Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?

Travel Stories: Kate Hahn shares her only souvenir of The Big Easy: the memory of a city that showed her how to let go

09.09.05 | 10:20 PM ET

Ten yards ahead of me, the horse-drawn hearse rolls slowly up the street. Behind it trudges a brass band, playing a dirge with a rhythm to match the sway of the black plume on the horse’s head. Then comes the mayor of New Orleans and his entourage: a wall of somber blue and gray suits so close to me that I could pick the lint off their backs if I wanted. When we reach the gate in the high white walls of St. Louis Cemetery #1, everything stops. The pallbearers remove the casket, and respectfully straighten the satin sash across its lid, which reads, in glittering script, “1999.”

It is the morning of New Year’s Eve, and we’re at a symbolic burial of the century that brought us into the world and raised us—the hundred-year span that is in some way the mother of everyone standing here.

My boyfriend Andrew and I are still wondering if anyone will notice we don’t belong in the cluster of dignitaries. An hour ago we attended a funeral mass for the twentieth century, held at St. Augustine Catholic Church in the Treme District. We just happened to sit in a pew behind the municipal leaders. When the service was over, we streamed down the aisle after them and ended up near the head of the procession. No one has asked us to step aside like good out-of-towners.

We’re not exactly holding up the rear of the mourner parade either. There are hundreds behind us; some dressed in church clothes, others in tee shirts, shorts and flip-flops, just following the music. At somewhat regular intervals along this stream of people are ten or more brass bands, each with its own distinct style of dress - purple tail coats and matching purple bowlers adorned with feathers, elaborate red suits, tartan vests, green top hats.

Outside the cemetery, an official steps forward to make an announcement. I’m sure he’s going to tell us crashers to clear out. But he simply explains what’s on the agenda: Only the mayor and a few others will go inside to the gravesite, while the rest of us wait outside. When the VIPs return, there will be speeches, and the procession will continue. Andrew and I whisper to each other, speculating about what is in the casket. Is it a secret supply of beignets and coffee that the higher-ups will snack on in private? And what will the dignitaries really do once they get inside the cemetery walls?

But it really doesn’t matter to me if they’re eating breakfast or sealing deals or actually reading psalms. I don’t mind biding my time under this overcast sky. There is nowhere else I want to be. The Big Easy is the only city in the United States giving the 20th Century the send-off she deserves. After all, she brought us antibiotics and telephones, atomic bombs and AIDS, air conditioning and global warming, cars, movies, rock-n-roll. Her legacy is mixed, but powerful. It is fitting that the final resting place of such a big century should be in a city that knows how to say a big good-bye.

It turns out that the mysterious interment takes only about ten minutes. Afterwards, the suits emerge from the cemetery without any telltale signs of post-beignet powdered sugar on their lapels, and make speeches about their hopes for the next hundred years. All of us in the procession stand stock-still and listen quietly. Partiers cruise by, pause, and then trot off. A woman in a tank top, wearing sunglasses in the shape of the number “2000,” two of the zeroes filled with tinted lenses, stays long enough to smoke a cigarette.  Her boa sheds feathers so soaked with humidity that they don’t blow away when they fall off.

When the mayor is finished, the brass band starts up so loudly with “When the Saints Go Marching In” that I jump. The music is as bright as the gold braid around the musicians’ uniforms, and as bouncy as the fringe on their gilded epaulets as they point their horns toward heaven and then to hell. Around us, people shuffle their feet and dance. Andrew and I look at each other, and do the same.

The parade starts moving again. We don’t know where it’s going, but we follow along, hundreds of us dancing to the music. We turn a corner, the asphalt ripples into old cobblestones, we’re in the French Quarter, and suddenly there’s a crowd of spectators. They press three or four deep on the narrow sidewalks, waving white handkerchiefs and tie-dyed bandanas. Some are obviously tourists holding Hurricane glasses. Others are probably residents, cradling babies. But their cheers are indistinguishable from one another. The louder they get, the harder the musicians seem to push the air out of their lungs, filling the horns and sending the sound into the upper stories of the Quarter. It’s like all the twists and turns in the ironwork balconies are unloosed and turned to music.

Andrew and I dance faster, spinning and turning so we won’t disappoint anyone who is watching. The cobblestones are slippery under my dressy shoes. Andrew is sweating, his silk tie still knotted tight. People press in on our parade, channeling us into a narrower and narrower stream, but leaving us enough room to dance. I see their faces: smiling, sweaty, and happy. Andrew and I do a few swing steps, and get some applause. I am usually nervous in big crowds, but not here. There is a feeling of unity in the air, of generosity, of the relief and joy that comes when everyone is taking pleasure in the same thing.

I can’t believe our luck, to be in a parade in a city we’re just visiting - not just watching the celebration, but providing grist for it. The line between tourist and resident, observer and participant, seems to have been wiped away. And a tiny champagne bubble of elation rises inside of me. Maybe, this is what the 21st Century will be like. Maybe it will be an era when everyone gets excited about the same thing.

Then, in the middle of a crowded block, beads hit the pavement in front of me - the famous glittery plastic treasure of New Orleans - amber-colored and purple. I look up and see a woman on a balcony with an entire armload, strung from elbow to wrist, like a curtain into a secret room. She points to me, and throws a strand. I eagerly reach out my hand, surprised at how much I want them. But suddenly a lone man darts out of the crowd. He’s in a blue tie-dyed shirt, his back is slightly hunched, and his dark-black hair is almost gone on top but caught in a low ponytail in the back. He looks like a gnome. He leaps up and catches the beads in mid-air, then scurries into the parade ahead of us, doing a hopping, rocking dance.

My beads! I look up. The woman on the balcony is calling to me, but I can’t hear her. She shakes her arm, and the faceted necklaces jump and jiggle. She smiles, points at me, and then mouths the word, “You.” She throws another one. But it’s hard to aim a handful of plastic baubles held together by a length of floss. They veer away from her intended path, and the thief leaps up and intercepts these too. The street crowd is watching now, caught up in the drama. “Aww!” they say, a chorus of sympathy.

The woman throws again, and the beads land right in front of me on the cobblestones. I’m sure I have them this time. I bend to pick them up, and at the last minute the gnome dives in and snatches them from under my fingers. He holds them over his head like a trophy. Then he shakes them wildly in the air, oblivious to the fact that no one is on his side, and that no one shares his feeling of triumph. Again the crowd moans in my favor. Some people even jump up and down, and point from the balcony to me.

But the parade is moving on, out of the bead thrower’s range, and I’m going with it. I give the woman an exaggerated shrug of defeat. She shrugs back. The street crowd laughs. Andrew gives me a kiss, and dips me so my hair nearly touches the cobblestones. The gnome runs back into the mass of people, and disappears.

Let him have his plastic trinkets. I already have my strand of beads: it is this parade, this crowd, the musicians in purple, gold, and red, all connected and snaking through the city in a long, colorful strand. I can’t drape it over my rearview mirror when I get home, but because it is locked in my memory I can wear it anytime. It is my only souvenir of New Orleans, the one American city to make sure the 20th Century rested in peace, and the one that has an amazing capacity for turning loss into joy.


.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) has written for Salon, Newsweek and Dissent, and her commentaries have been featured on National Public Radio's Day to Day.


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