Special to the Holabird Advocate
The first time I'd the pleasure to visit the Big Easy was during the summer of 1996. I only had time for one evening, and it was spent walking from a parking garage, down Canal Street, up and down Bourbon Street, and back to the parking garage with a few gator-heads I purchased along the way. (Alligator parts seem to be in abundance in that town, selling for less than much of the standard crap you find in a tourist shop.) On the way out of town I drove North over Lake Pontchartrain, contrasting from I-10, the route I took into town. Driving into New Orleans on I-10, one simply cannot miss the Superdome sitting incredibly close to the interstate. I was impressed, and had a hard time concentrating on the road, completely unaware of the future chaos in store for the sporting facility. Growing up in central SD, where the Dakotadome of Vermillion impresses most kids, undoubtedly intensified this impressed state of mind. Though I only spent a few hours that first time in New Orleans, I loved it and always planned on returning. Falling in love with the Big Easy is easy, no pun intended, despite the smell.
This past year, a full nine years later, I finally had the opportunity to return to that quaint little French outpost at the mouth of that little stream known as the Mighty Mississippi, and it was a golden one at that. There's a bi-annual international AGU, (American Geophysical Union), conference held in San Francisco every December, and a guest city every May. This past summer the guest city happened to be New Orleans, right down the road from the Bayou City, (Houston). As a graduate student majoring in Physics at the University of Houston, and a registered member of AGU, I was not only able to take advantage of this trip, but finally able to spend more than a few hours. A fellow graduate student and I spent a week lodging in a hotel right on the French Quarter, and walked back and forth to the convention center a few blocks off Canal Street every day. At one point we discussed the fact that if a hurricane of class 4 or greater ever hit New Orleans, the city would be effectively destroyed. At the time, however, we were talking in hypothetical terms. We were talking like one talks of "the big one" hitting California, in earthquake terms. Everyone knows probability dictates this will happen someday, but that "someday" is always an undefined point in the future. It's something everyone knows will happen, but no one ever really expects to happen, so when it finally does occur, everyone is shocked.
Anyway, while spending my week in New Orleans this past summer, I was able to take the most of a day off at one point and spend some real time touring the area, primarily the French Quarter. Despite the smell, (which you get used to), this is a beautiful area that's just as old and quaint as anything New England has to offer. Some of the buildings that survived the great fires of the 1790's date back to the early 1600's. The Louisiana Supreme Court is located here, as well as the French Market and plenty of Voodoo Shops.
Voodoo is deeply ingrained in this area, and must have an effect on people if they spend much time there. Just a few weeks ago, after Katrina bounced off the Florida Keys but before she hit the Gulf Coast, I chatted with a man who moved into our apartments about a month ago. I found out he recently moved from New Orleans because of what a Voodoo Priestess told him after doing the whole Tarot Card "thing" on him. This may seem like something I'm making up, to make my story sound good, but I tell you this is true. As it turns out, this man had owned the second biggest bar on Bourbon Street, an establishment across the street from Crazy Horse Gentleman's club. It was a business he said brought in roughly $150,000+ a month. (By the way, if you ever get the chance to visit this area after the city is rebuilt, make it a point to see more of the French Quarter than just Bourbon Street. Many people do this, like I did the first time, and it's somewhat like going to the State Fair just to see the Midway, instead of carneys, games, rides and puke/cotton candy smell, it's drunks, bars, strip clubs and puke/beer smell. The side streets are the real attractions in the French Quarter of The Big Easy.) Anyway, my new acquaintance told me he was having a "bad feeling" one day, well before Katrina became notorious. Because of his sudden uneasiness, he patronized a fortune telling "expert" of the Voodoo persuasion. She told him something to the effect that disaster lays on the horizon for his business. Because of this, he promptly sold his tavern for 6.5 million and moved to Houston.

Less than a week after he told me his story, Katrina Hit.

