New Orleans.
Was it 1718?
I mean the year you were founded by the French guy with the long name.
Is Mardi Gras even a big deal in France?
And didn’t the US version start in Mobile, Alabama?
Anyway, the French lost the Seven Years’ War to the Brits and handed New Orleans over to…the Spanish?
But then how did the French get it back? Because weren’t they the ones who sold you to Thomas Jefferson and the Americans?
And after the Seven Years’ War, more French speakers came down from the north? Why did you call those Acadians Cajuns by the way?
That reminds me—wasn’t the French Quarter kind of built by the Spanish?
Then you had the West Africans—enslaved and free.
Native Americans were in the mix, of course.
And no doubt you attracted some Caribbeans—just look at the map.
No wonder no one can explain to me what jazz means. Or, for that matter, what Creole means.
The Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico (America?) meant a port.
That meant more immigrants—I’m talking about the regular kinds, like Irish, Italians, and Germans.
You were thriving.
But then you shrank. Your metro is smaller than the ones in Omaha and Tulsa—and Rochester (NY)!
Yet you still have the NFL and NBA?
And Super Bowls?!
The tourists keep flowing.
Is it the seediness?
Or the white powder? (And I don’t mean the kind on the beignets.)
In any case, let me get this straight, New Orleans.
You’re that city where the Brits never were—well, aside from that time in the War of 1812 when they tried to invade. (Andrew Jackson had something to say about that, even though the war was already over, I think.) And there was the one Brit I met there the other day—tatted up, sporting a New York Yankees jersey, and asking me if I had any white powder. (He wasn’t hungry.)
You’re diverse as hell.
But everyone speaks English (now).
And you’re racist as hell, I’ve been told. Because that’s not the story my eyes conveyed.
You’re over the top.
And under the sea.
You’re alive.
And dying?
You’re a bounty of riches.
And a magnet for the poor—just look at the streets. (And the po’ boys.)
You’re the place with the artists and writers and dreamers.
Are they still dreaming—or just drinking?
Why is the National WWII Museum in New Orleans?
What’s chicory again?
Did you really invent the Sazerac?
Why the streetcars?
I will say you have charm.
And oil refineries.
And, unless I’m mistaken, prostitutes.
In other words, you have it all, New Orleans.
Or do you?
