New Orleans, Bike City

“Go medium speed, Mom,” four-year-old Zola requested as we pedaled to school, “I want to have time with you.” The ride is short, a little over a mile and a half, so I dialed down my pace. Zola was wearing pink cowboy boots and a pink helmet; my boots were tan and my helmet green. We talked about how the story of Rapunzel could be different if she had a twin sister who stayed with her real mom and dad while "Rapuzey" was shipped off to live in a tower. Separated at birth, a new concept for her. Her tag-along bike, a wheel with a seat and handlebars attached to my bike, jingled with leftover Mardi Gras beads and a gold pine cone dangling from her crossbar, while she wondered aloud how the sisters could be reunited.

We biked over potholes and passed cemeteries. We crossed St. Charles, listening for the clatter of the streetcar while avoiding cars going in both directions. We even rode by a movie filming on location. We greeted people every couple blocks and noticed how the cold morning was warming. I love biking in New Orleans. We’re not a hard-core biking family. We have two cars and drive when we need to, but we bike when we can.

New Orleans bikes when it can too. The city wants so many things. It believes it already is so many things. I think it especially wants to be a bike city. When New Orleans imagines itself Bike City, it envisions something different from what the rest of America sees.

New Orleans is naturally bikeable. It's flat, and there are ways to zigzag the city without being blocked in by major highways and stuck biking on six lane mega-avenues. Part of the reason it is so horrible to drive in New Orleans is why it is to bikeable. Potholes can be easily avoided on a bike. Quiet residential streets, where parked cars make it impossible for two cars to pass in opposite directions, are easily navigated by bike and link to bike arteries.

This summer thirteen-year-old Ramona stood at the windows of Portland's science museum on the banks of the Willamette River, watching bikers zip by on the paved path along the river. She called me over, "Mom, there's some sort of bike race going on. Do you see all those bikers?" I peeked out the window. Sure enough, there was a steady flow of bikers racing by on expensive bikes, wearing fancy bike helmets and special biking outfits. Even their water bottles screamed screamed high-end. But they weren't racing. These folks were headed to work.  When I shrugged and told Ramona they were just daily commuters, she didn't believe me, "Mom, that's impossible. So many people biking to work? And look at their outfits." Who would be caught dead at work in spandex with a padded butt?

My dad jumped into the conversation, ready with a statistic and sunny fact about perfect Oregon. "Portland is the number two biking city in America. Guess what number one is?" It's Minneapolis. I wondered: How do they determine that? Raw number or percentage per capita of commuters? Miles of paved bike paths? New Orleans will never be Minneapolis or Portland. I bet there’s a ranking somewhere of excellence in biking by state and I am sure that Louisiana is at the bottom, 48 or 49. And, as my son says, Mississippi probably “has our back” at 50. We suffer from an inferiority complex down here.  

"New Orleans is a biking city too," I offered.  Ramona and my dad scoffed. They weren't having it. I defended New Orleans, "Sure it's not the thousand-dollar bike capital of the country and the roads suck and the drivers don't know how to share the road with bikers and it's very difficult to protect yourself from punctures. I had three flats tires in one week last year," I admitted, "But there are no hills and people bike. Lots of people bike. Some do because they don't have another way to get where they're going and bikes are more reliable than public transportation. Some bike to be hip. Some bike to prove a point. In fact, I bet if New Orleans shunted all its commuters onto one path, it’d be busier than that rat race down there.” And less self-conscious too.

For a second, I considered if maybe I was projecting my feelings on my city's psyche. I am prone to unbridled optimism. Maybe it is just me who wants New Orleans to be a bike city? Nah, I decided. New Orleans is just a different kind of bike city.

After I dropped Zola off, I traveled a few blocks to a coffee shop and set up my laptop to write. I forgot my lock again, so while I worked at an outside table, I kept a close eye on my bike and that dangling pine cone, which sat a few feet away, just out of arm’s reach. Bike theft, like other more violent crimes, is a real problem here.

