People ask how I still have the ability to write about Plaquemines Parish as if the levees never failed and Hurricane Katrina never happened. The technique I use, is going to a few spots and then leaving without taking in the fact that it is basically a ghost town or a former shadow of its old self. While the Nawlins lower ninth and Ground Zero in Manhattan stay in the news, thereby creating a rich documentation record; Plaquemines Parish is treated as if it was never really apart of the United States. There are major historic American landmarks that are just being ignored by the U.S. Government and state of La.
One can not talk about the establishing of New Orleans, as a major center during colonial America, without speaking of Plaquemines Parish. One can not talk about the La. seafood industry without having to admit that Plaquemines Parish started it all, in this state. One can not talk about the American Revolution without talking about Plaquemines Parish but even with this rich history, one gets the impression, that the government believes this Parish was established in 2002!
In my mind, I can still picture the schools, and game night at Fort Jackson. I still can see toilet paper on the cars at Buras High School, with Purple and Gold glitter, which meant that it was game time between Buras and Port Sulfur's football teams. I can still see the restaurants and students cruising the highways. There is still so little over-sight on the rebuilding of Plaquemines Parish and so little being documented, that I felt it was my duty to reject the reality of a culture that simply is no longer there.
There was a company, that started manufacturing plastic fishermen boots, a few years back, as a fashion accessory but the company found out that the boots had such a long life span that they weren't profitable to keep pushing on the market. But for a minute, people were walking around with plastic oysterboots in Beverly Hills 90210! What this company does not know, or maybe they do, is that rocking the plastic oyster boots, for fashion was started in the high schools of lower Plaquemines in the early 90's. That's right. Plaquemines Parish rocked the plastic oyster boots fashions before New York or Tyra Banks had a chance!
What brought the reality of life and the reality of my mind clashing together? Facebook.com After receiving an email, from a former native of Boothville, Jodi Johnson-Bowers, telling me to get my Facebook account in order, I realized that the physical aspects have little baring on the spirit and soul. You see, even though major land marks are completely gone and citizens of Plaquemines Parish, can't really see the spot where they may have had their first kiss, first sexual encounter, first fight, first drunken Mad-Dog puke or any other first-the Gen X'ers and Gen Y'ers of Plaquemines Parish, have still managed to create an environment, on social networking sites, that makes one feel that your still living in the same closely knit community, which existed prior to the civil engineering disaster after Katrina.
While Facebook.com is popular in other areas, it doesn't take on a spiritual vibe like it does when your a displaced citizen, of a cluster of All American Towns, that have been restructured off the map. Plaquemines Parish, being in rural Louisiana, means that most people attend one or two schools, growing up, therefore your with the same social group from 4 years of age into adult hood. This fact of life, in rural America, creates bonds of steel. Not only do you always have people, somewhere in the world, who know the most embarrassing and intimate details of your being but you have a feel of family. This is something that a place like lower Manhattan or even areas of New Orleans will never, ever appreciate.
I can recall conversations with teenagers from Plaquemines Parish, who were debating on if the town was cursed because of all the traffic deaths, oil field freak accidents and just an usually high amount of freaky accidents, that seem strange. I have lost more friends, to freak accidents in Plaquemines Parish, than I care to elaborate on. I am guilty of this curse conspiracy myself. I used to be convinced that the "Curse of Plaquemines Parish" would find a way to kill me but now I recognize that it is typical adolescent rebellion.
The feeling that a community owns someone, is the constant and all consuming complaint, that anyone from any rural or small town knows all to well. The agenda of every High School kid in any small town-USA is to shake the town off, then something like Katrina happens, along with the failures of the U.S. Levee Systems, and that agenda quickly changes. All of a sudden, folks start remembering how simple life was, how communities protect their own and just how disassociated people are from each other, when they grow up in a big urban city. Urban areas and generic suburban wastelands, just don't offer the same since of belonging to something set in stone....for the good or the bad.
It can be frustrating, trying to reminisce with my best friend about grueling workouts at dawn on Fort Jackson's race track, and realizing that half the spots that hold very special memories, are no longer there. It is frustrating when your mind still remembers, homes and neighborhoods, the way they were prior to Aug of 2005 but you realize that the families have all been thrown to the wind, by the U.S. Government but this also shall pass and we will live on.
Anti-citizen policies, by La. Gov Piyush Jindal and Parish President, Billy Nungessor, have actually started driving successful and hardworking business people, native to Plaquemines Parish out of business. We have Ann Pitre, who was running a boat rental business for decades in Plaquemines Parish, now closed down (as of last month in Black Bay) because Billy Nungessor, wants the businesses to be owned by non-natives, who appear to be charging and arm and a leg, for services, that used to be provided by natives, like Ann Pitre!
It is this consistent under-belly of back room deals, that have created the most political corruption in Louisiana state. While the local media, makes no effort at all, to expose the real life struggles of many native Plaquemines business people, places like Facebook.com (and phone calls from one's mother) also provide an invaluable journalism tool in La. state. Ann Pitre, is a case and point, that Louisiana isn't suffering the legacy of Hurricane Katrina but instead suffering the network of corruption, which has used Katrina as an opportunity to create bad policy.
Ann Pitre, started out working as a cashier at the local Plaquemines Parish Fill-A-Sac store, just like my own mother. She revamped herself into a business woman, catering to the local boating market and appeared to be the American Dream before back room deals, put into effect by the La. local government, turned her dream into a nightmare. Ann Pitre, is now a Ghost of Plaquemines Parish, along with so many other people who have fallen victim to bad politics in this state.
What is hopeful, is knowing and experiencing the weakness of the physical world. It is hopeful seeing the illusions of the mundane and calling the bluff. While things on the physical have drastically changed, likely for good, the people and relationships are still intact. Even though people are planted all over the place the same sense of community appears to be living on through high tech communications and social networking sites.
The power of collective community is so strong, that somewhere in the Universe, Plaquemines Parish is living on and ties grow tighter.
