Route To Recovery

Rebecca Catalanello watches the Ninth Ward come back with the mail man: Progress is written in black ink on 4- by 8-inch pages he keeps in a notebook inside his mail truck.



5706. 5708. 5728. 5805.



Each scribble represents an address, a family, a light shining behind a living room curtain, a place where children could be called home for dinner, mothers will kiss their babies good night and husbands will worry about the next day's work, the too-long grass, the future.



Charles McCann, 62, a mail carrier in the Lower 9th Ward for 26 years, records these numbers like his city's life depends on it.