Entry 4 (Cont.): Field Notes

We reached Norco around 10:45 am. We drove down the road that cuts through one of the factories and saw all of the signs about being cautious and preventing all sorts of horrible things. We then went down apple street to the main grocery store and got two local newspapers. We went out to the spillway to read them. Near us were a bunch of adults that had gotten together I think to listen to the saints game. There weren’t many people out this day, probably because of that. The papers had a story about the parish and louisiana as a whole doing comparatively well in the recession. It also mentioned a 24 year old Tulane Student who is running for parish president for a second attempt. There was an article about a great grandmother who saw a vision of jesus who told her to go out and convert souls, a duty which she willingly accepted. It mentioned a prayer written by her. There was a list of the arrests, most were for DWI. There was a list of thefts, most were weedeaters and electronics. We saw an ad for the River Parishes Fall Festival at Sacred Heart School and Church in Norco. We went out there and it was like a small circus. We entered the raffle and went around and talked to people. It was almost all white. There was a black cop and a black lady serving food with a bunch of white people. There were also a few black male prisoners going around picking up trash all day. Abigail asked around about the reason for there only being thirteen starts on the american flags which patriotically line apple street but no one seems to know. One man described the reason he didn’t know is because no one knows because no one really cares and that nonchalance and indifference were pretty much the main characteristics of people in the area. “you know, whatever, just whatever.” Anyone near a television or radio was following the saints game. In the crafts room they were selling elvis pillows, lawn decorations, jewelry, cowboy boot lamps, and all sorts of things. When we left we drove around some of the same lowerclass neighborhoods and drove along a road coming directly from the dead end at the refinery. There was a lot of open lots with signs that read “private property of shell” with a couple of really beat up houses with african americans outisde of them scattered around. As we got farther away, houses got mildly nicer, closer together, and we eventually saw white people.

-Sean Simonson