A Jazzfest Diary, pt. One

Three guys, bantering the way they used to about the Saints and the weather, about the greatest housing crisis to hit a major American city in a century. That's the news.
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I don't get my newspapers delivered in New Orleans. I go to the corner store to buy them, and more often than not that's where I hear the real news. This morning, while a truck driver counted off the number of cases of snack foods he was delivering, an African-American man was paying for his house-prepared hot food to go. He told my buddy behind the counter, "You know I'm living in Oklahoma now?" The truck driver piped up, "That's a long way to go for a sandwich!" The customer explained: "I want to come back, but the rents here are so high. I'm not paying no twelve hundred dollars a month. So I'm trying to buy a house, but I'm all caught up in all sorts of delays, and then if that shit comes again...." Giving him his change, the guy behind the register says, "But no way you're staying in Oklahoma. Not with that meat and potatoes they cook."

Three guys, two white and one black, bantering the way they used to about the Saints and the weather, about the greatest housing crisis to hit a major American city in a century. That's the news.

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