New Orleans Up Close and Personal

On Monday about noon, I got to New Orleans with my journalist hat on to cover a conference -- "Building for Boomers and Beyond," put on by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) -- and had a few hours before the opening reception. On impulse I thought I'd rent a car for the afternoon and drive all around to see how the city was faring nearly three years after Katrina. But I hadn't reserved a car, and the only thing most of the car rental companies at the airport had were panel vans and trucks. Hertz quoted me a price of $177/day. Say whaaaaa????

I passed on that.

My conference was at a Sheraton, which I have nothing against, but I'm loyal to Hiltons and Marriotts for the points and because they fix things that go wrong and treat me well. My hotel, the Hilton on St. Charles Ave. downtown, was architecturally majestic and beautiful (especially inside), comfortable and close to where my conference was. They took great care of me, from the young, tall, good-lookin' hunk with the soft brown eyes who politely and sweetly opened the door for me every time I left and came back, to Ticara (sp?), who checked me in and gave me a beautiful room before the official check-in time.

Once my conference started, I figured there'd be no chance to see the city. But fortune shone down on me and my ENR correspondent colleague Angelle Bergeron (read her "Gumbo" blog on enr.com) was available last night and took me on a personal tour in her little red truck that people would kill for (the tour, not the truck). She knew where to go and gave me vivid descriptions of how things were and what the political landscape was and is. I felt like Linda Blair in The Exorcist; my head was spinning round and round trying to take in everything as we motored along. Thank you, Angelle!

Angelle took me all over, showed me the lower-income housing that's being rebuilt and the lower-income housing that is being demolished (for political reasons?), the mom-and-pop stores and hollowed-out fast food places that will never again open (adjacent to a sprinkling of ones that have), the blocks-long concrete slabs where a big shopping center used to be, the houses in the poorer sections and the middle-class sections that are still boarded up and dark, many with the big X'es on them that the government agencies put on early on to let everyone know what date they'd been there and what they'd found, including the number of dead. Fortunately, all of the houses we saw had "0" for the number of dead.

The skeleton of Six Flags amusement park is sad for the kids (of all ages) who don't have that fun place to go to anymore, and won't, apparently. The latticework of the roller coaster structure, the huge lidless eye of the ferris wheel frame, the deserted field of giant tinker toy-like rides.... It was ghostly. But it would be a great set for a scary or futuristic dark movie, especially if they blew it up. Then it wouldn't be a constant reminder.

The entire city and environs are just one big checkerboard of light and dark homes and buildings, the cleaned-up, occupied ones side by side with the boarded-up, X'd ones. Angelle said they call it the jack-o-lantern effect. Even downtown, which did not suffer that extensive damage, there are buildings with boards for doors. Nearly three years after Katrina! How do people live and keep their spirits up when every block has such in-your-face remnants of life as it used to be but will never be again. It's heartbreaking. But hopefully those people who are no longer there are living happy, prosperous lives wherever they are, and everyone is just where they should be (...and all of that Celestine Prophecy-like stuff).

After it got dark, we went to the gorgeous, historic Columns Hotel to hear live jazz. Angelle knew one of the guys who was playing and the name of the oldster who had his trumpet with him and just started playing from his seat in the small parlor-type room where they were playing. He wowed everyone and, of course, he was invited to join them. Everyone seemed to know who he was. As they were playing the dreamy, creamy jazz and my foot was tapping, I was also enraptured by the 20-foot ceilings and elaborate crown molding in the place. What must life have been like back when it was built, in 1883? And why did they have such high, high ceilings? I should ask one of my architect friends.

I was last in New Orleans two weeks before Katrina and have not been eager to return. I'd rather remember it alive and well. But I'm glad I saw it again. It's like seeing an old friend 30 years later. "You look just like you did - you look great!" Uh huh. But we love them anyway.

I Just Don't Get It

I was on a New Jersey Transit train, the North Jersey Coast line, going from New York City's Penn Station to Woodbridge, N.J., where my car was. It was late last night, about 11:30 p.m. Most every seat had at least one occupant in it but, fortunately, it wasn't crowded like it gets after Madison Square Garden has a concert or a Rangers hockey game.

A few rows behind me, I could hear, in fact we all could, three or four very loud black young men, probably around 20 years old, talking loudly, clearly with the intention of aurally hijacking everyone in the car. One in particular, clearly the ringleader, was cursing to the point that "muthahf*ckah" was about every fourth word. Everybody else in the car, probably 60 to 75 people, were quiet or talking softly. These guys dominated the space. I never looked back to see what they looked like.

They didn't get off at Newark, which was about 20 minutes out of New York. I then hoped they'd get off at Elizabeth, about 10 more minutes into the ride. That would at least leave me 10 or 15 minutes of peace before my station at Woodbridge. Elizabeth just seems to be the station where a lot of rowdy kids and adults (of all races) get off (and on), so that's why I hoped for Elizabeth.

Sure enough, four surprisingly clean-cut, well-dressed, nice-looking black kids filed up the aisle to get off at Elizabeth, with the loudmouth spewing his f*ck-you attitude all the way out the door. (Usually venomous loudmouthed kids look the part more than these did.) I was relieved.

But it was short-lived. The white, quite-unattractive 30's-age woman sitting one row in front of me and across the aisle and the 50's-ish, Joe-normal-looking man sitting with his wife in the seat in front of me commented on how obnoxious the guys had been who'd just left. Fine. But then they got carried away and talked INCESSANTLY and almost as loudly, though with no vulgar language, about things people on trains pontificate about, namely complaints about nearly everything and how wrong, sleazy and corrupt everyone in government is, especially in New York and New Jersey. I tried to ignore them, zoning in as much as I could on the paperback murder mystery I was reading.

