It's midmorning at midweek and fleets of 18-wheelers growl down Interstate 55 heading for Pass Manchac.
Exhaust pipes leave plumes of black smoke above the concrete combat zone leading to New Orleans.
Truckers jockey with salesmen, students, and shoppers as the wheels of commerce send a steady rumble into a crystal-clear day. Chris Brown, Melanie Clary, and I don't notice. It's so wild, so beautiful, you'd think you were a thousand miles from the city. But we aren't. They line up for lunch at Paul Prudhomme's restaurant, attack platters of boiled crayfish and stacks of raw oysters in the seafood houses, and nurse hangovers proudly earned the night before in jazz clubs from Bourbon Street to the Faubourg Marigny.