I made a foray into the guts of the City this morning. I kept asking myself "why do you do this to yourself. Why do you keep visiting the empty places and viewing the inadequacy of city officials. Why do you take pictures of the once-beautiful little cottages in the Ninth Ward. Why, why, why?"
I spent about two hours, first at Holy Cross School, then in the neighborhoods of the Ninth
Ward, then in City Park where it was storming so hard no one else was in sight. And, I had a grand time in the rain with a big umbrella over my head to protect my camera. By the time I got back into my car my jeans were so heavy from the soaking and I had probably ruined a pair of shoes.
When I drove over the 17th Street Canal back into suburbia I realized why I had gone into the City--to see its charm and feel its ambiance and enjoy its beauty, even though much of it is still in ruins post-Katrina. Suburbia was just another place with billboards and traffic jams and strip malls.