The Saints Are Coming!!

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We were there on the Plaza that September day, after having gone to Lakeview beforehand to photograph the site where an out-of-state friend grew up -- her parents' ruined house had been demolished earlier in the week and she needed a little photographic closure from long distance to make it real. There was nothing there but a few weeds, a concrete driveway leading nowhere, and the house number spray-painted on the buckled sidewalk. Pretty sobering; and that little side-trip made for a rather somber beginning to a pretty glorious day.

And, then it happened. Green Day, Trombone Shorty, the Saints charging onto the field, emerging from the fog to the adulation of thousands in the Dome. And outplaying the Dirty Birds all over the field.

I felt that old exhilaration last Sunday when the Saints team from the beginning of this season (rather than those beaten-up guys from the end of the regular season) burst onto the field, led by Deuce McAlister and wielding baseball bats inscribed, "Bring the Wood!!" And they carried the magic back onto the field with them while showing the Cardinals the door!

I hope to be on the Plaza again this Sunday -- no tickets, but we can still party like it's 2006! And we can wrap ourselves in the magic that emanates from our team's very-first-ever home-field NFC Championship game, and revel in the joy that the Saints have shared with us this season.

I feel it -- and I still have the Faith! Our Home! Our Team! FINISH STRONG!!

(And, tears will still stream down my face when "The Saints Are Coming" plays over the loudspeakers, but that's okay! Several hundred-thousand of my closest friends will be doing the same thing!)

(Sorry about the embed thing. "Techno-savvy" is not my middle name!)

UPDATE: Thanks to nanc for the embedding tutorial!