Using twisted logic, I am convinced that this proves that the city yearns to be a cycling metropolis. Everyone who lives here knows a couple wild theft stories. Sumner's best friend Joe had his bike stolen in broad daylight while he stood on the porch of his teacher's house, selling her a coupon book for his football team. The month we moved into our house, my bike was pilfered from our open garage on the day our gate was rebuilt. Were both Joe and I to blame for leaving our bikes unsecured? Partly. While cynics may see this as a knock against determining New Orleans as bike friendly, I see something else. Why would so many people steal bikes if they didn't so badly want to be biking? I believe New Orleans is hungry for bikes.  If a hungry person steals a loaf of bread, who can blame them? At least that’s what I got out of Les Miserables.

I don't condone bike theft. I once pulled over and chewed out a teenage stranger for stealing a bike. He was about six feet tall and no older than fifteen. He was riding a pink dirt bike that just didn't fit. His friend was walking next to him. When they hit Claiborne, he ditched the bike in the gutter. Driving by, I stopped, rolled down my window, and called out to him in my middle-school teacher voice, "Why did you steal that bike if you are going to dump it? Take it back. Tell me where you got it and I'll take it back."  He and his friend picked up their pace and moved away from me, shouting over their shoulders about how it was their bike. "I'm a little sensitive about this," I shouted back, cupping my hands around my mouth and leaning out the window, "My bike was stolen a few months ago. Don't. Steal. Bikes," I crescendoed. I felt a little bad that I might have scared them, so I added "and God bless you" for good measure. There was a chance they could run as fast as my mini-van.

After my fancy “hybrid” bike was stolen, I rode a three-speed bike that had been gathering dust in Philip's grandmother's garage. A few years later, Sumner harvested a mountain bike from the same stash. New Orleanians don't need to outfit themselves with a bunch of special stuff to climb on a bike and get somewhere. All of the Skeldings have been caught in an afternoon downpour while riding, but that didn't send us to REI to buy rain gear. We just learned to read the clouds and the breeze and weather.com's radar better. Sure, over time Ramona added a rack and a crate to the back of her bike so she doesn't have to carry her overloaded school bag on her back and after five years or so I upgraded to another fancy bike that I love.

I often see riders on bikes that don't match. An eighteen-year-old boy in his house slippers on a sleek road bike. A old man, upright and smiling on a hipster's yellow cruiser. A hipster with a big skirt around her ribs on a mountain bike on Saturday night. And most people don't wear helmets. I rant about this often, but I know it is part of an easy attitude towards biking. Bikers here think: no need.

Excepting the helmet part, I like this attitude. We don’t need a big budget or lots of stuff or a training schedule to get out of our cars and bike. This also applies to the actual endeavor of cycling here, not just gear. New Orleanians don't need to paint or pave a perfect path to get where we need to go. It is possible to just climb on a bike.

When we landed here I puzzled at the flatness of New Orleans. It appeared easy: no steep climbs or burning thighs. I worried that biking here would be too easy and condition me to laziness. In New Orleans, the pace is slow and steady. Sometimes my native children have to remind me to slow down. We don't move furiously like we did when we lived in New York or London or Boston. We rarely sprint. It's predictable. It's pleasant, but it’s not without risk.

This morning Zola and I had to pull over when an over-zealous carpool mom in a Suburban rode too close to Zola’s little wheel, begging us to get over, instead of waiting to pass us when the road widened. Maybe she had been trapped in her car for a while, poor thing, driving in from the burbs to drop children at various schools around the city. Who knows? We stopped, smiled, and let her pass, hoping that our calm gentility would provoke kinder road sharing in her hurried soul. I’ve been her. I get it.

Two years ago, when they were fourteen and eleven, Sumner and Ramona convinced me to let them take our bicycle-built-for-two, also procured from grandmother's garage, for simultaneous haircuts and then lunch. On this maiden duo-voyage, they were hit by a truck.  They were crossing St. Charles at Broadway on a green light. A man on his phone turned into them, crushing their front wheel and hurting Sumner's toe. The driver barely pulled over and never hung up his call. He shouted to see if they were okay before moving on. Still, we want our children to bike. It gives them freedom of movement, teaches them street smarts, and gives us back the hours of our day that we spent shuttling them places.

Despite their brush with death, Sumner and Ramona take opposite approaches to sharing the road with cars. Sumner believes he owns the road and that no one will dare hit him. He is aggressive: weaving between cars without regard for protruding side mirrors, taking over the width of the street when things narrow, and shouting at drivers who text while pausing at a stop sign. He figures out his route out as he goes. He's a confident rambler; he knows the road and he owns the road.

