I looked for Brian but I did not see him. I probably saw him but I do
not know what he looks like so I did not see him again. Our names on our
name tags were very small. John Nau's name on the screens was very
large. The only beer at the receptions was Budweiser. John Nau commands
the second largest distributor in the world of Anheuser-Busch products.

The Number One Lady is a better speaker than the President. She uses
complete sentences and does not smirk after delivering every line. She
gave two speeches that were not as good as the first speech I ever saw
her utter. Still they were vastly better than smirking through the State
of the Union. I wonder if my picture will be 5x7 or 8x10? I wonder if it
will be signed "To Dan Becker from Raleigh, Preserver of America. Thank
you for shaking my hand, Laura Bush." 

We drove to 9th Ward and Holy Cross and perambulated some. Mrs. Bush has
been there already I am sure, so she wasn't with us. In Ninth Ward we
had to step off the deserted street to make way for an automobile. The
driver at the wheel could not pass around us through the tall weeds on
either side of the road because of the two make-shift crosses standing
as silent sentinels before the concrete slab on one side and the walls
akimbo house on the other side. The driver had just arrived from
Charlotte on her way to visit family in Baton Rouge and three of the
four of us were from North Carolina. She grew up in Ninth Ward. She had
beautiful braces with dazzling pearlescent jewels on each tooth and a
perfectly smooth clear complexion. I could not take my eyes off her. It
was easier to rest my gaze upon her than the landscape around us.

It was her first visit since Katrina. She felt guilty about that. She
had a camcorder and was taking Ken Burns moving pans as she drove along.
The camera moved but the image stayed the same. She pointed over her
right shoulder to the sighingly empty elementary school clearly visible
three blocks behind us that she had attended before she had braces. She
did not know where she was exactly until the school sighting because
there were no buildings to serve as landmarks. Just a grid of pavement
and fields of tall grass tassels swaying in the breeze. She kept
expecting someone to come out of the solitary houses and wave like they
used to, but no one ever did. She was still trying to process the
surrealness of it all. Suddenly her cell phone began marching
synthesized nonsense resembling Wagner's Valkyrie to our ears and she
drove her beautiful skin away.

Then to Holy Cross where we arrived at the levee by the river. It was
dry. We were in a rental Chevy. It is where Mary Ruffin and her
volunteer crew would go shortly after the storm to the top of the levee
to look at the river for 15 minutes of relief. She pointed to it and
began to back the car up and I asked if we could go to the top of the
levee and look at the river. I needed some relief. There was a lovely
cool breeze caressing us. The grass had recently been mown. A woman was
weeding the fence next to where we parked the car. She disappeared
before we could get out.

Later I went to Bourbon Street and drank whisky and rye in a plastic
cup. It was the age-old bacchanalian pageant that has been playing out
there for more than a century. Only less crowded. People seemed to be
holding their liquor well, but the night was yet young because I am more
old. Instead of artillery punch they were drinking hurricane punch.
Instead of carriages by candlelight it was Harley Davidsons by neon
light. Instead of hoop skirts they had short shirts. I liked that. They
annoyed the Preservation Hall Jazz Band by strobing their cell phone
camera flashes against the rules. Having rules there seemed odd to me.
No one broke the rules at Fritzel's because they didn't have any rules
there except a reminder that every one had to buy a minimum of one drink
since they didn't have a cover charge. I didn't see anyone without a
drink. The dixie dance of the clarinet and soprano sax made my drink go
down faster. I had another.

It takes a lot to keep a place with more than three hundred years of
tradition down in the dumps, even though a lot of it has been taken to
the dump. I am sorry that traveling for this and the Pittsburgh
conference makes it impossible for me to steal still more time to be
here with PTN next week. I would like to know your faces better.

___________________________________________________________
Dan Becker,  Exec. Dir.  "Gee...I don't want to disappoint
Raleigh Historic          Rags by telling him potato chips
Districts Commission                 don't grow on trees."   
[log in to unmask]                         - Crusader Rabbit
919/516-2632


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