Most folks living along the southern border of Mississippi and the southeast corner of Louisiana have enjoyed a lifelong infatuation with New Orleans.
In the wake of the tragedy that struck the city’s French Quarter in the wee hours of New Year’s Day and caused 14 deaths and 35 serious injuries, some reevaluation of that enduring romance is likely to occur by many devotees.
I don’t believe there will ever be a total and heartbreaking divorce with the “Big Easy,” but a reconsideration of it as a place of adoration and yearning may be warranted.
Mac Gordon
Our hometown of McComb is some 100 miles due north of the city. Before the coming of Interstate-55 in the 1960s the trip was taken chiefly on U.S. Highway 51 through legitimate Louisiana swampland or via an enjoyable ride on the celebrated “City of New Orleans” passenger train and its sister ship on the steel rails, the long-discarded “Panama Limited.” (Soon, there’ll be restoration of train service between New Orleans and Mobile.) The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway route opened later, providing an alternative route.
My generation’s ancestors all made the short trip occasionally for business or pleasure, including both of my grandfathers, one a farmer, the other a lawyer, from rural Amite County. Fellow Mississippians have dined for time immemorial in the city’s many fine restaurants and to go on shopping junkets, to attend premier sporting events or to enjoy refined cultural arts events that are standard fare of New Orleans life.
Sidebar: My dad was that rare bird who had grown up in the rurality of Southwest Mississippi, yet somehow became enthralled with the splendor of the New Orleans opera scene. Which of his children was the guinea pig forced to accompany him on those operatic jaunts? I’m plenty grateful for the experience and now enjoy the same music.
The major attractions for dad and son, however, were the many sports events staged in the big city. In myriad newspapering roles, Dad, Charley Gordon, regularly received press box passes to Sugar Bowl games in old Tulane Stadium, and we witnessed a dozen or more together in that hallowed space, including classics involving the superb Ole Miss Rebel teams of the era.
South Mississippians from all areas below Jackson were periodical shoppers in the renowned department stores of yesteryear in downtown New Orleans: Maison Blanche, Gus Mayer, D.H. Holmes and Godchaux’s and Krauss, to name several. Matrons from our hometown became fixtures in the houses of haute couture the city offered along with its dignified venues of the cultural arts.
In 2000, the National WWII Museum opened in the city and immediately became one of its major attractions, enticing almost one million visitors annually. They built it and people came. Will they keep coming?
It is also a fact that people from our home area have depended for more than a century on specialized medical care in New Orleans hospitals and clinics that perhaps was unavailable locally.
When combined with the city’s ever-evolving restaurant scene that few places in America can emulate, New Orleans has the capacity to remain a shining star in the country’s economic menagerie of entertainment, arts, sports, healthcare and business and industry. The Superdome will host the Super Bowl on Feb. 9.
But, something must change in the way the city protects its citizens and visitors, not just for big events but for daily living. The carnage, which didn’t just start, cannot continue. The U.S. has seen other large cities with similar resources become irrelevant for reasons such as this latest horrific incident.
Eventually, they become moribund and struggle to recover from their mistakes. Then, they wither and die and the people stop coming.
That seems to be where New Orleans finds itself today — at a crossroads leading to its ultimate destiny.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: New Orleans is at a crossroads leading to its ultimate destiny