[Dixielandjazz] A prayer for N.O.

[dingle at baldwin-net.com]

As we look at the impending potential for disastrous damage to New 
Orleans  and the Louisiana area, Jean and I can only pray that some 
veering of the storm path will save this historic cradle of jazz. For us 
there is a certain personal link to this city. We were married in N.O. 
and will be having our 50th anniversary this November. We tied the knot 
in Grace Episcipal church on Canal Street right across from the Vieux 
Carre and spent most of a month there as I was playing a long stand with 
Ted Weems at the old Roosevelt Hotel's Blue Room.
We had contemplated going down there to celebrate this year, but it 
looks like this will not happen. We do fear for the safety of  good 
friends of long standing like Charlie Lodice, Roz Kohlman (Freddie's 
widow), and many other jazz friends living there we made over the years.
So I guess we are joining our Yankee prayers to those of the rest of the 
country that this special place of our jazz roots willl somehow weather 
the worst of it. But it sure looks like something or someone really 
pissed off the weather spirits because this category 5 rating is the 
highest that this grand old city on the Mississippi has ever had to 
face. Hope you'll add your prayers to ours.
Don Ingle