What city in the United States is the most unique, the most charmingly different from all others in this country, indeed the world?

I’ve been asking myself that question since college, many decades ago. I formulate questions like that, then answer them, because I’m endlessly fascinated by this huge country and its regional differences.

I’m giving you a chance to think how you would answer that question. Your answer may be different from mine. Let me give you some hints about the city I would call our most unique.

It has layer after layer of cultural influences, each adding immeasurably to the colorful blend of the city. First of all, it’s Southern, with all that that brings with it: slow, graceful manners and speech; sincere hospitality; aesthetic concerns in all they construct; plenty of rich food; charm; and much more.

Overlaying this is the particular Louisiana culture, one I won’t pretend to really know but which the rest of the country recognizes as one that functions by its own rules aided by its flamboyant politicians.

Many of our French Acadians went down there in great numbers when the fighting between the English and the French became intolerable up here in the Northeast. They became the Cajuns down there, and they influenced every aspect of life in this city, with the city much richer for it.

Then, there are the Creoles. The definition of “Creole” is murky, but today primarily means persons of full or mixed African heritage.

However, it is said that a Creole is anyone who says he is, and many claim to be. Whoever they are, they have a distinct influence, yet the Creole and Cajun influences seem to bounce back and forth off of each other so that it’s hard to know which is which.

Voodoo somehow landed in this city and stayed, and today bears little resemblance to what the rest of us think it is. It seems to me to resemble paganism, and both seem to be the worship of nature, which is pretty benign.

The author Anne Rice lives in this city, in a beautiful home in the Garden District, right off the St. Charles Streetcar. As you take breakfast at the Café Du Monde and enjoy the beignets, getting powdered sugar all over your clothes, sipping café au lait, you look out over Jackson Square, and it sure seems as if you can see a vampire or two darting behind the tall shrubs.

Mardi Gras has an entire complicated social structure underlying it that functions all year, in many organizations called krewes throughout the city, culminating in the colorful free-for-all that precedes the beginning of Lent.

It is the home of and heart of jazz. Not the blues, however, that’s from Memphis, but the particular brand of blues called zydeco, meaning “beans,” is from this city, with Creole and Cajun origins.

All this just begins to describe the unique aspects of the peerless New Orleans. Now, as I write this, it lies under water with an evacuation order for the whole city! It seems to be destroyed. Gone! Everything I’ve mentioned above may be history.

My heart aches for it and for all the people who have lost everything.

Much of the whole Gulf Coast has been swept away in Hurricane Katrina. We may never know the true death toll. So many are missing, and their families just don’t know if they are alive or not. Story after story on television is heartbreaking.

I feel guilty getting in my comfortable dry bed at night, getting in my functioning warm shower in the morning, having a normal life when so many have absolutely nothing.

I will give money to the organizations helping in relief. I will continue to think how else to help. And I will root for and pray for the return of the unique national treasure that is New Orleans.

Dianne Russell Kidder is a writer, consultant and social worker, who is based in Lisbon. She may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].