I was born in New Orleans, just after Hurricane Betsy. I remember spending lots of summers with my cousins at my grandmother\'s home in Belle Chasse, and my Aunt\'s home, just down the street. We tried to come visit for every Mardi Gras. My family belong to the Krewe of Bacchus, and attend both the Ball and the Parade every year. I can close my eyes and hear the crowd chanting for beads, the sound the beads and coins make when they strike the pavement, I can picture the colorful floats with the fantastically costumed riders, and the equally fantastically costumed Mardi Gras partyers. I can see and hear the mad scramble for the beads and coins tossed from the floats. We were not allowed to \"flash\" for more beads, since good Catholic girls don\'t do that. But we usually knew a few people on board, and always came home with plenty of beads.\r\nI can smell the chicory coffee and the fried beignets at Cafe Dumond, where we always stopped before going home, supposedly to sleep, but in reality, to lie awake and relive every magical moment. We always got in trouble for falling asleep during mass the next day, Ash Wednesday. We wore our ash crosses on our foreheads like badges of honor all the next day. As we got older, they became symbolic of the post-Mardi Gras, Ash-Wednesday hard-earned hangover. You knew to speak softly around anyone sporting the black ash cross on their foreheads.\r\nI can close my eyes and breathe deeply, and smell the wonderful combination of magnolia, honeysuckle, cayenne and shrimp that will forever be the smell of my grandmother\'s backyard. There seemed to always be a huge pot of gumbo boiling, and things, fish, shrimp, crab, vegetables, spices, were just continuosly added to it. I used to occasionally wonder just when the pot of gumbo had been started, and if my kids would one day be eating some of the same gumbo I was eating then. As for possible food poisoning, I never worried too much about it, I figured no bacteria could survive that amount of cayenne anywway.\r\nI remember always being told to \"take a good look around\" because someday the ocean or the Mississippi River would claim New Orleans, and it would be covered in water. The grown-ups never had much faith in the levvees. The oldest and wisest always said the only way to survive a hurricane in New Orleans was to get out of it\'s way. I am glad that my family all remembered that, and that all of them left before Katrina hit. I am so deeply saddened by how many did not get out of the way, and lost their lives. I am also very sad that so much of New Orleans is now gone. The ocean definitely did come and take it away, just as they always warned it would. I don\'t know that it can truly ever be rebuilt, even if the buildings are rebuilt, that timeless southern, magnolia-scented charm that defined New Orleans can\'t be replaced. What my mother used to call the \"cajun patina\" can not just be painted on, it has to be earned with time, blood, sweat and tears. We have plenty of the blood, sweat, and the tears, but not so much of the time.\r\nSo, I will stick to my memories. I will close my eyes and hear the wonderful crowds of Mardi Gras, smell the wonderful scent of grandma\'s backyard, relive the priceless memories of my youth. And I will forever count my blessings that all of the members of my family survived this tragedy, and are still here to share these memories with me. Buildings and landmarks may be gone, but the very heart and soul of New Orleans has ALWAYS been it\'s people. The cajun spirit and soul, which is ferocious and strong, and will always be a part of New Orleans.