Superbowl Celebration

The results of any football contest are not so important to me that I weep, jump for joy or elevate the game to any great importance, but I am happy for the city of New Orleans, it's residents, and the symbolism that New Orleans is not "dead". The headline in today's Times Picayune newspaper is a big 'AMEN'. Clever one, I think.

The natives behaved well last night in their celebration in the streets. Americans have a controlled enthusiasm for their sports champions which reflects their regulated, controlled manner in most things. They rarley pillage and burn in joy or sadness as happens elsewhere. Tuesday is a big parade for the team here in New Orleans. They will be out en mass for that one too, and I expect a drama queen kind of feeling about the parade. "Look at us, aren't we lovely". Well, they deeserve to sturt here after so many years of suffering.

Late in the game when the outcome was a near certainty I could hear residents of this subdivision come outside and whoop cheers of elation, fireworks were set off in the streets, cars honked horns, cries of joy could be heard through the doors of homes. In many areas of the city people spontaneously stopped their autos and joined whomever was celebrating at the intersection they happened to pass by.

It was a mini example of what I heard many years ago when I was in Wurzburg, Germany when Germany defeated Italy in a world cup semifinal soccer game. But that celebration was a negative one as well as a fun time, in that the natives went overboard and smashed windows of businesses, set fires, and expressed a kind of nationalism that was over the top, almost ugly. Happily that kind of celebration is unlikely here.

The Saints team overachieved this year. But don't most champions do that? The franchise cobbled together a team of losers, misfits and castoffs, mixed with some genuine stars in the city of imagination, and they imagined they could go all the way to a championship. They made imagination a reality. I hear from many locals that it was the "destiny" of the city to win the championship, as redemption for the near destruction of New Orleans from hurricane Katrina. The hope is that this event can inspire the city to do better in the more important areas a city must display in order to be a better place in which to live. Resilience won that football game. It's a nice feel- good story.

Beneath the celebration New Orleanians know there are ugly scars and problems with the city. Will the natives attack those as robustly as the football team attacked its opponents? That is the major question emitting from the end of a football game victory that so many here find to be a defining symbol of the city. Is this game the begining of an era of accomplishment or just a happy one the locals will forever remember and cherish?