1) All day Tuesday in New Orleans, the talk was of Monday night’s championship football game. I had calls and emails from all across the country, mostly expatriate LSU-ers who watched the contest on television and wish they could be here to share the excitement.

Alas, most of the excitement I saw was limited to two kinds: party-ers in the French Quarter (which I saw only on television) and people calling in to talk shows. The rest of us read the paper (4 inch headline: CHAMPS and underneath: Tigers First to Win Second BCS Title) and caught people talking about it on the TV or radio. We just felt good and went on about our business, the same way Greg did in Alexandria, Virginia, Justin did in Acworth, Georgia, and Jerry did in Paris, Tennessee.

Interestingly, Ohio State people were calling in to register their appreciation for the city. Caller after caller said things like, “Great city. Wonderful people. We had a lovely time.” One fellow said people downtown would see his Ohio State shirt and call out, “Tiger bait!” and that would be followed by a smile and “Welcome to New Orleans! Thanks for coming!”

I was thinking this, then the radio host voiced it: “Not like when our Saints fans go to Chicago and are treated like the scum of the earth.”

Someone then said, “Well, we have some bad apples down here, too. Let’s not forget that and get too self-righteous.”

The people who study such things are saying the financial impact of last night’s game–with all the tourists in town, hotel and restaurant expenditures, etc.–was a greater boon to the local economy than the last Super Bowl that met here. “The greatest thing for New Orleans since Katrina,” one economist said.

2) The Corps of Engineers is looking for clay to line the levees. They only need a hundred million cubic yards of the stuff, a kind of clay also known as “borrow.”

Twenty years ago when missionary Larry Cox was working in West Africa–in Cote d’Ivoire, as I recall–helping those drouth-damaged communities find water, he sent word back to the States that in building a pond for one people group, they needed clay with which to line the floor. Larry asked for prayer that clay could be found. Thus far, the only suitable stuff they had located was hundreds of miles away and the cost would be prohibitive. While people prayed, Larry instructed the tractor-drivers to keep plowing away. They found the clay.

The clay they needed was underneath the pond they were building.

Maybe the Corps of Engineers needs to ask for prayer.

3) Nothing brings out my neighbors like a busted water heater. Nothing ruins books like a busted water heater spraying its contents across the floor of the garage.

The plumber explained that minerals in the water down here builds up inside the heater and rusts the bottom until the pressure of the water bursts through. “This heater was installed in 1996. You got 11 years out of it. Count your blessings.”

“Be thankful it was in the garage and not in the attic,” Penny from across the street called over. She and Hank were walking around the block and observing me dealing with box after box of stored books, accumulated over the years and now seriously in jeopardy. The saying goes that whatever you have stored since your last move, if you haven’t taken it out by now, you can do without it. In my case, it was history books–particularly dealing with the presidency of Harry Truman which used to be a favorite preoccupation of mine–and books on cartooning, for obvious reasons.

My son Neil brought his pickup over on his way home from work and hauled away a dozen trash bags filled with ruined books. Some of the others I have spread out in the garage, hoping they will dry out and still be usable.

Two ladies who live up the street were walking their dog. “Reverend, we’re glad you’re not moving!” That was puzzling until I realized they had noticed the boxes lining my sidewalk which I’d pulled out of the garage this morning and left there all day.

“Nope,” I said. “Afraid you’re stuck with me.”

Mike, next door, came out to his truck and said, “I need to do that.” I thought,”You need to have a busted water heater?” He said, “I need to clean out my garage, too.” I agreed that the positive effect of a busted water heater was to clear some stuff out of the garage. Some of it precious stuff.

4) Most of us around here are watching the New Hampshire primary today as avidly as we watched the LSU-Ohio State game last night. If anyone is impartial or uninterested in the outcome, I haven’t met them.

Louisiana’s primary is coming up in a month or so and we’ve not had the candidate to visit or run an ad. There’s a good reason for that: we come after Super Tuesday when half the states in the country will vote. By that time, the decision will have been made and what we do will be either irrelevant or redundant.

Stephanie Grace writing in her op-ed column Tuesday pointed out that political commentators seemed surprised that young people are taking such an active interest in this campaign. They pointed out that usually young people will march and speak out, but not bother to go to the polls, something they actually did this year.

Stephanie says, “Where have these experts been?” She adds, “They obviously haven’t spent much time in post-Katrina New Orleans.”

In the two and a half years since Katrina, our part of the country has seen a million-plus volunteers come to help us rebuild this city and the Gulf Coast. She says that number “includes countless high school and college students.” Furthermore, they’re still coming in droves, pulled here by a desire to take things into their own hands and help make a grievous wrong right.

5) On the same page of Tuesday’s paper, Mayor C. Ray Nagin shared his assessment of our city in 2007, “a pivotal year for our city’s recovering and rebuilding.”

I’ll spare you all that he said with the exception of the last paragraph. “Currently the New Orleans Police Department headquarters is ready to open its doors, and street, roadway and sewer repairs are underway throughout the city. In total, our residents can anticipate construction projects totaling more than $1 billion; we plan a total of $363 million in roadway improvements alone. I ask your indulgence as you encounter the inconveniences that can accompany progress. They will lead to a better life for us all.”

6) This fellow wrote to the editor and asked why the paper was devoting so much space to sports, even on the front page. He was incredulous and a little upset that often LSU and occasionally the Saints were driving hard news off the front page. Methinks his concept of a newspaper is stuck in 1955.

The newspaper in a city like ours fills lots of roles and meets many needs. Yes, it informs us on the happenings of the day, in far greater detail than we can get anywhere else. It serves as a cheerleader for citizens trying to solve problems and right wrongs. It exposes those who betray the public trust and holds them accountable. It celebrates victories large and small.

But it does more than that. My newspaper entertains and enrages, it blesses and it curses, it makes me feel proud and makes me ashamed.

On those rare mornings when I have an early meeting and leave home without reading my Bible and the morning newspaper, I honestly feel like I’m stepping out the door undressed. Something is just not right; I’m not ready to meet the day.

The money I pay for my newspaper subscription may be the best dollar I spend.

From time to time when I’m with groups of pastors, I ask, “How many of you saw such-and-such in the paper this morning?” I confess to being ashamed to report that no more than half of the ministers in any group have said they read the paper. That’s when my teaching-gene kicks in and I preach the preachers a little sermon on the need for staying informed if they expect to lead their people.

There is no substitute for the morning newspaper, no matter where you live.

Who was it–Spurgeon? Beecher? Brooks?–who said a pastor should preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

Fleming Rutledge wrote a bestseller calling for preachers to stay relevant. She chose as the title: “The Bible and the New York Times.”

You get the point.