainder of the oil spill from the Murphy Oil Refinery that had compounded the forsaken parish of St. Bernard's woes.


While my grandfather's house had a few inches of mud in it, my rubber boots sank into at least six inches of still wet mud at the townhouse. (Note: my first attempt was without boots and I have a lovely chemical burn tattooed on my left ankle.) As hard as I tried, I could not visualize in my mind prior to seeing it for myself what Katrina had done. Nothing was where it had been: the television was in the mud, bookshelves were smashed into pieces, and photographs that were once on the wall submerged into the dark goop.


While the sight took my breath away, I had an important mission: get the gun!


One of my prized possessions is a .357 stainless steel revolver I bought while at LSU. Fearing looters might get their hands on my piece and commit dastardly deeds with it; my primary concern was securing the handgun from where I hid it. While walking up the stairs, I wondered to myself about the maximum height of the water inside.


Upon reaching the second floor I saw a blue blazer on the top step. Wait a minute; I didn't leave that natty, old sports coat there! In fact, I left it on the bottom floor, so ended the mystery of the water level.


In contrast to the first floor Armageddon, the second floor looked just as I had left it. When I went to retrieve my pistol, I noticed that it and the towel I used to cover the unloaded weapon were wet. Oh hell.


Closer inspection to the walls showed that the water line had been a little less than a foot on the second floor, so while everything appeared fine, anything that was on the ground was ruined. Which brings up what stands as one of the stupidest things I have ever done...quite a distinction when considering the large competition for the title.


Hours before fleeing, I had a feeling that Katrina was not going to be like the other storms that had battered St. Bernard during my lifetime. This one was going to be bad.


So I went about moving books on the first floor that were on the bottom shelves three feet higher to the top shelves. I fully anticipated five feet of water, an unprecedented deluge for that part of Chalmette. That there was grass all over the first floor ceiling, at least where it had not collapsed, proved that my "doomsday" prediction was off a few cataclysms. What hurt was that I thought the threat to the second floor was not from below but from the rattling windows, so I took my collection of rare Louisiana books and placed them in a cardboard box on the floor of the second story far, far away from the windows.


Wyle E. Coyote himself would have been proud of such an Acme tactic.


Needless to say, the books were water and mold damaged, including some that I had taken off shelves where they would have been fine. As for the windows, which constantly shake during a mild shower, those plates of inferior glass held up like Gibraltar.


Nearly six dozen political posters from presidential campaigns from the sixties onward that I had planned to donate to various archives had become one giant moist ball of colored paper, though a few of the sturdier cardboard ones were significantly damaged though not to a point where I could bring myself to toss them.


Returning downstairs, I took it all in. Though items that had weighed dozens of pounds had been tossed around, I saw that my seersucker suit coat had remained in place on the stairwell where I had lazily hung it, which would end up being a loss due to a stubborn rust stain on a lapel. The kitchen was hardest part of the apartment to access. The mud was deeper there, forcing me to strategically place down yard signs from my failed state representative run as "lily pads" for me to hop around on so the toxic sludge would not spill into my boots.


My trip to the kitchen was brief having seen enough when I gazed at a chair hanging from the chandelier. I guess the half-used box of baking soda can remain in the fridge.


The first trip was a quasi-success. While my worst fears about the flooding were confirmed and then some, I was able to save and salvage more than the bottom floor had indicated upon first glance.


In fact, I would say that I was lucky. Sure I lost a lot, the most painful casualties naturally being those possessions I endangered by trying to protect them, still I was able to salvage much. Some was as easy as taking a certain picture or poster off a wall on the second floor and dusting off some light mold accumulation. Other items of sentimental value required the use of a shovel to dig out, namely my first baseball glove and a photograph of a departed friend that somewhat survived after being under a watery muck for eight weeks. What was so amazing about that particular save was that the black and white picture taken at Pat O's was nearly unidentifiable except for her face. Also, similar pictures in that same space had been ruined beyond identification.


For another eight weeks, I dropped by the apartment to see what new treasure I would unearth...kind of like playing Indiana Jones in my living room, minus harassment from Nazis, rats, and snakes.


The first thing I pulled out from the muck was a three by five feet American flag attached to a pole I had intended to fasten near my door, but didn't because I did not have a ceramic drill bit. Though tattered and muddy, Hurricane Katrina had given the national banner an opportunity and a place to display it as I plunged the bottom of its pole into the soft ground in the courtyard where it has remained.