Ramona on the other hand is careful. Very careful. Her confidence comes from planning. She sees every car as a threat and instinctively imagines the worst-case scenario. I rode with her to school at least ten times before she was comfortable taking the journey alone. The journey is one mile on one street, a right turn, and three-quarters of a mile on another street. Still, she wanted to know and be able to articulate exactly how to navigate each stop sign, light, bike lane, and construction zone before she felt safe.

These two approaches embody New Orleans. Sumner's the rambling person who enjoys Mardi Gras by walking down the Avenue with a (vegan) drumstick in one hand and a drink in another, unsure where he'll end up or how he'll wipe his hands, but knowing that he'll run into people he knows and it'll all work out. Ramona is the tailgater who is aware of all of the potential hazards a Mardi Gras parade can throw at her. She is the person who packs enough food for herself and everyone she may see (including her brother), she maps out area bathrooms, she figures out exactly how she'll get to and from the route with minimum hassle, and she knows the start time and number of floats in every parade. She enjoys the triumphs of the city only when she is protected from its trials. If you know New Orleans, you know the ramblers and the prepared patrons. They both bike.

I tend to be more of a rambler, but the vulnerability of biking with kids caused me to consider being a bit more thoughtful when I set out on a ride. After getting those three flats in rapid succession, I decided I don't really need to travel with a pump and a patch kit. The reason is that I learned that anywhere I bike, I am only a few blocks from a friend. I will always be able to walk my bike (and maybe a bike trailer and small children) to a friend's house or porch or business and get help. And people will love helping us, hosting us. They did three times last year. One day my flat didn’t slow us down, as Zola, Opal, and I ended up dumping our bike at a friends’ and borrowing her double stroller to continue to our destination. After another flat, we rode along with a different savior on her errand to the farmer’s market before she dropped us at home. That acquaintance became a friend. The last time, our friend just fixed our flat and sent us on our way.

Whenever I drop Zola off, I wind my way to the coffee shop or home on a different path. When Zola is on the bike with me, I chose quiet streets so that I can hear her when we talk. I hardly ever bike to and from somewhere in New Orleans by retracing my steps. One-way streets can be an obstacle to tidy routes. New sinkholes force me to discover new courses. Sometimes the flow of school traffic confounds a there-and-back pathway. Even the foot traffic between classes at Loyola or Tulane can send me on a winding route home. There's always a chance that I might opt to go home a different way just so I can ride under the trees on South Carrollton or to take advantage of half the loop at Audubon Park.

It doesn't matter what course I take to get there. How I get there is what matters. I bike as much as I can, at a medium speed, in this Bike City.

Local

Moved here at age four. Local? Maybe.

In the summer of 2001, my husband's eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, Momoo, took my husband and I out for a special meal at Galatoire's, one of New Orleans oldest "standards," right on Bourbon Street. You used to have to wait in a long line for a table, but Momoo had special powers.  She "knew a waiter."  On the way there, she told us about going to Galatoire's through the years.  Waiting in line was part of the experience, chatting with the people in front or behind you, meeting strangers.  I loved hearing her stories.

She told us about New Orleans before air conditioning.  On the weekend, she and her husband and another couple would ride the streetcar downtown.  The movement of the air on the streetcar, which today seems impossibly hot during the summer, cooled them down.  Once they arrived downtown, they would go for drinks in one of the few air-conditioned hotel lobbies.

Momoo also matter-of-factly told us about meeting her first cross-dresser.  In the 1950s, she was shopping at a fancy women's boutique.  She was in the back, trying on clothes, which a shop girl was bringing to her. A different shop girl was bringing dresses to another customer, a quiet patron, uttering a few words at a time, who was trying on big sizes and remained out of sight.  The discretion of the situation made her curious, and she kept a keen eye out, wondering if the other shopper was well-known. "Finally, I saw it was a man.  That was the first time I saw that." I am sure it was not the last.  Anyone who lives in New Orleans for seventy years sees a few drag queens.

