Dancing in the Street

It's nearly 2 a.m. on the morning of February 8, 2009, and I'm sitting here like a kid on Christmas Eve.

I'm listening for the telltale sounds outside on my front lawn so that I can run outside to pounce. I hope I don't scare the poor man away.

I simply can't wait to see Monday's edition of The Times-Picayune.

It's not that I don't know what it will say. In some form or fashion, it will tell me and the rest of the world that the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV, beating the unbeatable Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning 31-17.

But I already knew that.

I watched the game. I screamed and yelled and jumped up and down with my husband, my mother and my daughter. My brother was there too, in spirit anyway.

And my father-in-law. Well, he's really here. The box containing his ashes is on a shelf in my living room. And after the first quarter, when things weren't looking so good for the home team, we realized that his box was wearing the wrong hat. We quickly switched him from a Destrehan hat to a Saints NFC Champions hat and, suddenly, things changed.

The Saints got hot.

They began to score.

Our screams became more frequent.

We started to believe. REALLY believe.


And as the final seconds ticked off and the Saints carried their coach onto the field on their shoulders, we ran outside to scream some more and see the fireworks and hear our neighbors who were screaming too.

And we cried.

Then I grabbed my 9-year-old daughter, who has absolutely no idea of the magnitude of this occasion, and ran into the middle of our empty street. And we danced around in circles.

Then we came back inside to watch our team and our town celebrate with the big silver trophy.

And in the hours since (about four now), I've been surfing the Internet for the stories of how the game was won and the photos of how the game was won. And I've chatted with friends and colleagues who were actually there to write about the game, living the dream night of their careers and trying to come up with the greatest words of their lives in this monumental occasion.

Now I am in my living room, passing the time as I wait for my Monday edition of The Times-Picayune to land on my lawn. And when it does, I will run.

I can't wait to hold it in my hands. And I can't wait to see the headline my oh-so-clever co-workers have come up with to mark this moment in history. And I can't wait to read the stories and the statistics. And I can't wait to see the pictures my friends took.

And I know I will cry.

And then it will go into the big box in my upstairs closet for safekeeping. And maybe, someday, that 9-year-old daughter will find it for herself and sit down and read it. And maybe she will understand.

And maybe she will cry too.

Pigs are flying, Hell has frozen over and the Saints are in the Super Bowl

It was a long time coming.

Too long.

Some said it never would happen. Some believed it had to -- eventually.

And millions of us waited. And hoped. And, yes, prayed.

For 43 years Saints fans young and old, black and white, rich and poor, have lived and breathed and bled for the Black and Gold -- living for the good times and dying a little at each and every bad time.

We agonized through the humiliating defeats where we never had a chance and the games that gave us hope only to slip away in the final minutes. We learned to hate the Atlanta Falcons and the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers who sank daggers in our hearts so many times.

And yet we continued to watch, continued to hope, continued to love and continued to buy tickets. Like the puppy kicked every week by its owner, we always came back for more. Some wore bags over their heads to do it, but still they came back.

Because we believed.
Because our parents and grandparents believed and taught us how.

So when Garrett Hartley's 40-yard field goal split the uprights to give the Saints a 31-28 victory over Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game and propel the Saints into Super Bowl XLIV, the citizens of New Orleans sent up a joyous noise to the heavens.

And we shouted out to the grandfathers and fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and friends and neighbors and local media personalities who did not live long enough to see this day, and who won't be with us on our sofas in two weeks to watch the New Orleans Saints play in their very first Super Bowl. The one that so many thought our team would never get to.

We so wish they were here to see it. We so wish we were here to share it. We so wish we could hear them say, "Who Dat?" just once more.