I like this story. I like it a lot.
I never lived in New Orleans – at least, I don’t remember living there. When my father finished medical school, we moved to his residency in South Carolina.
I was born in a hospital somewhere in downtown New Orleans. I was born in a tall, grey rectangle that my parents would point out to me as we drove by on the interstate, coming to town to visit my grandparents. I don’t know the name. It was next to the Superdome.
I remember a few things from those New Orleans visits. My grandparents (my father’s parents, the Daigles) lived in Gretna, across the river from downtown. We would take the ferry across the Mississippi to visit the French Quarter, avoiding the palm readers’ booths on our way to watch the street musicians and eat beignets at Café du Monde.
My grandparents’ house was in a suburban neighborhood without a large yard. The side-yard was narrow, with just enough room for my grandfather to grow one row of carrots along the left of the house. I would help my grandfather pick them when I came to town, pulling carrots out of the thick, black New Orleans mud.
My grandparents’ house had a finished garage, with green linoleum and sliding glass doors in place of a garage door. The garage/room was just big enough to house a pool table – which I wasn’t tall enough to use without standing on a fruit crate – and my grandfather’s painting supplies.
My grandfather once helped me paint a picture, holding my hand and showing me how to use a fan-shaped brush to create convincingly deciduous trees. The painting itself was simple – a canoe, in a pond, with some trees on either side and two birds flying overhead.
My grandparents’ children all moved out of New Orleans when they got married or found jobs. A few of them moved to the Atlanta area, and my grandparents eventually followed. I have visited New Orleans a few times since – twice to visit Jazzland (also known as Six Flags over New Orleans, now destroyed by Katrina). I don’t have any direct family in New Orleans anymore.
My father drove to New Orleans after Katrina. At the time, he was an ER doctor, and he drove over from Pensacola and did what he could. I was in school, in Virginia. I could only watch. I remember looking at the devastation of New Orleans and Pensacola from my apartment. I remember feeling helpless.
I haven’t been to New Orleans since before Katrina hit, but have driven by once, on my way to White Castle, Louisiana, for my grandfather’s funeral.
I remember the Saints’ playoff game in 1991 – the very first Saints playoff game. I was 7 at the time. I remember Bobby Hebert, the Saints’ quarterback, and Ironhead Heyward, the fullback. I remember all of my father’s side of the family gathered at my uncle’s house, rooting for the Saints.
The Saints lost that game, 27-20. I asked my dad when the next game would be, and he told me that was it, the end of the season. Nobody had told me how single-elimination playoff systems worked. I remember crying.
The Saints won the Super Bowl today. I don’t know how to express how I feel about it, so I’m writing a blog entry in the “Video Games” category, because I don’t have a category for “When the Saints win the Super Bowl”.
I’m 26 now, living in Nashville. I watched the game at home, with my wife, drinking Abita and eating the buffalo wings that she cooked. When the Saints won, I jumped up and down, kissed my wife, set my speaker system in the window (playing “When The Saints Come Marching In” as loud as I could over Second Avenue) and kissed my wife again. I don’t know what else to do, or how else to express myself. Nothing seems adequate.
I never thought a Super Bowl win could mean so much to me. The city of New Orleans deserves nothing less.
My family has moved elsewhere, and I live in Tennessee, but my heart will always be from New Orleans.
Go Saints.
Andrew
on a Sunday
at 10:45 PM
Great to read your insights. Josiah was tearful when we sent him to bed at halftime, thinking the Saints were heading to a loss. Your mom’s father’s side of the family is from New Orleans as well. You were born at Hotel Dieu Hospital (French for “house of God”), which is now University Hospital. You are 25 until August. Despite leaving at age 1 1/2, you will always be from New Orleans. Geaux Saints! I was very glad to share this victory with you, although several hundred miles away.