Remember?

I arrived in New Orleans in the evening on May 29. WWOZ was playing on my radio, trumpets blared their sultry sound out of my speakers as I drove my car down Napoleon. Rain was coming down like crazy, not one of the daily afternoon showers, but a real deal rain storm. The water fell off of the branches of the oak trees that overhung the street and onto my windshield. Twilight was coming on.

Just like I had pictured it.

I had spent the last quarter of the semester at VTS anticipating my arrival in the city and I was finally here. That arrival shifted the gears in my brain from forward to reverse and the memories came flooding in. What is it about New Orleans that jogs the memory? (I have a sneaking suspicion that New Orleans, as a city, has forgotten more than it has remembered, so it seems rather counterintuitive.) Whatever the reason, whenever I come back to New Orleans my memory starts working overtime. I remember the people with whom I've shared the city, though most of them are long gone from these parts, and wish they were here. (I've started calling some of them, trying to coax them back. No luck so far, but I'm still hopeful.) I remember long nights, both in my lab at Tulane and out at the bars, and promise myself that I'll pay those old haunts a visit. I remember the music, and the melodies seem to float through air again: Galactic at Tip's on Lundi Gras, George Clinton at City Park for VooDoo, the Decemberists at Twiropa when the AC broke.

Your remember Twiropa? Great club. I think that it turned out to be my favorite in the end. Best thing about the place for my money: the parking cone lights. Don't know why. Or maybe how the loading dock door rolled up in the front of the warehouse to reveal the entrance to the venue. How bout O'Flaherty's Pub? Remember sitting in that upper room, all of us in one place and oblivious of our impending diaspora, listening to Mr. O'Flaherty sing to the patrons below? We told them it was a graduation party so they'd rent us the room.

You remember the storm? Everyone here does. In a lot of cases they don't have to do much remembering. They're still living with Katrina every day. They show up at St. Paul's, Lakeview, the church where I'm working for the summer, looking for help with something. Sometimes they need a caseworker to help them get a plan together to tear down, or repair, or rebuild. Other times they need to notarize a document, get help from some of the volunteers in residence, or do a load of laundry at the washateria.

Sometimes they just need someone to talk to. Used to be they'd just call up their neighbors, but a lot of these folks don't have neighbors any more. Lakeview was hit hard and it has taken a long time for folks to make their way back home. God knows it has taken me a while to get here myself, but I'll tell you one thing for sure: It's good to be back.