Dear Gretna,
I am writing today with only slightly feigned regret to inform you that we will not be taking you up on your kind offer of hosting us for what I am sure will be a suitably merry celebration this holiday season.
By all accounts, we will miss a lovely parade. Additionally, your annual Picnic Under the Lights event, held in the shadow of the festively illuminated Huey P. Long Bridge, sounds like a positively wonderful tradition.
My cockles are warming just thinking about it. Alas, not even hot cockles can guarantee my attendance.
I assure you, it is not you.
It is not me, either, though.
It is that confounded bridge.
And not just the Huey P., mind you. As with so many hailing from these parts, my hesitance extends to all the bridges: the Luling bridge, the Green Bridge, the Crescent City Connection, the Twin Spans, the Causeway.
(Perhaps that eternal, infernal Causeway most of all.)
As you may know, here in the city that altitude forgot, anything taller than Monkey Hill is viewed as an Everest-like obstacle. In all honesty, we are pretty suspicious of our more modest spans, too.
The misfortune-prone Claiborne Avenue bridge or that unpredictable rustbucket spanning the Industrial Canal at St. Claude Avenue might not tower over the landscape, yet they still hold a special place in our municipal amygdala.
The I-10 High Rise might be a rare exception, but only because the soul-soothing aroma of roasted coffee wafting from the Folgers plant serves as a pleasant distraction.
Food and drink will do that to us.
The point is, to ask a New Orleanian to drive to the West Bank is to confront them with an almost crippling psychological hurdle.
Please do not misconstrue the city’s general gephyrophobia as in any way impugning the quality of said structures. They are all fine, solidly built spans, I am certain.
Well, maybe not all of them. The aforementioned St. Claude Avenue Bridge is more than a century old. In my inexpert opinion, it is no more trustworthy than a Sewerage & Water Board storm drain in May. But at least one of our local bridges – the Causeway – was an engineering game-changer upon its 1956 completion. (I learned that on “Modern Marvels.”) That has to count for something, right?
Regardless, we simply prefer to marvel at our bridges – modern or otherwise – from the safety of the batture.
The east bank batture, to be specific.
Admittedly, this fear is not a rational one. The spans of the Crescent City Connection, by my estimation, are only about a third of a mile over water. I have witnessed longer distances between Mardi Gras floats. I have seen longer lines at a Jazz Fest porta potty or in front of Randazzo’s on King’s Day.
But, then, we are talking about a population that throws parties for hurricanes and funerals with equal vigor. Rationality has never been our strong suit. We will own that, and we will do so unapologetically.
Clearly, there is something deeper going on here, deeper even than the water that courses beneath said bridges – which, in fact, very well might have something to do with it all.
The irony there is noted. After all, its proximity to life-giving water is among the reasons the city was founded where it was. Hemmed in by the river on one side, the lake on another, and bayou, swamps, marshes and potholes everywhere else, New Orleans feels very much like a city afloat, a vice-fueled Venice, an Atlantis-in-waiting.
Historically, it has even been referred to as the Isle of Orleans – which, in a beautiful example of the city’s myriad hard-wired contradictions, isn’t entirely true from a geographical standpoint but which isn’t entirely false, either.
This is a place in which more family homes boast pirogues than picket fences. Where a suitably remote fishing camp is treated as a prized family heirloom. Where baiting hooks and peeling crawfish are skills taught early.
We know water, is what I am trying to say. We love it, even, whether for reasons recreational, economical or nutritional.
Honestly, we kind of have to. Our daily existence is, consequently, a damp, often rashy one.
One would think that those living in such a water-forward landscape would have no qualms crossing bridges. One would be very wrong on that account.
It is a good thing we never have to leave.
So: Happy holidays, from our batture to yours.
See you at Mardi Gras.
Insincerely yours,
New Orleans
Ask Mike Have a question or a thought to share about New Orleans etiquette or tradition? I’d love to hear it. Email it to mike@myneworleans.com