Another time she told us about an encounter with David Duke at her local hardware store.  He lived in Momoo's parish, and she'd campaigned against him, standing on the neutral ground waving signs, saying something like, "Vote for the crook, it's important." Years later, she saw Duke loading a bunch of lumber at Ace Hardware.  At first she thought it was strange that he was doing it himself. She looked over and saw several black men, employees of Ace, watching Duke struggle.  Their refusal to help him touched Momoo. She made eye contact with these men and she said they seemed like "brothers" in that moment.

On the afternoon we bypassed the line at Galatoire's, Momoo ran into someone she knew. I'll call her Miss Martha.  Miss Martha was also an octogenarian, also Jewish, and she was lunching with a friend. Momoo and Miss Martha seemed so alike at first. Momoo stopped for a second to say hello, introduced us, and took a moment to brag about Philip's recent accomplishments.  Phil and I noticed Momoo was a bit deferential, taking a moment to remind Miss Martha how they met. In the first years after Momoo had emigrated from Germany, she sewed seer-sucker suits for Miss Martha's husband. These ladies nodded and smiled at one another and then we moved along to our table.

This interaction stunned me. Momoo built her life in New Orleans. Her children and grandchildren were born here. She remembered a time before air-conditioning, was the only elderly person I knew who was comfortable with transvestites, fought to keep the KKK out of politics, and could get a reservation instead of waiting in line. Her first apartment was on Exposition Boulevard on Audubon Park and she told us she used to skate around the park with a dachshund who had immigrated with her. Brocato's spumoni was in her freezer and a banana tree was in her backyard. She loved to entertain and it seemed she knew most of New Orleans, certainly all of Jewish New Orleans.  To me, she embodied New Orleans.

Still, in her interaction with Miss Martha, it was clear that she was not from here. She could never really be a local. I asked Phil, "Does your family tree have to extend to pre-Civil War New Orleans to really be "from" here?"

I have often wondered how long I will have to live in New Orleans to be a local. How many children born in Orleans Parish legitimizes me? How many books do I need to read to understand the complexity of its people and its pain? How many costumes do I have to hoard to make myself a real parader? Why do I want to be rightful citizen? Can't I accept being naturalized by marriage? Will my Northern brashness every go away? I just don't know.

I've come to the conclusion that I want to be a real New Orleanian because with that title comes a rich understanding of the city. I don't have that yet.

Through the wonders of Facebook, I saw (after I began writing this post) Miss Martha turned 100. In order to fact check this story, I checked in with my native mother-in-law. I didn't want to get it wrong. Miss Martha is wonderful, warm, philanthropic. My mother-in-law told me was that Miss Martha wasn't "from" New Orleans either. She was from a small town in another part of Louisiana. She probably had only lived a few more years in New Orleans than Momoo. So, maybe I had misread the scene.

Or maybe Momoo's deference was just her posture, the way she was. She was humble and respectful, confident and keen, but not showy. That sort of gentility is very New Orleans. Local New Orleans. I'm still working on that.

White Knight

Ed School Graduation

Ropes Course with Students

As my parents sat in Oregon watching relentless Katrina coverage in the first weeks of September 2005, my dad saw a silver lining, "Well, at least they won't move there now." My mom probably shook her head and laughed, "Are you kidding me? This seals the deal. They will definitely move to New Orleans now." She meant that as a compliment.

My mother-in-law used to tell people, "They like to help people." It was such a sweet way for her to explain what Phil and I did. I taught and he doctored.

All but one of our academic and career advisors in Boston advised against the move. "Go in a few years," they suggested. Wait and see.

We moved to New Orleans.

Don't worry. We weren't naive. Phil is a local: born at Lakeside Hospital, grew up in Broadmoor, and went to Newman for 13 years. We just graduated from Harvard, for God's sake. We recognized our privilege and read all about institutionalized racism. Education and good heath could fix all that. We were brave, we had a minivan, and in our move from Jamaica Plain to New Orleans tripled the square footage of our home.

I just knew I knew all about post-Katrina New Orleans: I followed the media coverage obsessively (before the storm the students had to carry their own toilet paper to school!), wrote papers about Katrina for school (thesis: the teachers need a voice, a union!), and I had visited two(!) times since the storm. We were ready.

The Times-Picayune even called and interviewed me for an article about people under thirty who were relocating to New Orleans. When they realized I was thrity-one, they wished me well. This was promising. But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.