Hurricane Katrina meant something different to all who were directly affected by her. For the most unfortunate, the notorious hurricane marked the last chapter of their life as the storm claimed an estimated two hundred residents in St. Bernard alone.


Being an individual that the likes of Karl Marx, Ted Turner, and ex-Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura would consider weak-minded by virtue of my being religious, I cannot help but find an association between the disaster and my faith.


Just as I was about to leave my grandfather's house, I had noticed that the dinning room table, which had not been used for dinning in two decades, had floated yet remained on its legs in contrast to almost every other piece of furniture in the house. Most prominent on the table was a picture of Jesus and the Bible, which had been opened by someone or something to a most appropriate chapter, the Book of Job- the tale of a holy man whose faith was tested to the limits as he lost everything that he held dear, yet his enduring faith was rewarded by having everything restored many times over.


Make no mistake, I don't consider myself to have worn Job's sandals in the aftermath of Katrina and am thankful that the Almighty chose not to see exactly how good of a Christian I really am. If this was a pop quiz, I just hope I passed.


Like I said before, I was one of the lucky ones; everything I lost was material. In some cases difficult or expensive to replace, but unlike a grandmother or an uncle, what I lost was replaceable.


It's only stuff.

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.

Eddie's Ready To Leave: NOPD Chief Quits

During the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, two New Orleans figures seemed omnipresent. The first was the bald, gray-goateed mayor whose profanity-laced addresses to the media made him at times sound like a losing football coach. The other was the police chief, Eddie Compass, whose tongue-twisted, exasperated public statements caused him to resemble someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Those who don't know New Orleans probably think Compass's departure is a good thing for the city.

Over the past four weeks, the head of the city's police had to shoot his way out of a besieged hotel, presided over a department that had disintegrated to roughly 30% of its active force- the AWOL 250 number is very charitably inaccurate, mass looting- some by policemen while wearing their uniform, and the worst riot in New Orleans in over 100 years.

So why am I not dancing in the street and beating his likeness with my shoe over his dismissal.um I meant resignation?

I honestly believe Compass is a sincere person and did the best he possibly could. While good intentions are the stuff freeways to hell are paved out of, in a corrupt morass like New Orleans, they not only count for something but differentiate him from most prominent people in influential positions of city government.

I had the chance to meet the chief at a Young Republicans meeting (Compass is not a Republican but courteously agreed to speak to the organization nonetheless). After listening to him speak, I developed a few opinions.

The first impression was he seemed obsessed with proving his mental agility. He spent a great deal of time discussing his academic research and even recited a lengthy poem he had committed to memory. The crowd of Republicans politely, if not patronizingly, applauded; I sat there and wondered how the hell the head of security for a crime filled city like New Orleans found the time to remember stanzas and hobnob at Loyola University while doing his job. Perhaps too harsh of a judgment on my part but that was not the only thing that popped in my mind.

My second take on Compass was that he was an honest cop. Not the most able man in uniform as a more qualified candidate for the post was probably passed over for political reasons, but he was at least trying, and for that he gained my sympathy if not respect.

With his career as a Police Chief ending on the same public note James Hazelwood's time as a sea captain concluded, Compass should be properly remembered for two things.

The first was the personal effort he put forth throughout the Katrina crisis. The chief was not just before the cameras in the Hyatt but also in the thick of it. There was one memorable scene where Compass through a bull horn was trying to quell unruly crowds outside the convention center.

The second instance of character was when Compass called for a repeal of the city's infamous "residency rule" for NOPD officers, a reverse discriminatory ordinance that has contributed to the spike in New Orleans' crime rate by chasing away experienced policemen who choose not to live in Orleans Parish.

The rule was enacted as a sop to the city's politically involved ministers and racial demagogues who prioritize demographics over public safety. The policy was a thinly veiled announcement that "whites need not apply." Several career policemen who skirted the ludicrous rule were humiliated on the front-page of the Times Picayune only weeks before Katrina hit.

Few African-American politicians, including the business oriented mayor, have shown the guts to scuttle it out of fear of being labeled an "Uncle Tom" even though the results of this politically correct yet reality challenged policy were evident in the post-Katrina lootings.

Compass's replacement for the interim and possibly the long-term is Warren Riley, the deputy chief and unsuccessful candidate for Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff. Riley is a competent career officer and not as prone to exhibit himself emotionally as Compass did.

