Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Sorry if this is posted somewhere already. Everyone here should read this.

NEW ORLEANS -- The soul of New Orleans is in a trumpet and a low-ceilinged bar. It's in the free red beans in the back. It's in the art hanging near the food that has two dogs howling at a New Orleans Saints moon. It's in the voice of Kermit Ruffins, two hours into his standing Thursday night gig at a packed club hidden in the neighborhood behind the French Quarter, the place weathered and peeling like the side of a workingman's boat.


He plays a song he wrote, "All I Want for Christmas Is the Saints in the Super Bowl," and the crowd dances and sings all the words. When he takes a break, he calls me in closer. There's something he wants to show me. He undoes his thin black tie, and the top two buttons, then pulls both his collared shirt and T-shirt down just enough so I can see. I notice the top point first, and slowly, the entire tattoo comes into view, a month old, enormous, covering his entire chest. I start laughing, and so does he. A symbol of the city adorned with a symbol of the city. Kermit Ruffins has gotten an enormous fleur-de-lis, the Saints' helmet logo, tattooed on his chest.


"Only in New Orleans," he says, winking. "I'm killing 'em when I take off my shirt at the beach. Especially at the Super Bowl."


CONT'D HERE:
NFL: New Orleans Saints are the soul of America's City - ESPN

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Seriously, read this people. The following snippet brought me to tears:

The respect that heals


The soul of the city is in a football game three seasons ago, the return to the Superdome, on a Monday night when those of us who love New Orleans first realized the city would be back. It was Sept. 25, 2006 -- Payton's and Brees' first home game.

The Friday night before, Payton gathered his team in the empty stadium. People had died there, just 13 months before. The bodies were stored in a catering freezer. The building seemed unfixable, and now the Saints stood at midfield. On the video board, Payton played a movie about the hurricane. It showed it all, the dark, dark water, the archipelago of rooftops, the fear on the faces of an abandoned city, the slow pan of the Humanity Street sign barely visible above the current. It showed the Superdome with its roof almost torn off. It showed a city that looked as if it would never return. Then the video ended. The players, standing at the center of a rebuilt stadium, all shiny and new, talked about what they had seen and how important they were to the people who would fill these seats the next night.

They understood.

The fans came early. Green Day and U2 performed before the game, performed an old Scottish punk song "The Saints Are Coming," then segued into "Beautiful Day." Bono changed the first verse, calling out neighborhoods, from Lakeview to the Lower 9th, singing "coming home to New Orleans." With each familiar reference, the crowd reaction intensified, going from simmer to full, rolling boil.

The game began and, less than two minutes in, the Saints blocked a punt and recovered for a touchdown. One of my best friends, a chef who grew up in the city, sat on his couch in Mississippi and wept. So did thousands of people in the Dome. For 37 seconds, an eternity on television, the announcers stayed quiet, the only noise coming from the screaming of the crowd. Thirty-seven seconds, while a city went completely and totally insane with joy.

The people in New Orleans would never forget who gave them that gift.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Article of the Year, without question.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

I just got done reading it... was going to post it, but saw that you already did.
I'm a South LA native now living in FL. That's one of the best articles I've read in a long while. It made me homesick. Good thing I'm going home for Christmas!

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Great article. Great game. One I will never forgot.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

A MUST READ. I'm promoting it to the front page.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Man, what a picture that painted for me. I could see N.O. as clear as if I were standing on top of the the Super Dome. :praise:

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

I sent the guy an e-mail to thank him for that. It really is a great read.

wrightespn@gmail.com

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Wow! Have just read the whole thing and had a few tears. As much as I love England, New Orleans just keeps drawing me back. At first it was because of the Saints and the fact that I wanted to see them and yes, I only go over during the season but it has much more for me now I have got to know some of it's people, it's food, it's music and more importantly it's spirit. A colleague once said to me 'what is New Orleans like?' I told them I had fallen in love with it and to really enjoy it you had to 'feel' it more than anything else to truly experience what it means.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Do I get a major award? LOL

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Great article. I cried. And then drank a lot.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

This is good enuf to post twice...

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

This part really grabbed me

The soul of the city is still damaged. That's important to know. Just because Katrina and its impact is misunderstood, that doesn't mean it didn't change a generation, profoundly, in ways most don't even understand.

On Friday afternoon, at a famous French Quarter bar that serves up glasses of that evil, green absinthe, a friend of LeBlanc's told me her Katrina story, the moment when she thought everything she had known would be gone forever.

She's well off, and her family got out, Saigon style, on a private plane just before the airports closed -- literally, they were the last flight to be cleared by the tower -- turboprops thumping, running away from the end of the world. A few days later, while flying back over the city, she asked the pilot to point out New Orleans. So, when the time came, he did. She looked out the window and didn't see anything. Everything was black. The pilot checked the instruments, looked at the radar and confirmed, Ma'am, we are right over New Orleans. Only, there was nothing to see but a desert of black. The city was dead, powered down and full of water, and, for the first time, she felt true despair. Every single New Orleanian has a story like that, and it lives deep inside of them.

"They just don't talk about it," she says.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

That was an amazing game. I went to Seau's (yes, Junior Seau has a sports bar here) and it was packed... there wasn't a single person cheering for the Falcons.

I couldn't believe how loud the dome got... it was amazing!!!

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

:broccoli::broccoli:

You get two broccoli... most people don't even get one. ;)

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

I'm good with that. 2 :broccoli::broccoli: sets the bar pretty high.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

There's gonna be ghosts in dem seats! Our grand parents, our parents, friends and family that never got to see this day will all be in the dome hoopin' and hollerin'. No team stands a chance against us in the dome and they know it. The Patriots quit....Romo and all the D. Ware's in the world stand no chance.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

i'm glad you guys love it as much as i do. that was so well written i emailed it to everyone who had an address in my account and posted it on my facebook saying "now you guys can understand my love for my saints"...it's true. no one gets why i love OUR team so much, and now i hope this can shed some light on why our team is so much different from the other 31 teams. i love our saints...WHO DAT?! and yes, i definitely choked up several times during this amazingly moving article. WHO DAT....AGAIN.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Fantastic article...by far the best that I have read about the city of New Orleans and our Saints...this is a MUST read...consider it endorsed for the umpteenth time....

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

LoL, you got my vote... Great job bro!!!

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Awesome article!! This guy has really nailed down what all of us N.O. natives have been feeling about both our team and our city. And it will definitely bring a tear or two to your eyes.

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Great story, read this last night! Made me even more excited for my trip down next week and for my first Saints game on Dec. 27th!

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Awesome Article.

Down here in Florida I miss so much. I have been to NO a few times BUT I have never had a chance to see a game in the Super Dome. It is somehitng I really want to do some day....

Re: Saints the Soul of America's City
 

Great article. It took me a while to get all the way through it, but definitely worth the time. I love New Orleans and was devestated when Katrina hit. The article really describes the heart of the city.