The Final Blow Three Years Later

They finally demolished my family’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward. Someone broke the news to me last night. I am surprised at how melancholy I have been since I found out. I was going to ride over there and take a picture of the empty but I thought to myself that it would look just like all the other empty lots where homes used to be. People from the Lower Nine have a lot of pride and since Katrina we tend to speak in a romantic tone about our old neighborhood. My old house was no state of the art facility. It was old and battle tested. It was probably in need of a renovation in 1979 when we moved into it. Like most shotgun doubles in New Orleans it had no privacy. When we got ready to iron clothes or do laundry we had to cut off a few other electrical things to keep the fuses from blowing out. We lived on the avenue across the street from one of the most popular neighborhood bar rooms. To this day I can’t sleep without some kind of noise because I am so used to the sound of music, people talking, and city buses passing all night.

You might read all of that and think to yourself why someone would be upset about not having that anymore. Since Katrina I have seen my mayor and other local leaders, try and tell me how we should be excited about this new bigger and better city. All of those rallying cries are shallow because they are only talking about structures and it has nothing to do with the actual things that made the community what it is. As far as I’m concerned I would take the bus passing and making the room shake, the power going out if you turn the dryer on and didn’t let the button go fast enough and the occasional police siren outside my door if you brought the people back.

Don’t think I am tripping. I have accepted that change is a part of life and you have to adapt to it in order to keep moving. I have been doing that every day. I have to admit though. After 26 years of knowing I could always turn that key and feel secure, three years is not a sufficient amount of time for me not be pissed off about this whole situation. Now that the house is gone I won’t be talking about it anymore. Katrina and the government apathy that followed won that battle. I guess I just miss the rest of my family.