Regulars

I work in downtown New Orleans, and take the streetcar to work from uptown every day. Several of the streetcar drivers know where my stop is at this point, since I'm riding almost daily and usually multiple times. (And I suppose that the Indian co-worker I'm with stands out around here...) There are also fellow commuters that I've gotten used to seeing: the woman who hates to share her seat, a man who lives near Loyola and wears a very familiar cologne, and others.

Then there are the regulars I wish I wouldn't see. Perhaps it's because I've never spent this much concentrated time in a city before, or maybe it's affects of Katrina, or the fact that New Orleans' socioeconomic groups are all mixed up... But it seems like I've never been confronted with so many homeless people. Walking to the elementary school where I tutor in Durham, I'd often see a few of the same men. However, those two or three just never seemed as bad off as people here. I know I'm speaking from middle class privilege, because to not have a home is bad off regardless, but there's a different level of poverty when sanity comes into question.

There's a homeless man I see most days who wears an orange wool hat and is bundled up in the New Orleans heat of June. He has plastic bags filling his motorized wheelchair and hanging over the side. And when he talks to us, its so hard to understand. And we've met others- a man who seemed to be high on something other than life, as he jazzercised his way down the street and on to the trolley, men by the street car stops and on sidewalks, women who wreak of liquor.

All this is in the middle of a thriving down town, and in contrast to the beautiful garden district where we're staying... It's a lot to reconcile. This city seems to expose the best and worst of America, all boiled down and intensified. The poverty, and the racial issues (another post entirely) are all right next to this amazing culture and incredible accomplishments and wealth. I'm still enamored with the city, but like any complicated loved one, the ugly parts have to be acknowledged along with the beauty.

I must say, NO's got extremes of both.