Slow Hand

I actually wrote this piece a couple of months back and I wasn't really sure that I wanted to put it (and it's somewhat depressing message) out into the world... but sitting here on the edge of hurricane season, following what I am sure will prove to be the last great hurrah of New Orleans before sometime close to Christmas, it feels as appropriate as it was back then, and perhaps more so.

The basic theme remains for sure... "Ain't nothin' rapid in New Orleans."

I heard that line on the street car on Canal Street back about two years ago on my way out to Jazz Fest one morening. You see the official name for the New Orleans Tranist authority is the REGIONAL Transit Authority… or RTA. When you come fomr other parts of the country and see RTA in reference to public transportaion you tend to think the "R" stands for Rapid (e.g. BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority), but not in New Orleans. When a person on the streetcar made the comment that RTA must stand for Rapid Transit Authority, a local sitting next to her laughed and commented with the line above.

The good and the bad reality of the statement, is that it is absolutely true. Somewhere areound about the same time that I heard that comment I was given a book by Lafcadio Haynes, a french writer from the 19th century who wrote what was, at the time, a definitive look at New Orleans that continues to this day to be an extremely interesting window into the reality of the Crescent City. Early in his book, Haynes says essentially the same thing. He even uses a sort of pseudo-scientific analysis that suggests the fact that the heat in summer is so extreme that it absolutely requires a person to move more slowly and once you begin to move in this way, it becomes virtually impossible to change it.

The fact of the matter is that this is pretty much true.

It is both the boon and the bane of The Big Easy. Whether battling the all-encompassing oppressive heat of summer, or the infuriating sluggish resistance of FEMA, thre is something to be said for taking it easy. If you take a breath, sit a spell, or have a drink you can gain a better perspective, you can gain a sense of rhythm. As a former anxious obsessive, this was a lesson I first learned 6 years ago, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in San Francisco, when my daughter lectured me about not having a heart attack over my interaction with an asshole bus driver.

This lesson, which I only partially took to heart at the time, has been reinforced for me on the long term training program that I have been subjected to for the seven months since Katrina attacked my home and the federally built levees failed and flooded the city.

In any case… as I was saying… I have over the seven months since Katrina learned a real lesson in patience and slow progress. It's a way to stay sane when nothing is going on or getting done. It's a survival mechanism in this situation as much as it is in the heat of the dog days of summer.

BUT… and here's the kicker… it is also the death knell to progress.

Walking around New Orleans on this beautiful sunny but cool weekend I was astonished (as I always am) at the ridiculous amount of trash that is still lying around. Debris that coulda, shoulda, woulda been picked up six months ago in any city where people actually possessed the ambition to make their city look good. Maybe I'm talking through my hat here, but I don't think so.

When the storm hit on August 29, I had evacuated to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and the house I stayed in was completely inundated by falling pine trees. The house itself lucked out and sustained almost no damage, but the surrounding yard was a complete jumble of uprooted trees, and broken limbs; a tangle of debris like I had never seen before in my life (and as bad as anything I've seen in the non-flooded areas of New Orleans). The very next day (while New Orleanians were just trying to survive the rising tide) I was out in the yard (in 95 degree Mississippi heat and 90 percent humidity) with three other people, a 51 year old woman, an 80 year old grandmother, and a 20 year old man. The four of us together, over ten hours one day and about eight hours the next, cleared all that we could from the yard, chopping, raking, and lugging everything from bags of leaves to huge stumps. Without air conditioning, enough water, ice or very much food, we picked up everyting we could. By the third day, when I left Hattiesburg for my trek north, a small crew had been hired to cut the rest of the debris and haul everything away to the dump. The place was fixed up before the end of the week.

There's only one reason for this (and I didn't have anything to do with it). The homeowner - the aforementioned 80 year old grandmother – was determined to get back to normal as quickly as possible. She took the devastation in her yard PERSONALLY and decided that she was going to do some PERSONAL about it. It was an astonishing (and sometimes annoying) demonstration of determination, but it was motivating and revealing. Hell… if the other three of us hadn't gotten out there to help her, she would have done it by herself and then we really would have felt ashamed. Her neighbor from across the street kept wandering over and staring at us in disbelief. He even tried to convince us not to work so hard. For all I know, the big tree in his yard is still there.

In New Orleans right now there is an abundance of large trucks that could haul 90 percent of the remaining debris from the houses, curbs and yards that still stand piled ten feet high in garbage, but on a cool, comfortable day like this past Sunday, I saw not a single truck moving through the city hauling anything. There are some folks who are putting their backs into it and cleaning up large sections of the city and the day that I volunteered with Katrina Krewe to cleanup a section of Claiborne Avenue it was extremely exhileratinng and enjoyable. I keep planning on going back to help some more, but even I succumb to the overwhelming tendancy toward lethargy. There is just so much to be done, and far too few people actually bothering to do it. Seven months after the storm these piles of debris really have no reason for still being here except for the fact that the ongoing perception, whether local, state, federal or personal is that somebody else, at some other time, will take care of it.

In three months the weather is going to be hot as hell and the work will be moving even more slowly than it is now.

The piles on the street will still be there.

Ain't nothin' rapid in New Orleans.

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[SIDE NOTE: As Harry Shearer continues to point out on his radio show and in his blog on HuffPo, it wasn't a hurricane that killed New Orleans… that would have been bad enough… but it was the protection system built by the Army Corps of Engineers, a protection system which they continue to discover faults in, that failed the city.

People in other areas who condescendingly view New Orleans with disbelief and can't figure out why we haven't gotten over our issues need to remember that these levee systems, built and maintained by the federal government, were what failed New Orleans (followed rather closely by the complete inability of FEMA to step up to the emergency and help). YOU ARE IN DANGER… Whether from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or terorism… The feds are your line of protection and their protection is none too good. So, before you start (or continue) to spout off, like the guy from Berkeley I read on Sunday, about what OUGHT to be done with New Orleans… put yourself in our place. You may be there sooner than you think.]