McGee, that's a French name. I don't know anyone named McGee who doesn't speak French.
--Cajun musician Dennis McGee (1893-1989), quoted in The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (pub. ) by Shane Bernard.
I have relatives named McGee (the children in this photo) and it's true-- they are all Cajuns and speak French.
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When people find out you're from New Orleans, they're supposed to tell you about how they got really drunk there once, or fell in love there, or first heard the music there that changed their lives.
At worst, people would say: I've always wanted to go there.
But now it's just: "I'm sorry."
--From One Dead in Attic by Chris Rose, a columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
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New Orleans? What can you say about the world's greatest marshmallow? New Orleans is the last vestige of the nineteenth century in this country--something about New Orleans defies time. The word "corruption" becomes irrelevant in this city....New Orleans has a very easy sense of responsibility. Trying to arouse anything in New Orleans is like trying to find the muscle in a marshmallow....New Orleans lacks both the liberalism and the intelligence for constructive order....People come here to retire, even in their twenties and thirties...It's hard to find people doing serious work here....The people who live here are living under a heavier layer of delusions about themselves than any other people I know of. The incredible is absolutely, prosaically normal here...I think it is the most unreal outpost of American civilization; it stretches your sense of the ludicrous and inane, the unbelievable-- people living right at the edge of catastrophe.
--Bill Kuhus, former New Orleans writer, quoted in the People's Directory, Fall 1973
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