It Ain’t Over
So, um, I didn’t write this. My former college professor, Dr. Mark Fernandez, wrote it, and he kindly consented to me reposting it.
“It Ain’t Over”
Once, a Mayor of New Orleans, Victor Schiro, told the citizens [this is a paraphrase] “Don’t believe any rumors about da hurricane unless you hear ‘em from me first.” So what’s up with young Gustav? He’s a 5 a 4 a 3. He’s late. He’s early. Will he go west? East? We don’t know. We hope. Those of us who live in the city want him to listen to Horace Greeley. “Go West young man!” Our dear friends on the Westbank of the Mississippi River are losing hope. West for them is even worse. My cousin Mike who generously housed half of my family after Katrina in Houma, Louisiana is looking at the possibility of sixteen feet of water on his doorstep, his porch, his roof. I spent a good part of this morning driving a good friend from the Westbank around Memphis to retrieve his truck that had run out of diesel last night. He’s worried. His house, his business, his life is surely about to change. Mine sure has.
I’ve lived in New Orleans for all but about seven of my fifty or so years. I’ve seen the hurricanes and the floods come and go. In 1965 my family headed for shelter at the height of category three Hurricane Betsy. I’ve been through bad ones, nice ones that led to days off from school, and, of course, Katrina which has constructed the sense of morbidity we all feel now. I’ve seen two inches, two feet, and six feet of water wreck my house.
As Katrina was ruining my home, I found an escape from the horrors of the Superdome and Convention Center, my own self-pity. In the years since, I’ve seen the incompetence and corruption that so many have centered their thoughts on, but I’ve also witnessed the glorious sense of defiance, determination, and will that my fellow New Orleanians, fellow humans, have exhibited. In life there is strength. . . strength that runs so deep that it looks up at the deep waters of the loop current.
So let Gustav be Gustav. I pray that he seeks a lonely, unpopulated corridor of the western Gulf of Mexico to dry up and dissipate in. I hope that Barack Obama doesn’t take the opportunity to exploit my people in the way John McCain is doing right now on CNN by trying to act “presidential.” But even if he does, I’m determined to take it in stride. My people will pick themselves up, rebuild, and rise. Our tears will sustain us as they always have, folding us in like the warm, salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico. My self-pity? This time, I’m telling it to screw off. We have work to do, things to build, love to give . . . to do the things that make being human so special. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?