In August of 2006, I started a job at Lusher Charter High School. Lusher is a nearly one-hundred-year-old public elementary school, the first in New Orleans to peacefully integrate. It added a middle school in 1990. The school was diverse racially and social-economically.  Kids tested to get in. The weekend of the Katrina evacuation the school submitted an application to become a charter and add a high school. Sumner would be in second grade at the Little Lusher campus and Ramona would join kindergarten the year after. I was building something for them.

My initial to-do lists were all facilities related. Lusher was moving into the former "failing" Fortier High School. We needed desks, clocks, keys for the intercoms, and phones and internet in the building. Items were procured. People were happy to be working together, downright energetic. The mood was hopeful.

Later that semester, I met with every student who was in danger of failing a class. A third of the students were in that boat. We were tasked with making a plan to turn around their performance. Student after student sat down with me and explained their living situation; it was hard to study when your whole family was in a tiny FEMA trailer or living only in the upstairs rooms of a house with another family. Action plans that named flashcards and tutoring as next steps seemed a little silly.

I loved working with teachers and students. I loved everything from making vocabulary powerpoints to remediating reading skills to discussing Flannery O'Conner to reading freshmen literary analysis. I even enjoyed the Homecoming Dance and taking student leaders to city-wide leadership council meetings and the odd kids who ate lunch in a corner of my room.

At some point during these first few years in New Orleans, a writer came to visit us at our house. He asked us a lot about what were had done before moving to New Orleans and what we were doing then. He was excited about our potential, but left us with a reminder that it was just that. We had capital. What were we going to change with it? But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.

After two years at Lusher, I moved three-quarters of a mile down Freret Street, to an open-enrollment charter, Samuel J. Green. I realized at Lusher that I tried to solve problems too soon with things that I had seen work elsewhere. While my ideas were not invalid, I needed to listen and learn. At Green the pace of work quickened as our students were in more desperate circumstances. We were data-driven and constant, collegial feedback was the norm. Over the summer, we became a tight team.

My first year at Green, I was a mess. It was as bad as my first year teaching even though it was my eighth. Class time was spent just trying to gain their attention. Yelling and making my persona really big no longer worked. I developed strong individual relationships with most of my students, but when class started, varying degrees of chaos ensued. Nearly every day erasers were thrown and students were sent to the TOC (Time Out Center), but when I read aloud to them, the class was silent, rapt.

I was the head of the literacy team at Green. When we tested our eighth grade students at the beginning of the year over half were reading at a fourth grade level. My highest reading group read at a sixth grade level. In the reading world, two years behind is usual considered dire. In this case, those students were my stars.

My second year at Green, I became more skilled. My classroom management was acceptable. The students knew me and we could get more done.

That year I went to a Fountas and Pinnell Literacy conference with several of my colleagues. Quite by accident, my partner at the lower school and I ended up in a shuttle with Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, the creators of the program. These two are highly respected and well-regarded in education. We found a opening to talk shop and described our situation to these women, hoping for a silver bullet. These women just kind of looked at us; it was as if they had never heard of such deficits and they certainly gave us no solutions.

The students toiled, I toiled, and our team did the best we possibly could. I tried hard to listen, follow the lead of my bosses, and yet share what I believed works for kids. Test results were not epic, but they were respectable. That was supposed to be our accomplishment. It wasn't about the glory.

And then I got tired. My kids were tired. Ramona once asked, "Aren't doctors supposed to work more than teachers?" Phil, my mother-in-law, a series of beloved babysitters, and I juggled the kids. Phil and I rushed home and through dinner. He fell asleep on each page of night-time reading and I would zip through it like I was on speed. Around nine, we settled into our laptops and worked until midnight.

So, I decided to take a break from work, be with my family, have another baby (I know, is that really a break?). I just knew I would go back into teaching; I love the classroom and my students. I know a lot about literacy too.

But then, I began to have lots of troubling questions. The questions were always there, but they grew louder. What if schools are perpetuating institutional racism instead of dismantling it? Can schools and sheer perseverance and hard work overcome poverty? What if all my time, drive, potential, and privilege were mis-invested? And what can I do about it now? Work with young mothers? Move into early, early education? Teach sex ed? Post recipes for other hippy-wanna-bes who order the local "box" from Hollygrove Market?

Well, I can take a break, regroup, dabble in writing. Most of my former students are not so lucky.