Hopefully Riley will pick up the tattered standard of taking politics out of police recruitment by scrapping the "residency rule" and promptly clean house of those men and women charged with the responsibility to serve and protect who failed both the people and their boss.

A Blessing In The Ruins: A Trip to Post-Katrina New Orleans

The world has seen many unflattering visuals of the destruction caused by Katrina and the looters in the Queen City of the South. Networks have made a point of accentuating the human chaos in New Orleans while putting off coverage of the deaths incurred by the Category 5 hurricane in the surrounding areas, particularly in my home parish of St. Bernard.

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to see in person New Orleans in the aftermath of the rising waters and the breakdown in civilized order that overtook the city.

My expedition to inspect what was once Louisiana's largest city began in the congested current holder of this distinction, Baton Rouge. I also had a personal tie with the trip south.

Mere hours before I had fled to Phoenix on the eve of Katrina's strike against the southeast Louisiana coastline, I had the presence of mind to collect a few things that I could store in my humble chariot (1995 Ford Escort), items I couldn't take with me on the plane to Arizona.

Some of the worldly goods secured in the vehicle included my computer tower, two laundry baskets worth of research- a result of three plus years of staring at a microfilm machine and amazingly not developing epilepsy, a handful of hard to find books, a sack of dirty clothes, and a tuxedo I had accidentally left in my car from an event I was supposed to attend but did not.

As I packed, the floor of my abode looked like the last German bunker scene from Patton as papers were scattered across the floor as I bustled about frenetically just before my own retreat. While zipping west on Judge Perez Drive I mulled where I could safely park my modest conveyance.

I know.how about the parking garage by the Superdome!

I did not know what to expect when I approached Jefferson Parish, where commerce and a sense of normalcy had returned. Upon reaching the border of Jefferson and Orleans Parishes, I noticed that the boundary had been fortified with a rampart of shells and was guarded by soldiers.

The route to the Superdome area would be over Claiborne Avenue, a meandering boulevard that passes through some of the city's ritziest neighborhoods and most economically depressed areas.

The road was cluttered with debris and the numerous ditched cars on the green areas had shown evidence of having been totally submerged under water. A city that was home to around 500,000 souls had been deserted, with only a few homeless people shuffling about. The near total lack of life in an urban area had an eerie feeling, as if a neutron bomb, a weapon of mass destruction that can wipeout thousands while largely leaving structures in tact, had been detonated.

I made a point of looking for waterlines on light covered houses to estimate the extent of the flooding. The degree of inundation differed along Claiborne Avenue, ranging from 3' at Carrollton Avenue to 6-7' around Martin Luther King Boulevard. Evidence of looting was apparent at a large liquor store, a grocery, a Rite Aid, and a recently opened Quizno's. The new Salvation Army building near Napoleon Avenue had its glass façade ripped apart and office areas were exposed, though its pillaging was the work of nature.

After crossing the overpass that led to an abandoned I-10, I entered downtown New Orleans, whose shattered buildings resembled a shelled Beirut during the height of the Lebanese Civil War. Dozens of office windows had been blown out at the Dominion Tower and the Hyatt Hotel. The Superdome showed considerable wear, as the white paint, which draped over its side, had been pealed like an onion from its roof, yet the Freeport McMoran building seemed fine.

The waterline at the Superdome was at 2-3' and the area was crawling with soldiers, including airborne units.

My party slowly navigated towards the New Orleans Centre parking garage, only meters from the now infamous chaos that turned the architectural "Eighth Wonder of the World" into a hellhole. While riding into town I had mumbled prayers and petitions to the Blessed Virgin that I would have something left, but because my car had been parked next to "riot central," I feared the worst.

I explained to the airborne contingent my intention to retrieve my vehicle, or what was left of it, and he allowed us to pass through the darkened parking garage. The good news was that I had parked on the third level between three large concrete walls so my car should not have received any water damage or smashed windows from flying rocks.

I raced up the three flights of stairs and made a bee-line to discover if the human element had destroyed what I figured had been spared by Katrina. There was my heap on an angle in one piece! Despite the "W" and Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper stickers, my tires were not slashed nor were any contents removed. My now three weeks' of dirty laundry, my spyware contaminated obsolete hard drive, my precious research and Office Depot industrial strength hole-puncher.all there!

Even my tuxedo made it through. All I needed now were spats, a monocle, and a top hat and I would be the most dapper evacuee this side of Fred Astaire.

In the middle of the partially destroyed downtown New Orleans, my Ford Escort had weathered the storm of nature and disorder. A sign in the heavens it wasn't but the four-door Escort was enough of a miracle for me.

