Nine ward, two houses. (i and the village.)

"Advanced framing actually replaces lumber with insulation material to maximize the wall area that’s insulated..."  - makeitright.org/what-we-know/library/article/advanced-framing/

"They ask for everyone to take off their shoes, so just leave 'em here on the porch. They'll be fine."

My beaten Toms went at the end of a row of Asics and hiking shoes; apparently I was the only one who chose to bike 11 miles without socks. My bare feet pressed onto the post-industrial wood fiber floor of the visitor's center of Make It Right, the charity spearheaded by Brad Pitt to rebuild New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward with ecologically-innovative housing.

I stepped around the plexiglass donation column immediately in front of the narrow entrance and settled next to the GREEN DAT! shirts for sale, a forced pun more in-keeping with a California punk band than the "Who Dat?" catchphrase of NOLA's sports lifeblood, the Saints. After urged, I filled in a line of the sign-in sheet, leaving the checkboxes at the end of the row, for "donation," "shirt purchased," and "poster purchased" unmarked. The visitor center was the charity's model home showcasing the ones being built around the Lower Ninth Ward, at a partially-subsidized cost of one-hundred thirty thousand dollars. Post-modern in environmental function and architecture, all the scalene angles and cacophonous pigments of a Chagall. An experimental home far more natural in the suburbs of Norway than those of New Orleans.

The early 20s Make It Right hostess looked blankly at us five bike tourists, roting off the specs of the houses' green technologies in the droning monotone accent specific to hipsters rather than regions. The one full of cocktail intelligence sourced piecemeal from NPR and New York mag. Complete with flapper haircut and ironic floral leggings. I'd gone all the way to the Lower Ninth and found myself back at the Lorimer stop.

45 minutes later, our tour guide wheeled Mr. Lewis out onto his back deck, his 93-year-old legs pacing the steps along gently in his fresh red Nikes. He raved about the Saints blowout win the afternoon before, their 180 of a season following Bountygate and Goodell crackdowns and their early game stumbles. "And that SEC boy... BCS playoff already exists... it's called the SEC. Only real teams out there. You think Notre Dame is gonna whupp 'Bama or Georgia? Come onnn." His lack of teeth didn't shy away his constant smile, or the wisdom that came when words paused it. He talked LSU as we sat eating shrimp po'boys and fried fish platters, ravenously replenishing after the bike ride there from the Marigny. He only stopped smiling when he brought up Katrina.  

"The hurricane hurt us. The national media hurt us more. Calling us refugees, like we barely human. We ain't refugees, man, we're Americans. Ain't no different than you.... Wasn't right to call us that."

The middle-aged couple from White Plains brought up the Make It Right houses, the one we'd just been in. "They build houses in our home and don't bother asking our opinion. What we might want 'em to look like. They hold a contest for designs by people who never been here and then move on to the next thing. They bring in people to build them, people from I don't know where, all over." Mr. Lewis pointed to one of the workmen just across a cinder-block fence in his backyard. The house being renovated, now that the owner had decided to return; seven years after Katrina, now deciding to reassert claim to his home. "That man there's an electrician. Known him 20 years. Been one all his life. Ninth Ward's got craftsmen, tradesmen. People from this community that need the work and do it well but they ain't good enough for them to build they own neighbors' house, I guess."

I knew the argument. It's one I'd made frequently, for thoughtful liberalism, one with a small "l." One distant from the crusades against Happy Meal toys and bans on soda size. The Toms I set aside earlier were bought for style, not out of the misguided belief that their purchase makes some difference when their means of production is outsourced to China rather than employing the parents and cousins and older sisters and brothers of the children they claim to be helping in rural Africa. The argument that handouts are confining, and doomed to failure, without being accompanied by an equally aggressive support infrastructure. A means of climbing the economic ladder permanently rather than waiting for the next check in the mail.

For that half hour we had Mr. Lewis to ourselves, with the occasional shouted aside comments to the neighboring team of builders, before we went inside his makeshift trailer museum, the House of Dance and Feathers. One part personal trophy case, one part Katrina museum, and three parts presentation of second line, the steppers in elaborate costume following the brass bands that make up a parade's main line. Every inch of formica lined with beautifully garish blooms of feet-wide chiffon ribbon, meticulous beadwork, masks and feathers inspired from a culture that snaked down the generations, diluting out only slightly the voodoo influences. A woman in her 50s and her 7 year old grandson joined us in the trailer to speak with Mr. Lewis. More old friends, she didn't hesitate when asked to point out accents for one of the costumes that came with the title she had held since she was 16, Queen of the White Angels, one of dozens of local New Orleans second line troupes. As she did, I was drawn into conversation with another frequent visitor, Brian from Mobile, Alabama. "And yourself?"

"They're from California and White Plains. I'm from Brooklyn."

He nodded solemnly. Four days into my New Orleans trip, I already knew the basics of what he was about to say, but couldn't have guessed at the emotion behind it.

"When you go back, please tell the people of New Jersey and New York there are people here in New Orleans who feel for them and know what they're going through. And in Mississippi and Alabama. Sincerely, our hearts understand. We wish it wouldn't have to happen to anyone else.... Isn't really in our hands. But you're all in our hearts."

Brian and I shook hands in time for me to hear the latest proud proclamation by Mr. Lewis, the one about the pictorial book he compiled chronicling the history of second line.

"My book is in the White House. Yes, sir. Mr. Obama signed that," indicating a framed Thank You card. "Michelle too."

Brian squeezed by the rest of us to tell Mr. Lewis goodbye, for now, with a kiss on the cheek. Mr. Lewis' hand clasping the back of his craned-down neck.

"Brian's a good man. Reminds me of my grand-nephew. That boy got a tattoo the other day, came to show it to me, all up his arm. Says 'Ambitious.' " Mr Lewis rubbed his spread hand down his entire forearm. "I like it. Thinking about getting one myself. Might have to change it though. I made it through Hurricane Betsy in '65. Katrina in '05. Heart attack and a double-bypass just now on September the Twelfth." Mr. Lewis smiled, with his full eyes and empty mouth. Uncontrollably, I did the same. "Think I'm gonna have mine say 'Survivor.' "

The hipster girl in the floral tights and cigarette'ash-shaded skirt and hoodie spooned powdered Coffemate into an empty mug, followed by Sweet & Low, and finally poured in French press coffee. If not for her slight resemblance to Shannyn Sossamon I would have forgotten her face along with her name and everything else she said to us, except for her one obligatory attempt at conversation. "Where else are you going on the tour today?"

The middle-school teacher from Dana Point ventured first. "Umm... Just around the Ward. Went to a cemetery... St. Roch's?"

"About to go to a small museum." I took up the silence. "The House of... Feathers..."

"The House of Dance and Feathers," she finished knowingly. "Yeah. I've never actually been there." And then she stopped talking to sip from her mug of powdered substitutes and lukewarm coffee.