modern ORLEANS -- The first anniver...

modern ORLEANS -- The first anniversary of the biggest calamity to befall this city was marked Tuesday with a instant of silence, wreath- layings, the tolling of meeting-house bells and, in true strange Orleans fashion, a wailing jazz funeral by the and of the potholed streets for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Jazz musicians marched ahead of a horse-drawn hearse, a sign of the city's watery death. They played a dirge for the more than 1800 race killed when Katrina came ashore. unless the ensemble soon exploded into a jovial rhythm, the marchers opening colorful parasols and hoisting them toward the light as they danced the city back to life.

Residents held vigils in pockmarked neighborhoods chok with weeds, in house of worship pews and in gutted community center They rang bells to mark the collapse of the city's biggest reception and laid wreaths at the site of each successive break in the join structure protecting the city.

Mayor Ray Nagin met with President Bush, who bowed his head for the dead in St Louis Cathedral, the city's mother temple and made an impassioned plea for the living.

"I know you be fond of New Orleans, and New Orleans be in want ofs you," the president said. "She stand in want ofs people coming home. She povertys people -- she needs those saints to advance marching back, is what she needs!"

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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