Janna's Field Notes

We first visited Chalmette on a Sunday afternoon. The town seemed pretty deserted and our first planned stop, the family restaurant Rocky’s, was closed; not a very good sign. We proceeded to a bar called RC’s Tavern, which was also fairly empty. The bartender told us that on Sundays the town sort of shuts down because most people go to church. When we asked her where people hung out around Chalmette she told us bars or nail salons. The impression that I got from the bartender was that she thought Chalmette was a decent, maybe a little boring, town with hardworking people and a very close community. Next we stopped at one of the three fire houses in Chalmette. The firefighters we met and talked to were very welcoming and friendly. We mostly discussed the effects of Hurricane Katrina on Chalmette. Apparently St Bernard Parish was one of the few parishes that was completely, 100% destroyed by Katrina. It’s not surprising when you look at a map of Chalmette and see that it’s boxed in by swamp land. The firefighters, like pretty much all of Louisiana, are pretty distrustful of the government and especially FEMA. When asked how Chalmette is different now than from pre-Katrina one of them answered that it was just the little things, like how some neighborhoods still have dozens of vacant lots where houses have been destroyed, how they still don’t have a Taco Bell or Walmart, or how not all of the firehouses have reopened. After the firehouse, we drove to the Chalmette Battlefield where the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1815.
When we went back on Tuesday, this time with the whole group, we decided to hit up Rocky’s to observe the type of people that lived in Chalmette. From our observations it seems that Chalmette is comprised mostly of white working-class people. At the restaurant the close, family feel of the community that we were previously told about could be seen. A lot of people seemed to know each other and everyone was really friendly. Afterwards, we went back to RC’s Tavern. However, the bartender who was working on Sunday wasn’t there and the new one wouldn’t let anyone under twenty-one stay inside. So after awkwardly hanging around outside while our other group members were inside, we went to another bar. This bar was much friendlier than the other and we talked to the customers a bit. Like almost everyone we talked to, they discussed mostly Katrina, its effects on the parish, and their contempt for FEMA. After turning down their offers to do karaoke, we decided it was time to go home.