There was a crooked man and he had a crooked smile. Had some crooked fortune and he walked a crooked mile. Had a crooked cat, and he had a crooked mouse. And after Miss Katrina, they left their crooked house.
Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!
And when Isaac's rain came down -- and when his wind blew hard -- the crooked, empty house came down, and the neighbors' house was jarred.
It gave those neighbor folks a start. It made their house a mess. For the crooked, empty house could not pass the acid test!
Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!
And then the shutterbug from New Orleans' Picayunecame to snap this picture and, thus, I cribbed this tune. For a fallen, crooked house comes but once in a blue moon!
Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! Ah, ah! Oh, no, don't let the rain come down! My roof's got a hole in it and I might drown! Oh, yes, my roof's got a hole in it and I might drown!
Hurricanes can't shut down Waffle House. What's a little wind and rain? Hell, for all I know, nuclear war and/or the Apocalypse couldn't keep the legendary short-order chain from scatterin', smotherin' and coverin' the hash browns . . . and probably anything else you desired. If hostile space aliens mounted an invasion of Earth tomorrow and came across a Waffle House, my best guess is that they'd be so busy assimilating waffles and chili-covered hash browns, they'd never get around to exterminating the human race at all.
And when they had sated themselves, they'd wobble away on their spindly, green little legs shouting "OOP! BLOOP! QUARK! FLEEGAMATRONICS!" That's space-invader speak for "I love you, man!"
"Y'all come back!" the gal at the register would reply with a friendly wave goodbye.
NOPE, nothing can turn out the lights at Waffle House.
Well, except for one thing: the long arm of the law. Baton Rouge, La., police were not amused -- well, maybe they were a little -- to find the lights on and a party going on at one Waffle House late into the Isaac-tossed night after a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew took effect Wednesday.
Here's the story from a bemused reporter from WAFB television, which a generation of baby-boomer Baton Rougeans grew up knowing as "big, booming, powerful Channel 9":
The streets were bare through most of the city, but it was like a party at the Waffle House on College Drive.
"Four o'clock this afternoon, you could hardly get in the door it was so busy," said Karl Landry. "It was packed. Matter of fact, the waitress told me they had to lock the doors at 5:00 to be able to clean up."
It was one of just a handful of places open as Isaac's winds and rain lashed the Capital City, which is why Karl Landry visited the restaurant three times Wednesday.
"We're here for the food," said Leah Couvillion. "Our power is currently out, so the air conditioning and the nice break to have some food and to get together is really nice."
"I'm very appreciative to Waffle House for being the only thing in town that's open," added another customer.
However, there was one problem. With the curfew still in place, the restaurant was not supposed to be open.
"I'm sorry, they're closed," an officer said. "We're under a curfew for the town, so I'm going to have to ask you to go home."
The curfew is in effect until till 6 a.m., so officers with the Baton Rouge Police Department spent the night making their rounds and forcing shops to shut down, sending employees and potential customers home.
"No one told us, so we came here and they told us and we were like, 'Oops,'" said one customer forced to leave.
"It's pretty devastating. I'll be honest. I mean, it wasn't that serious of a storm, so we thought Waffle House would be open serving us hash browns," Couvillion added.
HERE'S A TIP for corporate: It's Louisiana, y'all. I reckon that if a cute and buxom waitress had waved a plate of scattered, covered and smothered in front of the local constabulary, Baton Rouge's finest might not have actually failed to enforce curfew, but I bet they would have taken their sweet time about it.
Just as soon as they'd finished off a late supper at a Southern institution. And a couple or three cups of coffee.
This means I have grown accustomed to looking to local government for, well . . . government. This means I've grown unaccustomed to looking to local government for entertainment.
Then another hurricane hits Louisiana and I end up glued to the computer, watching the hometown TV news online, and suddenly I'm confronted by some clown dressed unconvincingly in police casual as he tries to rock it like Clint Eastwood rockin' it like Dirty Harry.
Again, unconvincingly.
And I'm thinking "What the f*** is this?" THIS THOUGHT LASTS for a split second. Of course, it's the mayor of Baton Rouge, Kip Holden (right).
And of course, it's a hurricane. Hurricanes mean that Baton Rouge mayors have to start acting all bad ass -- it's a city ordinance or something, I think.
They have to tell people obvious things as if the fine citizens are abject morons -- which, of course, many are. They have to threaten to arrest all those potential offenders of the public order, throw their asses in jail and then laugh when Yankee civil-rights advocates demand that arrestees be supplied with soap on a rope.
I think I even saw Kip do that corner-of-the-lip thing. He even may have said "punk" a couple of times, but don't hold me to that. I was laughing pretty hard -- it all was soooooooo Baton Rouge.
I MEAN, if you were a looter, would you be deterred by the sight of . . . that?
Me neither. By the way, nice flat screen you have there, Your Worship. And you keep the jewelry and cash where again?
And for what it's worth, I think the Boss Hogg look (top) would work a lot better for you. And if you could have a joint press briefing with Gov. Bobby Jindal when he's doing his "Mister Rogers on speed" act, that would be great.
I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Oh, look! Here's a great example caught on camera as Hurricane Isaac turned Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain into a swollen, storm-tossed tempest -- which, of course, is to moron 20-something males as a light bulb is to a moth. And with similar results.
Seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, Plaquemines Parish, La., is going under the waves again. As I write, authorities and private citizens in private boats are pulling people off of their roofs and out of their attics. We see what has become of a subdivision in Braithwaite, La., in this photo posted to Facebook by the Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
Hurricane Isaac, by the way, came ashore as a Category 1 storm.And this house, by the way, is three stories high.
ONE HAS TO WONDER how much longer whole swaths of coastal Louisiana, for all practical purposes, will remain habitable absent a massive federal effort to extend the hurricane-protection levee system and an even larger effort to restore Louisiana's lost wetlands. Of course, then you have to consider the reality of coastal subsidence, climate change and rising sea levels.
Between nature, neglect and the failure of state and local government to effectively govern -- and let's not even get into Washington's special brand of dysfunction -- my home state, day by day and bit by bit, literally is becoming a no man's land.
I believe in God and country. I also believe in baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Toyota automobiles.
And I damn well believe in a television anchorwoman who brings her dog to work during a hurricane.
In this picture from WWL television in New Orleans, Eyewitness News legend Angela Hill is shown behind the scenes of the station's ongoing coverage of Hurricane Isaac with her personal assistant, Diesel the Dog. Channel 4's news director may have other thoughts, but I think it's pretty much mandatory that Diesel be given some on-air role in keeping folks up to date on the storm.
TV news never lets a pretty face go to waste and, with one like Diesel's, it would be a doggone crime if it started now.