It overheats, has a malfunctioning CD player, a slipping transmission, a broken air conditioner, and is not much to look at overall, but it still ran and what digital pictures, including my Euro pics, I had lost at my apartment were safe in my computer tower concealed under a pile of dirty clothes. This experience has given new meaning to the Kodak digital preservation commercial currently airing on television.

When considering the rapes, murders, and mass looting that characterized the days immediately following Katrina's visit to New Orleans, my good fortune seems insignificant. However, I'll take what nuggets of good news where I can find it, even if they are found in some of the least likely places.

Rating C-Ray: Judging The Mayor of New Orleans

"Don't believe any false rumors unless you hear them from me!"

That rhetorical gem was uttered by that master of malapropisms, New Orleans Mayor Vic Schiro during Hurricane Betsy back in 1965 and is perhaps the most memorable act of that mayor during the city's worst natural disaster up until three weeks ago.

How the current city leader will be remembered in posterity in the tragedy named Katrina is a matter of great importance in the very near future.

Mayor (Clarence) Ray Nagin will be on the ballot this coming February, assuming New Orleans has by then returned to functioning order and that attorneys for partisans do not try to have the election held up for political reasons.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Nagin lacked a significant announced opponent, not that some Lilliputian candidates had not already promoted themselves through illegal yard signs scattered across the city's neutral grounds (medians).

Even without a declared opponent of substance, Nagin has caught political heat. Politically active African-American ministers, men of God who have curiously been lockstep with a corrupt political machine, have challenged the mayor's "blackness" and obnoxious "drop pieces" have circulated around predominantly poor areas portraying City Hall as being under the control of a bunch of "Uncle Toms" and "Steppin Fetchits."

Ethically, the mayor's administration has been blasted over several questionable contracts by insiders that include an embarrassing pricey garbage can endeavor and the controversial matter of swapping out the old working parking meters with new complicated electronic ones that don't accept dollar bills (though similar devices that do are in use in Miami).

Nagin also falls short as a warm and personable politician. Not that congeniality is indicative of competence or morality, being gregarious is important to lending an air of being one with the people. But should anyone expect anything else than aloofness from the man who used to run the cable company?

And then there is his unenviable streak of backfired political endorsements that inspired a Saints fan to beg for him to "endorse" the Atlanta Falcons.

However, the aforementioned now lacks significance as Ray Nagin will be judged on one thing alone when his name appears on the ballot: his response to Hurricane Katrina.

The most vivid albatross around Nagin's political neck is the photo of those flooded buses that were not used to shuttle residents who lacked their own transportation out of New Orleans.

Some have mused that if the city machines had those same buses at their disposal and if there was election going on, every inner city resident would have been whisked away with unparalleled efficiency. But lives, not an election, were at stake, possibly explaining the dearth of vim and vigor on the part of the Democratic organizations towards their most loyal constituency.

Assuming the buses were up and running, where would the refugees (or whatever politically correct euphemism that also applies to yours truly) have been sent? You'll have to see the "special woman" in Baton Rouge for that answer. And she and her cohorts proved to be as equally unprepared as the city.

The local reaction to Katrina indicates the current generation of city politicians has done more whistling past the graveyard than taking proper preparations, not that there is a dust-covered binder containing an effective evacuation plan in the bowels of City Hall with "Dutch" Morial's name on it

And then there was Nagin's ill-advised announcement about the secondary nature of arresting looters in Katrina's wake, though to the mayor's credit he reversed course soon enough and unapologetically called for a crack down on the chaos that engulfed New Orleans.

Where Nagin shined brightest was through his passion on behalf of his citizens and personally being on the scene, at times literally standing up to his neck in the thick of the waters. Though Nagin's language wasn't G-rated, it belied the sense of urgency of the situation.

The mayor never minced words about the shortcomings of the Democratic governor's indecision nor the Republican administration's tardiness. It's hard to imagine any Dem politician in this partisan day and age not employing restraint on chiding a fellow Democrat official. It's this trait that has made Nagin an unwelcome figure in the Louisiana Democratic establishment and a welcome alternative to the political norm.

Sure Nagin committed blunders but who is to say any other candidate for mayor from the 2002 crop that was mostly chaff would not have made the same errors as Nagin or had done worse.

There is no doubting Nagin has fought his heart out for his hometown, without factoring in party advantage.

In other words, I'll give C-Ray a "C".