Waiting for a Miracle

Last night, as I watched the fundraising concert on NBC, I was nearly overwhelmed with hope when Harry Connick, Wynton Marsalis, Aaron Neville, et. al. closed with When the Saints Go Marchin' In. John Goodman, who I saw bellow that song from Pete Fountain's truck on Mardi Gras Day a few years back, ripped off his tie and loosened his collar and opened his mouth. You couldn't hear him, but you could tell he was singin'! I looked to my parents and said, "One day soon there's gonna be a hell of a party."

I believe it... and I plan to be there.

In the meantime, food, water and rescue is finally getting to the people left behind and the flood is beginning to drain from the city. The new BAD news is that fires are raging through Riverfront Mall and a few other places in the city, and as a recent transplant from San Francisco, all I can see in my mind's eye are the fires that ravaged San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Fires that could not be put out because there was no water pressure, just like today.

What's interesting in that comparison is the article I found from 1907, which calls the rebuilt San Francisco, "...the busiest city in the world." It also makes some other interesting observations that might just apply to The Big Easy today. Mostly, the comparison gives me HOPE.

The other thing that gives me hope - GREAT BIG HOPE - happened just a couple of hours ago when WWOZ - The Best Radio Station in the World - started broadcasting from their website as... WWOZ In Exile.

A week out and things are coming together. Some things - MANY THINGS - are still terrible... EVERYONE from New Orleans is somehow displaced. We are scattered from Canal Street to Mexico City (and probably beyond). We've had a few miracles already, but we're going to need a whole lot more. Yet, I believe those miracles are on the way and the little miracles (like OZ) light the way for the big ones we need. It took some time for people to get the point (but that's for another blog), but things finally seem to be turning in the right direction.

Like so many people in so many of the places where I've been before, New Orleanians are Waiting for a Miracle.