It Takes More Than a Village To Make a Great City

Flat Stanley

Sometimes, I wish I could travel the world just like Flat Stanley.  Then, I realize that I don't really like to travel further than about a mile from our house, having all my wants and my appetite for adventure satisfied in that meager radius.  I love our neighborhood in New Orleans and I don't really need many changes in my scenery.  Frau Schmitt will tell you that I think going to the other side of the city is too far, and it's only about a twenty minute trip by motor scooter.  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.

Don't ask me to go to the mall.

I was listening to Glenn Campbell on my stereo hi-fi last night.



He was a lineman for the county, but we don't have counties here in Louisiana.  We have parishes. 

I don't mean church parishes.  We those, too, of course, but I'm talking about civic parishes.  There is a separation here between church and state, but it's sometimes difficult to discern where that line might be.  God Bless Louisiana.




This is my absolute favorite of the God Bless Louisiana spots.  "Someday we'll be together in the only place better than here."  Amen.

Witchita, a city and county in Kansas, has a very sharp looking flag.

Witchita flag

It's nicer than the New Orleans flag, and by nicer, I mean only that it packs a bit more vexillogical oomph, or, chutzpah, if you will.

New Orleans flag

Unlike in Witchita, the linemen in Orleans Parish don't work for the county.   They work for Entergy, which is the local gas and electricity monopoly.  What's an Entergy lineman look like?



It may not seem as romantic, and nobody has written a song about it, but the Entergy lineman knows exactly what he's doing, a one-man crew.  You might think that the background music in that video has been added post-production.  Nope.  That's the ambient noise in New Orleans.  A brass band happened to be practicing a block away.  It happens all the time all over the city.  There is always music in the air here for those with the ears to hear it.

I'll bet when that Entergy lineman was done with this job, it was lunchtime and he went over to Sammy's Food Service and Deli on Elysian Fields Avenue for a Ray-Ray po' boy.  A man who works hard deserves a hard working man's lunch with all the trimmings.

Here's a shout out to all of New Orleans' physical infrastructure workers as well as the cultural ones.  It takes more than a village to make a great city.

Tourism may be the main driver of New Orleans' economy, but it's the people who live here that make the city a place worth visiting.  Remember that as you stroll our picturesque streets.  The people who live in New Orleans are the most welcoming people on earth.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade.
...Where the rest comes easy.