Another gorgeous day in Paradise. It’s been in the low 80s with sunshine and very little humidity every day we’ve been here so far. Fantabulous!
After last night’s walk on the wild side of Bourbon Street, we decided to go back to nature in a different way. Took the bus that’s substituting as a trolley to the City Park. It’s a 1,300-acre public park—the 6th-largest park in the nation—that includes a sculpture garden, an art museum, a botanical garden, storyland and an amusement park for kids, and Morning Call, an historic coffee shop whose beignets rival those of the famous Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. The beignets (basically fried dough covered with powdered sugar) have just the right blend of tender dough inside and crispy crust on the outside. And of course one has to sip the shop’s perfect café au lait to accompany the beignets.
We did work off the calories, though, during our walk through the sculpture garden and the botanical gardens—both exquisite. The sculptures have among them works from Rodin, Renoir, and George Segal, whose sculpted people grace the benches of New York City’s Christopher Park. Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” sculpture in red and blue is in City Park. One of my favorites, titled “Overflow” by Jaume Plensa, is a stainless steel work of a man sitting with his arms around his knees—all formed from letters, which also spill around him on the ground. I’m hoping that doesn’t apply to my blog.
That said, I’ll add photos and more “overflow” tomorrow. Long day, late night, and bed calls.
Back to our wonderful day at the park: David, who acts as host to those visiting the sculpture garden, greeted us warmly and gave us lots of advice on great places to eat and listen to music in and around New Orleans. John, of course, was not keen on the places that required long pants (he really likes showing off his knees). But we’d both like to come back someday and stay in Lafayette, LA. David really praised that area as a haven of music and great Cajun food.
David also shared his insights on Katrina. He and his wife survived the hurricane’s devastation but their house sustained much damage after the wind blew off the roof. A neighbor covered it with a tarp, but the place was pretty much destroyed. They were barred from their home for two months and couldn’t return until the area was finally declared safe to enter. They were not alone; 80 percent of the city was covered in water after the levees failed. Surprisingly (at least to me), the French Quarter and other areas closest to the mouth of the Mississippi River did not flood because they had been built on higher ground formed through centuries as silt was deposited along the river’s edge.
Everything from Pontchartrain Lake to the edge of the French Quarter was under four to eight feet of water. It took weeks for the city to pump the water out of the area, which had essentially become a giant water-filled basin.
Joseu, the young man who talked to us about timeshares, said his family lost everything in the storm. Like many others, their home was filled with water. During the six weeks they were barred from returning, heat and humidity caused mold to grow up to the ceilings. The family’s entire house had to be gutted and the studs treated before rehab could begin. David and his wife faced similar damage at their home. He also faced devastation at the Sculpture Garden, where he worked.
The Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden had been a world-famous landscaping marvel, attracting even more landscape designers than art lovers. Each sculpture was surrounded by lush vegetation that complemented the art. The storm changed all that. Though still beautiful, the garden lost much of the vegetation that had been planted and tended for a decade and more to create the lush environs that attracted landscapers from all over the globe. Today, the gardens are beautiful with flowers and trees that have grown up since the devastation in 2005, but it has a long way to go (and grow) before it reaches the levels it attained pre-Katrina.
The storm, David said, created a psychic crack in the fabric of the city, which would remain forever afterward even as the city rebuilt itself. He said the rebuilding was one of the greatest experiences he has witnessed in a community, as everyone refused to give up and forged ahead to regain what was lost. A turning point in the effort to rebuilt occurred during the city’s 2006 Jazz Fest, held just eight months after Katrina. Many people thought the city couldn’t pull it off so soon after the devastation or shouldn’t hold the event given the tragic aftermath of the storm. Bruce Springsteen and his band came to perform at the jazz fest for the first time that year. David said he began to cry as Springsteen sang the gospel tune, “Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep,” as a special tribute to New Orleans. David turned to his wife and she was weeping, too. Then he turned and saw the tears of everyone in the audience. “We hadn’t been able to grieve before that,” he said. “We were just too busy trying to dig out from the storm and survive and rebuild.”
As he related the story to us in the midst of the beautiful sculpture garden—rebuilt and thriving—tears trickled down his cheek. Behind my sunglasses, tears filled my eyes as well.
That evening John and I collected on our timeshare bonus—a ride on the Natchez riverboat. Despite the tourist-centric operation, we both enjoyed ourselves as we sat on the upper deck listening to the New Orleans Jazz Band play old favorites and watching the Mississippi River swirl by. We visited the engine room and saw the giant hydraulics powering the tiller and the double boilers that created the steam to operate the paddle wheel. The buffet featured pork and catfish, creamed spinach, cheesy pasta, and best of all, bread pudding for dessert. Delish! Made me vow to have at least one more serving of the famous New Orleans specialty before we leave.
The evening ended with the band’s rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” the song Sam and I danced to at his wedding and the music I introduced him to when he was a child. The young (white) musician who sang the lyrics did a surprisingly passable imitation of Sachmo. What a wonderful world, indeed!