Coincidences on the Road

It's 1:30 AM and I just got back from bowling with my boys and Erin. The bowling alley had kept its 1960's era motif - none of those automatic pin counters and monitors above the lanes. We kept score with paper and pencil. Next to the very weathered lanes was a large dance floor and a little stage with a live blues band. Snooks, the bandleader, was as old and battle tested as the antique bowling pins, but nimble as a track star on his keyboard. People danced waving white white napkins and cloths as I guess they do in the "second line" brass bands that play for funerals in New Orleans.

On Christmas, when we exchanged Hannukah and Christmas gifts, Zac gave me a framed photo he'd taken of a "hippie looking woman" dancing at the New Orleans Jazz Heritage Fest last April.


Who do we see at this bowling-blues place, dressed much more demurely, but still partying hard, but this same random woman from Zac's photo. We introduced ourselves and told her how her likeness would now grace a home in California. She loved it. Turns out she lives in Austin and was just visiting her sister in New Orleans which makes it an even bigger coincidence.

Long ago I learned that when traveling, expect coincidences. Some cork gets unplugged and as routines get spilled out on the ground, the unexpected pours in - finally free to show its face. Or we're finally free to turn and notice.

Two days ago I went for a jog and stopped to walk through one of the many cemeteries lining both sides of Canal streets. Cemeteries with their countless stories etched in stone are always a draw for me, but New Orleans cemeteries, with their above-ground crypts and monuments are an amazing site in themselves. After a few random twists and turns through crowded rows of crypts, whose family do I come upon, but the Nevilles - ancestors of my favorite New Orleans band! A year or two ago I read a spellbinding oral history of the Neville Brothers. There before me was Arthur J. Neville Senior and Arthur Junior. Out of easily 10,000-50,000 graves in those neighboring cemeteries on Canal Street, I end up at the foot of the Nevilles. What's more, Arthur Sr. has the same birthday as me, or vice versa. I'm not sure how distant these Nevilles are from the brothers in the band, but the oldest of the Neville Brothers is also named Art.
Tomorrow is my last day in New Orleans. What a treat to have spent so much time with Alex and Zac and so myuch better than phone calls.

Alex the organizer. new Years.

New Orleans - not Mr. Rogers neighborhood

Deborah, Jan, Alex, and I all made our way on separate flights to New Orleans yesterday. Zac and his vibrant girlfriend, Erin made a lot of airport trips in heavy traffic. We got to see their new one bedroom apartment on a different end of the Uptown neighborhood than their big old rental house. The house has four units that were recently restored very nicely. The houses just next to them are still vacant, boarded up, and one is completely crushed in on itself. It looks like at least half the houses in their neighborhood are still boarded up.

House next door to Zac & Erin:


House across the street from Zac & Erin:


Jan's friend generously gave us her home in the Mid-City neighborhood. It's amazing - twelve foot high ceilings and large rooms on both floors, lots of wonderful built in shelving; big, inviting kitchens on both floors; lots of art. Her house is one of only two inhabited ones on her block. They had a couple feet of water flooding their home after Katrina but have renovated it.

Yellow house we are staying in:


Same Yellow House (photo) during Katrina flood:
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The good news is that some people are moving back home and reclaiming their neighborhoods. But meanwhile, there is something surreal about these neighborhoods. I wonder what the kids who live here think about coming home from school to a block with no other people.

That's my son!

I went to Flickr.com, a site where people post their photos. I searched for "New Orleans + tornado" and found some photos from three different photographers. I noticed that one had two shots of a house where two walls were blown out. When I enlarged the second one, I saw it was my son Zac standing in front of it. That's the house he'd told me about that I mentioned in my previous blog entry. Yet another example of the internet shrink-wrapping our world.

My own photos on Flickr can be found at: here.

Tornado in New Orleans 2/13/07

My son Zac just called to tell me his New Orleans neighborhood was hit by a tornado at 3:30 AM last night. The whole house was shaking, a couple of windows shattered, transformers were exploding outside, and the porch railing was blasted apart by some flying debris. Apparently, his house fared much better than those of many neighbors. At first light, he and his roommate went out as did many others to find the streets covered with broken phone poles that had snapped in half and a swarm of electrical, phone, and cable wiring weaving through the streets like a high-tech spider web. In five hours, all the neighbors had cleared the streets. Zac helped various people board up their shattered windows. He helped one man remove valuable doors and windows from the two walls that had been blown entirely off his house. Others are missing their roofs, while nobody has electricity or landlines for phones. Zac used his cell phone to tell his employers at Habitat for Humanity that he would not be coming to work today. Speaking only partly as his dad, I think Habitat should have all their workers out in that neighborhood (a portion of Uptown) for the next day or so and count it toward their work hours. Apparently some of the Habitat volunteers who heard what Zac (their supervisor) and his roommate were up to, came out and lent a hand today as well. New Orleans seems like a magnet for natural disasters. I'm so proud that Zac knew instinctively what he needed to be doing today.