Recently a friend was relaying a situation where her son-in-law was confused on the difference between Kenner and New Orleans. Being that she is from the south shore, she had no idea what this was about. It did not take long for me to explain the thought process of many of us Louisianians who are born and raised on the north shore of the lake. Unlike many people who live in various places in the south where the city of New Orleans is just that little spot they visit for great food and music, those of us raised above the big lake were taught that when you crossed that lake you were in New Orleans.
My aunt and uncle lived in Metairie and throughout my childhood I referred to it as New Orleans. My parents had friends who lived in Kenner, and we referred to it as New Orleans. When I went to college and met girls from Gretna and Harvey in my mind I thought, "Oh, they live in New Orleans." Only on occasion did I hear the term "The West Bank" which was somewhere between New Orleans, the Gulf of New Mexico, and Mars.
I grew up intrigued by New Orleans and loved visiting the city to go ice skating as a child and listening to music as a young adult. I once joked that in our twenties Clay and I partied our way through New Orleans, but by our forties we just ate our way through it. Even that is a rarity these days. Too much of that great cuisine has made its way across the "big pond" to make the drive.
Never would I have believed that two of my sons would be living in "Irish Channel" in New Orleans ---- which I believe is actually in New Orleans. One has just about completed building his replica of a historic home on a corner lot only minutes from the downtown area. And as far as their father is concerned this house is located somewhere between New Orleans, the Gulf of New Mexico, and Mars. Every time I bring it up Clay just shakes his head.
Regardless of the recent reports of crime, all the decades we experienced up in the hill country of Louisiana as we grew this "Concrete Jungle" was a place that both baffled and even frightened us. Once we were trying to get to the downtown area for a convention and due to construction realized we missed our last chance to exit and would have to go over "The Bridge." I was on the phone with my neighbor who is from the West Bank at the time, and she could not stop laughing as she heard the shrill panic in our voices once this reality occurred to both of us and my hands hit the dash as my husband white knuckled the steering wheel.
She instructed us to just cross the bridge and turn around, which we did at lightning speed. It is one thing to drive across the lake into New Orleans that is really Metairie and then all the way into the downtown area that is really New Orleans, but to cross the bridge into that foreign land called the West Bank is taking things to an entirely new level.
Now that I look back on these spatial shifts they are not so different than those huge homes our friends grew up in that now we revisit and are actually quite small. In hindsight the idea of New Orleans was immense. The change in culture and community, the food and accents that were not so common back in the day across the lake made for grandiose expansions of the imagination creating a city that encompassed all of the lower regions until the brackish waves hit her shore.
