No Good Deed...

I went out to see how the city was faring yesterday morning. The wind was blustery, still gusting 40-50 mph from time to time, which made for what Charles Johnson would call a really fascist headwind.

We saw a few large trees down, oaks taken in their prime...

Down on Decatur, by Cafe du Monde, a pelican decided that fighting the wind was just too much hard work, and was taking a break under the Cafe du Monde awning. He started getting antsy when I snapped this pic, as I was barely six feet from him.




So then (my cycling buddy Chris and I) decided to take a run down St. Charles Ave. to see how Uptown and the Garden District had fared, as that part of the city is Big Tree Central.



We opted to run down Bourbon, to see how all the bored reporters were dealing with the slow news day, and say hello to the Chubby's folks.



I ran into Jorge fron the Spanish News Agency. He got a kick out of me taking a pic of him taking a pic of us. As I said, slow news day.







As we're passing Lafayette Park, Chris yealls out, "Hey, the President's tree is down!" I'm like "huh?"

He tells me to go read the monument. I do:



The tree is down. Gustav got it.




Well, I allow that we ought to do something about that. So, I struggle and lever the tree up. But the wind is still gusting, so it only remains upright for a few minutes. I sure that some will find some potent symbolism in this, but I'll leave it alone. :-)





Howver, I had reason to be talking to a few cops shortly after that, and they got the message to the Powers That Be about the tree. Mayor Nagin mentioned today in his latest press confrerence that they knew the tree was down, but that his experts told him they were sure it could be saved.


Why was I talking to the cops? Well, there was this fight...