A lot has changed in New Orleans since 2006. There are more yoga studios, Subarus, and most businesses now update their websites regularly. Brutal statistics about poverty also keep getting updated. More children and their families are living in poverty than before the storm. How can that be reversed? People of color are being displaced from this city--a story that is very difficult to untangle from the statistics. What is happening to these folks?

White knights rescue. They save damsels in distress. Much of New Orleans is still in distress. How will it be saved?  

New Orleans "Whut" Moments

Thanksgving 2005

I've been spending a lot of time considering why our family lives in New Orleans. Most things I read about New Orleans, especially this week, don't capture the layers of the city. Maybe I need to start a scrapbook of the writing that meets my approval, capturing hundreds of voices, picking what speaks to me and ignoring the rest. Others are doing that.

I'm tired of the rah-rah-New-Orleans descriptions that ignore the trap of poverty that leaves so many stuck. Instead, optimistic writers wave their hand at the flavors and the sweaty climate and assume the outsider-reader understands the down-home feeling we get most times we eat together.  I'm sick of the reports and opinion pieces that disregard nuance and history and claim they hold expert answers. I don't believe that we have to decide that the city either has made progress or has not. It's not a guilty/not guilty paradigm. I'm tired of people from other places asking me if I really still like it here. As if my affection for the city is going to wear off.

Everyday I discover something in New Orleans that makes me ask myself, "whuuut?" Some of these things are delightful and others are mournful. The city shouts at me everyday, begging me to figure it out.

This week, there are hundreds of tiny lizards everywhere. In my backyard, on my walk to the grocery, while I bike down the street, 2-inch lizards dash out of my way, hiding. It's as if the bigger lizards from early summer shrunk.  Whut?

We incarcerate people in Orleans Parish more than any other parish in Louisiana. We incarcerate people in Louisiana more than any other state in America. America incarcerates people more than any other nation. We jail people here more than any other place in the world. Whut?

Our house is raised three feet off the ground. Nearly every house on our street is. Just a bunch of houses perched in a row, groundless. The year after the storm, four-year-old Ramona hypothesized that our house was up-high so that the lost cats could live under there.  Whut?

Tonight, thirteen-year-old Ramona and I stood in the newly renovated band room at Lusher High School, learning about the school's arts programs. She's going to high school in a year.  Whut?

On the first anniversary of Katrina, I started my day in the same band room. The room was tidy, but the paint was peeling.  Squatters had lived there months before. At the high school's morning meeting that day, all of the teachers and students observed a moment of silence for the dead and displaced. I stood in the doorway, looking at my feet. I expected the silence would lead to a solemn dismissal. Instead the students erupted into whoops and cheers. They were home. Whut?

One of my students was chronically tardy to school that year. His family was living in their car. I see his mom around town all the time; she's well and her son is in college. Whut?

Friday night Philip and I went to dinner at Ye Olde College Inn, a restaurant a few blocks from my house. Years ago, maybe twenty, it used to be just a po-boy shop, the kind of place you left smelling like french fries. Last week, their special was a local fish served on a bed of quinoa. Quinoa. Whut? (We opted for the fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade and an oyster po-boy with melted cheese and bacon bits, but our clothes couldn't have told you that.)

On the wall of Ye Olde College Inn, local athletic heros' photos are posted. One photo is of "Coach Taylor," a woman who started coaching in high school girls in the 1950s; she taught Philip to swim. Twenty-five years later she taught Sumner and Ramona to swim in her same backyard pool, half a mile from our house. Whut?

Our next door neighbors rolled into the restaurant a few minutes after us; we all moved into our houses in the summer of 2006. After living at his house for a week or so, our neighbor came home to find his yard had been cut. Later that night, a Mr. Christmas came by to meet the new owner. Mr. Christmas explained that he did many of the yards on the block and had been doing this one too. Our neighbor paid him and the pattern continued.  Mr. Christmas and his two sons do most of the yards on the block.  They did before the storm and they still do. Whut?

The thing is, this place is really messed up. The summers are too hot and there are lots of pot holes. We're sinking. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Racism is alive and well. Poor folks are being displaced rapidly and systematically. Still, I feel like New Orleans can't lie about itself as much as other cities do. This is part of the complicated equation that equals me living here.