At the time the former Bourbon Street bar owner told me his unusual story, Katrina had just been named and was making a few headlines concerning damages and a few lives lost in the Bahamas/Florida area. It wasn"t much more than the typical Hurricane, plenty happen every year. As it made it's way into the Gulf, though, she picked up momentum and started heading directly for New Orleans.
Unfortunately, I wasn't with a television at the time, so I missed the initial broadcasts of the storm as it was actually making landfall. Everyday I was checking the major internet news sites; keeping informed as well as I could electronically. At first the articles spoke of an evacuation in progress, with some people coming as far as Texas. This implied that the hurricane was a bit more powerful than initially thought, but not enough to really cause too much of a panic. After all, it seems there's news of at least one hurricane-related evacuation a year. Katrina continued to pick up even more momentum, and soon the news came of abnormally powerful winds, and people piling into the Superdome for protection. This caught my attention, not only did I know exactly where they were talking of, but I also knew the storm must be pretty serious if they were using the Superdome as an evacuation site.
The next day, Monday the 29th of August, I got news of the roof being ripped off the Superdome. I'm not sure what category it was officially classified as at this point, but I'd guess at least a three or a four. The next day, I heard the first news of the levees breaking. Immediately I thought of the hypothetical conversation I'd had with my classmate earlier in the summer, about how New Orleans would be effectively destroyed if a major hurricane came along and broke the levees.
"This is not good, most of New Orleans is under sea level!!!" I thought, "They're toast, just like the Zeppelin song!"
The famous English heavy metal rock band Led Zeppelin can claim a hit entitled When the Levee Breaks that gives a somewhat disturbing idea of what may result from this kind of catastrophe. The song, however, seems tame after watching the carnage of what happened to New Orleans.
Over the course of the next few days, the storm continued to worsen until it finally passed. New Orleans was completely submerged at one point. The French Quarter is pretty much the highest point of the New Orleans area, and even that is only five feet above sea level. The situation at the Superdome continued to worsen to epidemic proportions until it spilled over into the New Orleans Convention Center, the same building I attended the AGU conference in a few Months earlier. On Thursday, it was the headlining story in the Houston Chronicle, filling twenty pages of print, and there was finally talk of transporting refugees to the Astrodome.
This brings up a continuing low-intensity controversy in the Bayou City area. During and after the construction of Reliant Stadium, people have been arguing about what should be done with the Astrodome. Many believe it should be demolished, many believe it should be saved. I'm personally a part of the later group. I think it should be saved for reasons of antiquity if nothing else. It is, after all, the first dome ever built; it's how the term Astroturf, and even nurf were coined. Now, after Katrina, I don't see how anyone would ever want it destroyed. A big open building like that has all kinds of uses.
Thursday evening news of the Astrodome filling up to capacity was starting to go around. Next to be filled was the reliant center, (not stadium), and then the George R Brown Convention Center downtown. Also about this time I managed to get my television fixed, and I finally saw live and old footage of the resulting devastation, and the storm itself. It was the only thing being covered on virtually every station, and brought back memories of what TV was like during the 9-11 days. For a while there, I almost wished I didn't have television.
I then decided that on Friday, I'd blow off work and do my best to help out with the relief effort. Some of my friends said they would come with me on Saturday, but I decided on Friday I'd test the waters myself. After all, at this point there was no official word on how people could help, and I figured the last thing the relief effort needed were all kinds of extra people standing around getting in the way.

A just finished reading the John Piper article posted on the Holabird Advocate and, boy, did I like it. It was a good post.
However, I still take issue with President Bush (and others) who believe that "both sides ought to be properly taught in the schools. Actually, I don't mind if (intellegent design) is taught in public schools as religion, because that is what it is. What it is not is science. If we decide that it is okay to teach religion as science in public schools, then what is to prevent all children to be taught another religion's teachings someday when Christianity is not the most predominant religion in the U.S. It could happen. Secondly, believing as fact something that cannot be proven (after all, my religious beliefs are based in faith, not proof), especially in science, can have many detrimental effects on the scientific community. I cannot say that I believe that my new drug is the cure for Alzheimers disease if I cannot prove it. This great country of ours has worked well with core academic subjects taught in schools and religion taught in churches in private schools.
Just my two cents. Be well, do good works, and keep in touch.

The Government has put out occurrence's that stress may reduce the occurrence of breast cancer in women. While this may explain why Mary Hinkle has never had breast cancer, it is not a foregone conclusion. For this to be absolute truth, the stress of having breast cancer would cure it at the same time. The best way to be sure is for women to have a mammogram at least once a year and to examine themselves at least once a month. Men can get breast cancer as well (just ask Kenny "the Gambler" Rogers, he's a survivor). Married couples may like to examine each other at least once a month (just a suggestion).

I just wanted to say a few things about this edition of the Holabird Advocate to let you know I'm still here. Barney said his article would be lengthy, still I can't wait for Part 3, or even Part 4 and more if he has it. Whatever he's doing is more than I'm doing. I'm glad he's there, ready, willing and able to help.

Kevin has shown me that he does read the Holabird Advocate, and while he may not agree with all of it's contents, he manages to explain his position without attacking either Mr. Piper and myself. His contributions, like Barney's are welcome anytime.

Not sure where I stand on the whole Stress vs. Cancer study. Just don't anybody tell my dad about it. He'll yell at my mother twice as much, and claim he's saving her life.