Thanks Boys!

Well… the great football hope ended yesterday when “Duh Bears” beat the Saints in Chicago. I was listening to WWL this morning to hear how folks in the Crescent City were taking it, and I was heartened by the fact that most people on the radio and phoning in were talking about how much the spirit of the team brought to New Orleans in the last few months. It seems to me that this is really the perfect end to the metaphor. For the Saints, the team that couldn’t win started doing a lot of winning this year and they came back with a force that was strong and dynamic and hopeful. They didn’t go all the way and win the Super Bowl, just like the city remains a long long way from real recovery, but the spirit is there and the hope is there and the will to pull it off is there.

Next year in Jerusalem.

Most people I know were expressing condolences to me yesterday as I sat down at my local watering hole still wearing my black and gold, and most of them understood that I took the game lightly (I’m not exactly a football fan) but that I also held a lot of meaning in the mythological container that it provided. Under circumstances like these, like a truffle pig in the woods, you dig for hope anywhere you can find it. I wasn’t the only one who found some in the Saints and most people I know understood that.

It wasn’t until later that evening that I ran into someone who just had to make the remark that, “I’m tired of hearing all about New Orleans and how the Saints are bringing the city hope.” Well… I lost my cool and let him have it. Not physically, but verbally. Blasting him with a diatribe I have unleashed before, but which I have held at bay in the last few months. I later apologized to him for the pummeling, but while I was sincere in the apology I’m not sorry for the feelings that were raised.

There was a nice video before the game that showed the reality of New Orleans RIGHT NOW. A New Orleans that pretty much looks the same as it did last year at this time with people still without houses, or help, or hope of much assistance from the people who promised it. There was an article in the New York Times over the weekend that took a look at the reduced population of the city and the dire predictions that it’s likely to remain that way. But with those exceptions, out here in the “real world” New Orleans is no longer news. While we can continue to dump billions of dollars and thousands of bodies and lives into Bush’s desert quagmire, and we can talk that thing to death (and just for the record – withdrawal IS a plan!) news from New Orleans has, for many people, reached the saturation point. In just the last week and half I’ve had two people look at me in all seriousness and say, “Well it’s pretty much all back to normal, right?”

How many ways is it possible to say NO!?!?!

So thanks again to the boys in Black & Gold for keeping New Orleans in the news (and forcing idiots like the guy I was talking to last night to have to face into the reality of America in 2007) and for giving New Orleanians (both in and out of the city) hope, if only for a little while.