Attitudes
When I first returned to New Orleans after the hurricane, the biggest thing I was worried about was that the city would lose its charm. The reason that people love New Orleans so much is the unique attitude that people who live here have adopted. It is a sort of laid-back outlook on life that is striking in comparison with the politicized world I grew up with inside the beltway. I was happy to see that this worldview had survived the storm, and after the hotly debated mayoral elections, it took a pair of small moments in the past few weeks to remind me that it is still intact.
Last weekend I was walking to a deli a few blocks from my apartment with a friend of mine to get lunch or breakfast or whatever you would call the weekend meal that college kids eat when it is light outside. Although it was a short walk, there was a lot of darting back and forth between sidewalks to avoid the sprinkler systems that people seemed to point at their fences, sidewalks, and cars instead of the lawn.
As we came around the one necessary turn on our journey, I saw what I thought was another sidewalk sprinkler, this one a little more of a mist than the others and pointed straight up in the air. Before I could comment on the continuing stupidity in sprinkler placement, my friend asked a more interesting question: "Is that on fire?" She was right. The grass on the sidewalk and the edge of the yard was clearly burning. One other concerned pedestrian meandered along and started attempting to stomp out the fire. It didn't work. Then the lady who owned the burning yard opened her door and asked whether we had knocked. Apparently the other guy had. "Yeah, your yard's on fire." He didn't yell or scream, he just calmly told her the situation. She didn't take it too bad either. "Hmm â€Â have a sprinkler system, but I don't know how to turn it on. I heard a big bang before, but I didn't know what it was."
At this point we decided to continue on our trip, as greater forces than ourselves seemed to have the situation well in hand. A tow truck driver pulled up next to us and smilingly declared "that is the strangest thing I've ever seen." I laughed and concurred, and he continued on his way. His reaction clearly demonstrated the response of everyone involved—mild bemusement. Had this episode occurred in certain other American cities, there would have been nine firetrucks, four cop cars, and an ambulance; all being bombarded with questions and fears of neighbors and passers-by. The alleged kids who supposedly set off whatever made the loud bang would have been found and exposed in the local news as dangerous arsonists. But here everyone just thought the whole situation was random and kinda funny.
The next weekend there was a similar incident. One of my buddies from high school was in town, so we had taken him downtown to see a jazz show and experience Bourbon Street. My friends and I thought this would give him a pretty good idea of what New Orleans is like. But he may have gotten an even better impression from witnessing a slight fender bender right after we got out of the cab that took us back uptown.
A big SUV had just stopped at an intersection in an attempt to turn left, and the car behind it was moving slowly but did not stop quite in time. There was a crash, but it didn't look like anyone could possibly be hurt nor was there much damage done. The driver of the SUV calmly exited his vehicle, came around to check his back bumper, examined it for roughly eight seconds, gave a thumbs-up to the girl driving the smaller car, hopped back in his car, and turned left against a red light. Sure, it may not have been the safest decision to make, but there was no damage, so why call the police to make them issue a ticket to someone who really caused you no damage? Here, it was such a simple incident, yet in other areas of the country it could have been blown into a huge ordeal. And this is why New Orleans is an important city. So maybe when people come to visit from around the country, they can learn a little bit about how to keep things in perspective and just let it happen.
advertisement
