When Pigs Fly

It is very hard to describe the feeling in the city after the Saints amazing-spectacular-historic win over the Vikings on Sunday. I was stuck out of town on personal business of an extremely sad nature, and yet I too was totally swept up in the moment. There I was, up in my hotel room in a distant state, screaming at the top of my lungs, pounding the furniture, and quite bawling into the phone to Big Man. I had been calling my sisters and him for every score and every turnover, but when the Big Moment happened, as Hartley's kick went through the goalposts, you simply could not call the 504 area code. A recording came on, saying, "All circuits are busy -- please try your call again later." Luckily, since Big Man and I are still using the New Jersey cell numbers, we were still able to reach each other.

Big Man stepped out on our porch and held his phone out into the air for me to hear the shouting and singing, the fireworks, the music. Later, he said he drove around the city with our dog Keely, just to experience the city-wide euphoria. I was sorry to have missed it, but was glad to have the first-hand reports.

On Monday, the T-P's NOLA.com website reported the fears of a family in New Orleans whose patriarch had always declared he didn't want to die until he saw a black man be president and the Saints go to the Superbowl. The family was now worried that their Paw-Paw had nothing to live for.

On my return to New Orleans, I was told by a friend that her son had left her house on Sunday before the game ended to drive across the river for some errand or appointment. (One wonders how important this engagement could have been to have pulled him from the TV set with the game still on!) He phoned the house from the Crescent City Connection, saying, "Traffic is at a standstill; I'm just sitting here." Turns out when the folks heard the end of the game broadcast, they just put their cars into "park" and jumped out onto the Bridge, hugging strangers, screaming, crying, laughing, dancing between the cars. I picture this in my imagination and I want to cry.

Houses and businesses all over the city are decorated in black and gold, with giant sparkly fleur de lis and home-made signs in support of "Our Saints." Sacred Heart School moved their Saints sign from the fence to the building proper: "We [Sacred Heart logo] Our Saints." Sportcasters and newscasters continue to refer to Our Saints, the definitive article apparently tossed aside for the duration. A house on Earhart is totally covered in Saints decorations, with a 6-foot fleur de lis on the roof (one pictures the homeowner carefully climbing up to install this emblem of his devotion.)

On Tuesday night, or rather, early Wednesday morning, Big Man was walking to his vehicle after playing his usual gig on Bourbon Street, and spotted 3 drunken young people (2 young men and a young woman), apparently from their looks, Arab-Americans, weaving down the street, their arms around each other's shoulders. They were grinning ear to ear, and every now and then as they stumbled around, they stopped, threw their heads back and hollered in unison, with thick accents, "Whoo dah? Whoo dah?" Who Dat Nation embraces all races, all classes, all ethnicities.

On Friday the wondrous Julie Posner did her usual Friday thing on WWOZ, and couldn't stop burbling excitedly about the Saints. "The Superbowl isn't even important -- this is a dream come true, just like this!"

The parade on Sunday afternoon to honor both the Saints and the late-great local sportcaster Buddy DiLiberto drew over 10,000 fans, with nearly all the men donning dresses for the occasion. (Buddy D once swore that if the Saints ever made it to the Superbowl, he would wear a dress down Poydras Avenue.) Seemed like ALL of the paraders and parade-goers ended up on Bourbon Street afterwards, forcing all of the music venues into repeated choruses of "The Saints" and the sacred "Who Dat?" chant all night long.

On a house near my church, the pink cement pigs in front, which are always trimmed or decorated according to the season, are now sporting pink glitter wings. On a similarly trimmed house in our neighborhood, the pigs wear Saints helmets, black satin capes, and bright shiny gold wings.