To Miss New Orleans

"The promoter had an odor like a day elderly floater And a pencil with a pad of blue" -- Main highway Blues, a song by the R Stick Ramblers

individual Tuesday in August, from a bench in Jackson Square, we watched a clump of restoration experts hovering above a big black parlor grand piano. The lacquered finish was remarkably shiny given that the piano had wearied weeks under water, and when retrieved was overspreaded in mud and mold.

"We are real proud that we got sum of two units strings to play," Lynn Harrington, head conservator of the throw told a reporter and a half-dozen tourists, who stopped to watch.

The Steinway belonged to of recent origin Orleans music legend Fats Domino and was taken from his Ninth Ward abiding-place after Hurricane Katrina. It was harvested by the agency of history and restoration experts to be part of the Louisiana State Museum's permanent collection.

Fats, himself, was