If that is the way God wants it to be, why, oh why, did he send Hurricane Katrina to clean up the mess?You certainly can have New Orleans another way ... I remember it well ... the streets were clean (-ish) ... the children could go to public school (and get an excellent education) ... the crime rate was relatively low ... and, yes, it was the real New Orleans, a city of scents ... the "smells" were localized by the industry in the neighborhood ... the smell of fish in the fish market ... the smell of beignets frying in the French Market ... the smell of hops from the breweries (Jax, Groesedeck and Regal) in the French Quarter, and Dixie a little farther out ... the aroma of coffee beans roasting in the American sector (above Canal Street)... the damp smells from the River ... the smell of stale beer and disinfectant on Bourbon Street ... the sweet scent of Sweet Olive and Banana Shrub [Michelia/Magnolia fuscata] wafting over the walls of the courtyards ... and the smell of wonderful food being cooked in the myriad inexpensive family owned restaurants on every other corner.
And, what sort of smells have replaced those delightful memory evoking scents in Hizzoner's city ... urine, feces, vomit ... and mountains of rotting garbage ... and now the stench of decayed vegetation and destruction and stagnant water from the Hurricane. New Orleans stinks ... the pleasant scents and aromas have been replaced by nauseating stench of filth and corruption and mismanagement.
Just last night I found a picture of my grandmother as a teenager on the front porch of her home in Compton, CA. I couldn't believe how clean it was.