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I'm a country boy. Don't like cities much. I hate Dallas and Houston, and I'm not particularly fond of Fort Worth. Oklahoma City and Amarillo are bleak. Denver and Saint Louis are joyless. I've set out for New York more than once, but turned back, intimidated. Trenton and Atlanta are dull and pointless. Washington D.C. Is an open cesspool.
But not all cities bother me. San Antonio is a wonderful place to spend a hot summer evening. Austin is forever fascinating. No one can walk the streets of Boston and not be moved by both the history and the vital, living city. I love these places. But above them all, the one city that inspires true love and devotion, is New Orleans.
Tonight, she lies stricken, dying, and I sit here and cry like a child. I never cry at funerals, even when those receiving final honors were those closest to me. But tonight, I can't stop crying. In a long life, I've been burned, blasted, crushed and broken. Those were never occasions for tears. Tonight is a time for weeping.
On better nights, I laid in the cool grass while cafe bands and street musicians played along the waterfront in the French Quarter. Where is the old man with the sweet Selmer saxophone tonight? Is he starving, dying of thirst? What of the old woman who sold Voodoo trinkets to the tourists from her dim and dusty cubby blocks off the beaten path? Is she now just another bloated corpse in a drift of ruin? Where is the old crazy lady who's panhandling routine was always so entertaining it was worth five or ten bucks? And the two guys who turned sidewalk shoe shines into an art, what of them? Where are the kids who crimped soda cans to their sneakers so they could tap dance for coins? I just can't stop crying.
The newspaper told me that the magnificent oaks that provided much welcome shade on more than one afternoon now lie broken, their roots torn out in the initial gale. They say that no more water pours into the beautiful old buildings: the flood is now absolute. I yearn for news that it's not at all as bad as first thought. Yet each broadcast announcement, each written story tells a more appalling tale. And I can do nothing but cry.
I'm afraid to call Steve. If his cell phone doesn't answer, does that mean he couldn't bear to abandon his precious horns? I'm horrified by the misery and grief that grips the people who so often made me welcome. Grief, fear, misery, the emotion is overwhelming. I can only sit here and cry.
I suffer tonight, but it is nothing to the suffering of those who starve in the ruins. Someone must help them. Someone must save my New Orleans.
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