A Neighbor From Somewhere Else

A Sunday Word

Beauty is only one half of snow. The other half is busted water pipes, black piles of sludge on lethal roads, ankle-breaking sidewalks below icicles like daggers.

New Orleans’ once-in-a-century snowstorm split the city into two kinds of people: those who had been in snow and those who had not. The city takes government warnings with a grain of salt, so it was up to the people from snowy places to guide the southern snow virgins.

There is always a tension between native New Orleanians and “transplants,” but transplants urged their neighbors to stay off the roads, helped move their cars, reminded them to run the faucet.

We’re being pelted by the propaganda that people from other places have nothing to offer and nothing to teach us. May we remember the value of a neighbor from somewhere else.

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My collection of Sunday Words are in my book POST.