(Feb. 1) Early 20th-century novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote, “You can’t go home again.” Dorothy Gale, in “The Wizard of Oz,” though, said, “There’s no place like home.” Wolfe was wrong and Dorothy was right. Forty years after starting as a sports writer for The Times-Picayune, I have now returned full-time to the Times-Picayune | Advocate editorial board, precisely because Louisiana is worth a homecoming.
Louisiana is the most interesting, culturally distinctive state in the union. Louisiana is the state that hits most above its weight in national politics. Louisiana in 2026 probably will have the most-watched U.S. Senate primary in the nation. And Louisiana’s biggest, most famous city faces an epochal (and perhaps epic) election for mayor and other city offices this year, with a desperate need for competence, reform, vision, integrity and a unifying civic spirit.
Louisianans need no lengthy tutorials here about the fascinations of the state’s tripartite culture, with traditional Southern culture in the northern half of the state, Cajun culture in the south and New Orleans’ wondrous mélange. Novelist Walker Percy told me in an interview that the city has “an odd admixture of Deep-South-ness and foreignness,” but that’s only part of the cultural jambalaya, which also includes an urban-ness, a cosmopolitan-ness, and a sui generis whimsicality.
What I’ve come to appreciate almost as much as all that, and what always impresses my Alabaman wife, is the sheer friendliness of most Louisianans. Yes, Midwesterners often offer a sincere but bland kindness (hence the expression “Minnesota nice”), but nothing can match the innate and almost rococo warmth and welcome of a Louisiana native greeting a visitor.
Louisianans also are famously resilient, and underneath the apparently careless bonhomie is an underrated work ethic. (A hat tip here goes out to various service experts — Krystal and Michael of Cox Cable and Marcelle of ADT alarms — who in their own way recently reminded me, by example, of that attribute.) At the risk of over-generalizing, Louisiana at its best boasts a common culture of resilience and “can-do” cheerfulness that is unique and admirable…. [The full column is here.]
