Meet Me In The Land Of Hope and Dreams

It's been almost a month since I promised to write more about my feelings regarding the Super Bowl win by the New Orleans Saints, as well as other things that might come to the forefront of my mind but for some reason this has not been a good time for me in the writing department.

That being said... Let's start with the topic du jour and go from there.

First of all... I do not consider myself a sports fan, though perhaps what I should really say is that I have never BEFORE considered myself a sports fan, or perhaps to get even more accurate, that BEFORE 2007 I never considerred myself a sports fan, but that's nopt really true either, because? I have had my moments:

1) When my daughter was playing soccer for Lincoln High School in San Francisco.

2) During the 1998 World Cup matches that I watched with my limey surfer friend at San Francisco's wonderful (and now defunct) Twenty Tank Brewpub on 11th Street South of Market.

3) One or two times during the 49ers 1980s dynasty era when it was impossible to live in San Francisco and NOT be a fan. If for no other reason than to take my daughter down to Market Street for the post-Super Bowl victory parade.

4) When I was a kid in Florida and the then Milwaukee Braves came to West Palm Beach for spring training and my Baptist church had a "father and son dinner" with the team (I even had a baseball signed by a dozen members of that team, including Hank Aaron but it has somehow vanished from my life).

5) A little over two years ago when I fell in love with a baseball fan and the baseball team she loves, in the very same amazing moment.

6) When I first moved to New Orleans before Katrina and discovered in the Saints, a different kind of team and a different kind fan; a centralized Cathedral to Sport in the Superdome where people who don't even have tickets to the game gather around on the city streets surrounding the giant flying saucer of a building and tailgate and celebrate like people only do in The Big Easy. A team that people of all social classes and undivided by race (for a change) rooted for despite a long history of failure... A history so long that there are ubiquitous jokes and legends about all the things people will do when the Saints finally win the Super Bowl (and back last month many of those legends were played out). My initial attraction to the Saints (and to american football in general ) took me by surprise as I was captured by the spirit of Da Saints the same way I was captured by the bayou air that sticks to your skin the instant you set foot in The Crescent.

What I have come to learn, through all of these experiences (though especially #5 and #6) is that sports - perhaps more than anything else (with the possible exception of music) - has an almost magical quality that can bring people together, give them a way to rise above other differences (political, cultural, racial), find a common joy and live, if only for a few moments, as if the differences that stand between them are unimportant, and even unnecessary.

This experience was reinforced AFTER The Thing (as NOLA columnist Chris Rose always refers to Katrina) when the rebirth of the football team (and their famously devastated stadium) began to come back, first in fits and starts and then roaring like The City of New Orleans itself.

New Orleans has long been known as a place (like California in the West, or even the U.S.A. - both the country and the concept - itself) where people could imagine, build, expand and create whatever their hearts and minds believed in. It's this image that captured my own imagination when I decided in 2005 to pull up nearly 30 years of stakes in California and move to The Land of Dreams. The effects of Katrina (and the abysmal federal failure, first of the infrastructure, and then of support and follow-through, both of which are better detailed elsewhere) have gone a long way to discourage that image (for myself as well as others), but there is an unrelenting comeback spirit that resides in the soul of New Orleanians; a spirit which, like the food and the music and the people in general, is magical and compelling.

It is that spirit that was so remarkably in evidence as the Saints steadily advanced their game through the season, into the playoffs, and ultimately to the Super Bowl. In the midst of it all, and even on the day of the game, there were (and are) plenty of naysayers, plenty of folks who just don't get it... Don't get any of it. People who still echo Dennis Hastert's idiotic remark about not rebuilding New Orleans. I had to listen to one of those boneheads spout off during the Super Bowl, but unlike time's past, I held myself in check. I've finally come to accept that those folks are going to be around and I will have to leave them to their benighted and unfortunate POV. Their perspective no longer matters to me, because there are a lot more people cheering for the city's comeback, just like they cheered for the Saints. There are far more people seeking ways to make that comeback happen than there are people who wander around with their heads permanently inserted into unfortunate orifices.

New Orleans has proven that it's coming back.

The Saints - with their crazy, funky game plan and unconventional style - showed how it's being done.

To top it all off, on the day before the big victory, in an unprecedented election, 66% of New Orleans voters elected Mitch Landrieu (the candidate I campaigned for in the election immediately after Katrina) mayor, ushering in a whole new era of hopeful cooperation in a post-storm era. Mitch's campaign slogan for this election was one team, one fight, one voice, one city and it is that spirit of unity and triumph that keeps me hoping and cheering for this city that I came to love as my own.

There are still HUGE problems. There is still MUCH lack. It's possible to be in New Orleans and completely miss the fact that the city was almost completely destroyed. It's also possible to be in New Orleans and have no clue that anything has come back... But it has, and it is. With the Saints pointing the way, and its musical/celebrational culture kicking out the jams, The City of New Orleans is rumbling down the track again... into a new Land of HOPE... and Dreams.

I'm going out and buying myself a ticket for the ride! Wanna come along?

Who Dat!?!?