You're welcome here, kind stranger...

The Be Good Tanyas' version of "The Lakes of Pontchartrain," a civil war-era folk song, kept ing in my head all weekend. Here I slapped a verse on a photo of a pretty doorbell. It wasn't actually the doorbell to the house of the kind folks who hosted us, but the basic idea (welcoming Southern hospitality) is there. Some of the vignetting happened in-camera, but, again, I used photoshop to make it more prominent.

Our hosts were Patrick (who goes by Patrap), his wife Theresa, and their 15-year-old son, also Patrick. They started off as strangers to us-- Molly's aunt knew them from Weather Underground, where you can read Patrap's tips for hurricane preparedness. They spent 26 months living in a FEMA trailer, so they would know. I was struck by the pride they took in having endured that, in having rebuilt and returned, the pride they took in their city was phenomenal. They welcomed us into their house with open arms, sharing stories, inviting Molly to sing with their son at a coffee shop, and even leaving the key to their house with us when we went out that night!


Here they were playing with their sweetie of a dog while watching the weather on TV. It was Saturday, so everyone (and I mean every single New Orleanian I talked to) was worried about Dolly. (Side note: I've got an entire upcoming post dedicated to photos of their adorable dogs.)




I wanted to show both of the last two photos together because they're very similar, and together they tell a lot. In the first one, Theresa is knocking on her neighbor's door to see if they want to come out with us tonight to a coffee shop where her son is performing. Friendly Southern neighbors, sharing a porch, a backyard, an evening's entertainment. Beautiful.

You can't see Patrap in the second because he was around the corner behind me. "This North wind is really freaking me out," Patrap said, "It was like this right before Katrina." He said it with a mixture of fear and pride and confidence in his knowledge of weather, and here Theresa is standing on her front porch, a social center of deep Southern culture, thinking about the wind direction, and about (then Tropical Storm) Dolly.