Geaux Saints!

This is not a post about football.

I am a brown-bagger from way back.  I grew up in Pensacola, Florida - on the Gulf Coast just five counties and one parish east of New Orleans - and the Saints were the nearest professional football team available.  My parents, being transplants from a bit farther west, were die-hard Cowboys fans, but America's Team never really did it for me.  I have always been a fan of the underdog, and there was one just three hours up the Interstate: my beloved "Ain'ts".  Jokes like this were common:

Q: How do you keep Saints off your lawn?
A: Put up a goalpost.

As I got older, I learned to love the city of New Orleans as well as its football team.  I found joy in the cobblestoned streets and dank, malodorous alleyways of the Vieux Carré and in the slightly snooty iron-fenced yards and antebellum constructions of the Garden District - some restored to former grandeur, some moldering in quiet obscurity.  I developed a deep appreciation for the food, especially - gumbo thick with shrimp; red beans and rice with boudin and cornbread; beignets and cafe au lait, like a tourist but at 3:00 in the morning.  (The advent of online shopping has made it much easier to keep myself stocked with chicory coffee, especially since I've moved to Tennessee.)

In August of 2005 I was still living in Pensacola, and though you may hear flippant stories about hurricane parties and those sorts of things, I assure you, anyone who lived through Erin and Opal (1995), Helene (2000), Ivan (2004), and Dennis (July 2005) took one look at Katrina as she came roaring across the Gulf of Mexico and flipped out.  Anyone with sense knew what was coming.  But you know as well as I do what happened, so I won't go into detail.  Suffice it to say that anyone who knew and loved the city was nearly as devastated by what happened as those who lived there.

The love of the "Ain'ts" spread across the U.S. following Katrina; there was a small diaspora as Gulf Coast residents and natives, many having lost everything but their lives, sought new places to settle.  For many, many people, especially multi-generational Acadiana natives, it hurt too badly to go back.  Homes, family members, livelihoods were gone in an instant.  There might be nothing to go back to - like other large cities, there were many in New Orleans who were lifelong renters, and didn't even own a patch of land to try to rebuild on.  It was easier to go elsewhere and start fresh - even with an accent that's incomprehensible to 95% of America.

And then, from nowhere, in the midst of the rebuilding and all that it entailed, the 2009 NFL season happened, and Brown Baggers all over the U.S. sat up and went, "Bzuh?"  Where did this Brees kid come from, and how'd he get that arm?  And how did we get him?  And - and - oh my God, did Tracy Porter just INTERCEPT A PEYTON MANNING PASS AND OH MY GOD HE'S OUT IN FRONT THERE'S NOBODY AROUND HIM GO BABY GO OH MY GOD TOUCHDOWN SEVENTY-FOUR YARDS DID YOU SEE THAT HOLY SH!T THREE MINUTES LEFT IN THE GAME OH MY GOD I THINK WE JUST WON THIS GAME

That was the year New Orleans became, not a team to be feared, but a team to be respected.
And I'm feeling nostalgic today because we won, but I didn't get to watch it because my local FOX affiliate decided some movie was more important.  *sigh*

We're 3-0 so far this season. I'm hoping we can keep the momentum going.  I'd like to hang another Super Bowl Champions t-shirt in my closet.  For right now, though, I'll settle for a cup of cafe au lait.  And maybe I'll make some red beans and rice for dinner.



Brown bag Saints fans photo from http://blog.al.com/pr-community-news/2012/02/harder_to_take_pro_football_se.html, used without permission.