They got to talking about Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and some other rich, famous or political figures. Ignore, ignore, ignore. I looked around. We were nearly to the Rahway station, just one before mine at Woodbridge, and the crowd had thinned considerably. The only other person near me other than the whining, intrusive, loud, abrasive white folks in front of me was a quiet, nice-looking young black man in the seat across the aisle from me.

I went back to my book. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

Then the man in front of me pierced my concentration when he said, "I'd vote for him before I'd vote for that black guy." I have no idea who he was referring to, but his derisive tone made it clear that he didn't like either one. I really couldn't believe this white asshole had said that, regardless of who he was talking about, in a public venue in a loud voice to someone he didn't know with other people he didn't know around him.

I glanced over at the young black man across the aisle from me. He'd been minding his own business, as had I, but that one sentence jolted us into attentiveness. His eyes locked with mine. I pursed my lips, shook my head and rolled my eyes. His expression back to me was nonverbal also, but it was clear. He'd heard this kind of thing before. He considered the source, just like I consider the source when an ingorant chauvinist makes some comment about some woman's knockers in front of me as if I'm not there and he's not offending anyone.

The young man rose from his seat and walked up the aisle to get off at Rahway. He was peaceful in who he was, not angry or vengeful. He and I smiled at each other, making a brief soul-to-soul connection. It was a nice moment.

I only had about five more minutes left to endure the obnoxious white people before we hit Woodbridge. I got off the train, not looking at them. I left them behind. My world was quiet again. It was a nice moment.

Screw It. Let's Ride

I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of hearing about the recession, about the murders, about the rapes and the burglaries and the Internet rip-offs and the divided Democratic party. I've had enough of the bad news about outrageously high gas prices, soaring food costs and pregnant, drug-addicted, shoplifting starlets. I'm tired of war and hunger and poverty and tragedy. I am sickened when I hear about shady merchants, screwed-up troublemaking kids, cockroaches and rats in beloved restaurants, defective machines and gadgets, and projections of skyrocketing numbers of us who will end up with Alzheimer's if we live past age 80.

Every day is a 24-hour visit to the Disneyland of bad news. It's depressing, upsetting and disheartening to just watch the news on tv. At least on the Internet, you can get amusingly distracted by stories that suggest we are close to teleportation, and that eating chocolate/drinking alcohol/watching tv for 20 hours a day are really good for you after all. We can get diverted from the heaviness of the world by stories about the latest sports scores, or a dog nursing motherless kittens, or that Will Ferrell will be taking over from Conan O'Brien when he takes over from Jay Leno.

Our own lives are challenging enough. I am a great advocate of escape: 300-page mysteries and thrillers, tv comedy-dramas, action-packed movies, plentiful chocolate (or Baskin-Robbins' pralines 'n' cream), long phone calls to confidantes, quick dinners with friends, impulse golf on a weekday, luxurious sleep. And I'm also an optimist. Somehow I do think things will work out okay. A book that inspires optimism and is thought-provoking as well is The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I love the premise, namely that the events and happenings that have the greatest influence in our lives are neither probable nor predictable. The greatest example in recent years is 9-11. Okay, so that's not very uplifting, but the point is that because the biggest influencers in our world are neither probable nor predictable, there's no use worrying about the future. Whatever we're worrying about will probably be trumped by something we have no idea will happen.

I believe in the power of the positive. I sometimes fall into a pit but overall, I think if you keep good thoughts and pictures in your head of what you'd like your life to be like, you stand a better chance of living those pictures than if you wallow in the negative. So I love it when somebody has the balls to go against the popular whine of the moment and take a stand for us as strong conquering heroes! Sometimes I think that people think anyone who's positive is stupid or at least unenlightened. It's much more fashionable to complain and badmouth everyone and everything.

So kudos, I say, to Harley-Davidson. Baby boomers' favorite motorcycle company, the one whose cachet can turn a 145-pound, pale-skinned accountant into an intimidator just by giving him some shades, a leather jacket and a Harley, has a new in-your-face advertising campaign that reeks of optimism. And macho cheekiness.

The print ad shouts: "We don't do fear!" It explains: "Over the last 105 years in the saddle. we've seen wars, conflicts, depression, recession, resistance, and revolutions. We've watched a thousand hand-wringing pundits disappear in our rear-view mirror. But every time, this country has come out stronger than before, because chrome and asphalt put distance between you and whatever the world can throw at you. Freedom and wind outlast hard times. And the rumble of an engine drowns out all the spin on the evening news. If 105 years have proved one thing, it's that fear sucks and it doesn't last long. So screw it, let's ride."

Yes!!!

I will probably never own a Harley or any other motorcycle. But whenever I see a Harley rider on the road, cloaked in a t-shirt or leather jacket with the distinctive Harley insignia on his back (or her back), my heart flutters and some part of me leaps out, grabs onto the back of his seat, and flies away from the ugliness and the weight of the world into some stunning sunset ahead, and freedom! So thanks, Harley-Davidson for this we-don't-have-to-take-it-anymore message. Yes, I'm a baby boomer, and it takes a Harley-Davidson to remind me of my rebellious, adventurous, give-em-hell baby boomer heritage. So screw it, let's ride.