43 years of being the 'cursed ones', snakebit, the 'Aints'.
As I drove home last night from the party, so many thoughts and memories coursed through my mind: The 1st Saints game I watched in 1969 (about to turn 7) in my uncle's restaurant as the 'adults' ate dinner.......sitting in my dad's big black 'fake leather' chair on his lap switching back and forth between the Dolphins and Saints games back when there were only like 3 or so channels on tv......going to my 1st Saints game with my dad around 11 years old......him yelling in his thick French accent, "OH NO..!!!!" (..a phrase I would hear many times over the years....) as the Saints blew the game in the last minutes......
That's when the tears unexpectedly began to flow last night. I missed my dad being there to see what we never dreamed to see.
It's hard for those who didnt grow up in South Louisiana to understand the bond between the Saints and their fans. One writer this morning described it like this:
"It's easy to hear people talk about the connection between the city and the Saints and dismiss it as hyperbole. But the Saints are a fabric woven deeply into the tapestry of New Orleans as well as all of Louisiana culture, and one of the most remarkable and unique things about native Louisianians is the importance it places on culture."
So true.
As I continued my drive home, wiping tears from my eyes, missing my dad, a wonderful sense of hope began to fill my heart. The old song by Bob Dylan, "The Times Are A Changin" danced through my mind.
Something has changed. The Saints are a symbol of it.
43 years of loss. A generation. A city marked for excess, devastated. Deep hopelessness and despair.
But things are changing.
Listen to what the writer continues with in the article this morning concerning the celebration last night in the French Quarter:
"A flood of humanity washed onto Bourbon Street, beads raining down from people perched on balconies overhead. Ethnic, racial, economic and generational divides disappeared; strangers hugged, kissed, exchanged high-fives. From one sidewalk across the street to the other on every block in the French Quarter, the Who Dat Nation consolidated in celebration, making it impossible for anything -- people, cars, police on horseback -- to move at a speed any faster than a crawl. With their screams, their songs, they engaged in sweet release, purging the history of the Aints and the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.
While the city has earned a reputation for its crime and its fondness of alcohol, for being almost a breeding ground for sin, the atmosphere on Sunday night was remarkably benign. Police were stationed on practically every corner the entire day, but they didn't seem to need to do much. When it came time to celebrate these Saints, there wasn't the typical ugliness that you often find in other cities' championship celebrations -- no flying glass bottles, no overturned cars, no fistfights.
No, Sunday night wasn't about destruction. Like the city and the football team that plays in it, the celebration in New Orleans on Sunday was about building: building goodwill, building something better, building the belief that stigmas -- whether it's the stigma that your city is defeated or your football team is cursed -- don't have to last forever."
To better futures for us all......
PB
