To visualize how the Lower Ninth looked before the city's formal campaign to clear the neighborhood, you had to understand that it no longer resembled an urban or even suburban environment.

Across the field were the tents, and beyond them the brown cottonfields that stretched out of sight to the brown arroyo foothills and then the snow-capped Sierras in the morning air.

Almost got what you need? Oh yeah, crackalackin, he says. Goin' junior high for that call out?

The worst thing about my wife's pregnancy was her awful mood swings.