Katrina and ... video games?
NEW ORLEANS -- Mom's house. This is where I told Nana I loved her before she died. It's where I celebrated my wedding to my future ex-wife.
I go home again and a FEMA trailer is sprawled out on the front yard. The trailer's plastic water pipes clutch like claws around the sides of the house on the mend.
A year and a half since Hurricane Katrina, thousands of homes remain crumbled, broken or burned. For generations, the city has buried its own in above-ground cemeteries to protect graves from floods. Now entire neighborhoods of houses look like above-ground cemeteries.
Mom's house is almost a home again. Although, the front outer wall still bears the spray paint of rescue workers: an "X," plus a number signifying how many bodies were found inside. (My family escaped.)
I flew to New Orleans to visit Mom; to take video games to my brother Brad's son, Kyle; and to heal my sister Teresa's Nintendo DS. Katrina ruined the handheld system's battery charger, along with Teresa's home and her daughter Jennifer's GameCube. And everything else they owned.
As it turns out, Brad bought Kyle, 7, a second PlayStation 2 and plugged it into the TV in his truck. Over the holidays, Brad and his love, Elaina, took Kyle for a road trip away from the madness. Kyle's backseat PS 2 kept him busy.
"We drove thousands of miles, and we didn't hear a word from Kyle. It was worth it," Brad said of the system's cost, around $120.
I've dogged the PS 2 for about a year, because it's slower and meeker than new systems. But I had a lot of fun playing Kyle's favorite games with him: "Sly 3: Honor Amongst Thieves," "IHRA Drag Racing" and "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy." He beat me a few times.
"I won, fool!" he kept saying.
I can't say this enough: Playing games is a good distraction.
When Kyle and I walked outside, I thought this must be what happens in ghost towns after they get blown up in war games: rebuilding life around the dead and rotted while neighbors and strangers help each other. (Government home-rebuilding money still hasn't really come.)
One day, I hung out with Teresa and her boyfriend, Kevin, in the French Quarter. The area looks great and suffered relatively little.
Teresa (I got my sense of humor from her) tried to loosen me up local style at The Abbey, a pub where urns of dead customers sit on a mantle of shadows.
"You're in New Orleans. Ya gotta get fizzy," she said.
Teresa said it's a good thing tourists are oblivious to the destruction in her neighborhood, Gentilly.
"A lot of businesses have and will go under if tourists don't come and spend money," she said.
I eyed those out-of-towners snapping photos. I walked up Decatur Street and drowned my sorrows in café au lait and beignets at Café du Monde. I strode by a street performer tricking visitors with sleight of hand and stood at the cusp of Jackson Square.
From my iPod, Regina Spektor whispered sprightly into my ear: "The world is everlasting. It's coming. And it's going."
(PlayStation 2 -- It's less powerful than newer game systems, but it's still a fun and splashy system offering scores of great games for sale. It's also cheaper than the $400 Xbox 360, $250 Nintendo Wii and $600 PS 3. The PS 2 retails for $120. Three stars out of four.)
I go home again and a FEMA trailer is sprawled out on the front yard. The trailer's plastic water pipes clutch like claws around the sides of the house on the mend.
A year and a half since Hurricane Katrina, thousands of homes remain crumbled, broken or burned. For generations, the city has buried its own in above-ground cemeteries to protect graves from floods. Now entire neighborhoods of houses look like above-ground cemeteries.
Mom's house is almost a home again. Although, the front outer wall still bears the spray paint of rescue workers: an "X," plus a number signifying how many bodies were found inside. (My family escaped.)
I flew to New Orleans to visit Mom; to take video games to my brother Brad's son, Kyle; and to heal my sister Teresa's Nintendo DS. Katrina ruined the handheld system's battery charger, along with Teresa's home and her daughter Jennifer's GameCube. And everything else they owned.
As it turns out, Brad bought Kyle, 7, a second PlayStation 2 and plugged it into the TV in his truck. Over the holidays, Brad and his love, Elaina, took Kyle for a road trip away from the madness. Kyle's backseat PS 2 kept him busy.
"We drove thousands of miles, and we didn't hear a word from Kyle. It was worth it," Brad said of the system's cost, around $120.
I've dogged the PS 2 for about a year, because it's slower and meeker than new systems. But I had a lot of fun playing Kyle's favorite games with him: "Sly 3: Honor Amongst Thieves," "IHRA Drag Racing" and "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy." He beat me a few times.
"I won, fool!" he kept saying.
I can't say this enough: Playing games is a good distraction.
When Kyle and I walked outside, I thought this must be what happens in ghost towns after they get blown up in war games: rebuilding life around the dead and rotted while neighbors and strangers help each other. (Government home-rebuilding money still hasn't really come.)
One day, I hung out with Teresa and her boyfriend, Kevin, in the French Quarter. The area looks great and suffered relatively little.
Teresa (I got my sense of humor from her) tried to loosen me up local style at The Abbey, a pub where urns of dead customers sit on a mantle of shadows.
"You're in New Orleans. Ya gotta get fizzy," she said.
Teresa said it's a good thing tourists are oblivious to the destruction in her neighborhood, Gentilly.
"A lot of businesses have and will go under if tourists don't come and spend money," she said.
I eyed those out-of-towners snapping photos. I walked up Decatur Street and drowned my sorrows in café au lait and beignets at Café du Monde. I strode by a street performer tricking visitors with sleight of hand and stood at the cusp of Jackson Square.
From my iPod, Regina Spektor whispered sprightly into my ear: "The world is everlasting. It's coming. And it's going."
(PlayStation 2 -- It's less powerful than newer game systems, but it's still a fun and splashy system offering scores of great games for sale. It's also cheaper than the $400 Xbox 360, $250 Nintendo Wii and $600 PS 3. The PS 2 retails for $120. Three stars out of four.)
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