ralph

Yesterday I was feeling a little blue about home; I'm getting really ready to be there. About mid day a care package came in the mail, filled with treats of all sorts and little remnants of my home. My boss is a good man and somehow knew I needed a little pick me up, as did many of my other friends who called and emailed throughout the course of the day. Strange how that works. Anyway, I went through the package with my new friends, eating treats and divvying up the goods. It was a fabulous impromptu party for all.
The guy in this picture is my pal Ralph. He lives down the street by the levee, in a truck with no wheels. He loves to dance and always has lots of words of wisdom for anyone who will listen, and just as many for those who won't. Since he lives on the street he has a couple lockers here at our center so his things don't get stolen. His keys are an important part of his life, so he needs to keep them secure. Look closely at the new lanyard around Ralph's neck...
Thanks everybody, especially Mike; you made our day down here.

random

Just a couple random pictures. One angel and two non-angels. I guess I could call this heaven and hell.

swamp

I went down to Cajun country this weekend and took a fan-boat swamp tour. Here is my mode of transportation for the day. That's Taco, my guide. Taco was a heck of a nice guy. He drove the hell out of that boat both on and off the water and told stories the whole time. I didn't understand a damn word he said, but they must have been great because he sure laughed a lot. I guess when you stick an airplane engine on the back of a flat boat and drive it a million miles an hour, life can be pretty entertaining. I have a video of how he got this thing into the water which I'll post next week when I get to a better computer. After witnessing the whole process, I nervously turned to my companion and said, "What fucking planet are we on?" At the moment, I was quite serious. But after a couple Budweisers and some fried gator I felt like I fit right in. Yep.



The Cypress trees in the swamp are very, very cool.

rain

Holy shit, when it rains down here it rains. Hard.
I hope the St. Croix party is doing well tonight. I miss my guys, all of them in different ways.
Cheers.

friend

There aren't tons of cockroaches up north. Well, I'm not positive about that, maybe there are and I'm just not seeing them. It's tough to miss this guy though, and he has lots and lots of friends. That's the base of a barstool, just for perspective. And for extra shits and giggles... they fly! Now you know why I sleep in a tent in my gutted out house.

cemetery

I wandered into a cemetery the other day. Geez...

talk

This morning I went down the street to Burger King for my morning coffee. I like to sit and sip their brew, write in my journal or talk to my mom on the phone. While sitting there today I heard a voice behind me ask if I was working somewhere. I said no, just volunteering. I turned around and came face to face with a local guy. 33, he told me, unemployed and three kids. Tough times but he'll bounce back. At this point my bullshit radar kicked in. I've heard this story before, then been asked for bus fare, money for shoes or a couple bucks for beer. I'm used to it and don't really mind, but I generally don't pay much attention. You'd go crazy if you did. He went on to say his truck broke down, but he had a plan to fix the fuel pump then get back out to pick up loads of refrigerators and washing machines to earn scrap metal money. It's not his first choice how to earn money, but he wants to provide for his kids. It's only temporary and he'll bounce back because he has a plan. He had a different tone than I'm used to hearing, so I turned around and started listening more closely. He talked about growing up in the neighborhood, five siblings and no dad, something he'd never allow to happen to his kids. He'd mow lawn to help earn money for his mom and did laundry in the bathtub. He ate powdered eggs and milk but it didn't slow him down on the football field. Times are hard he said, but he'll bounce back. He told me about fishing with his kids and I told him about playing hockey with Jack. It turned into a conversation between two dads, two friends. We parted ways after a half hour, shaking hands warmly. I told him to hug his kids for me and to hang in there because he'll bounce back. He said he'll keep at it and it just felt good to talk to somebody.
I learned sometimes things aren't what you expect; a very valuable lesson at an unexpected time and place.

update

I seem to be getting lots of feedback about Miss Rita, so here's a quick update.
After hearing the Miss Rita story a friend donated a box of food for her. I stopped by her house every day for a week but she was never home. Finally last week when I knocked, the door cracked open and I saw her familiar face peeking out at me. I told her I had some food if she was interested and she let me in immediately, thanking me the whole time, of course. There were two other people in the house with her, installing a brand spanking new air conditioner.
As I walked out of the house through the freshly cut grass I heard the air conditioner man say, "Miss Rita, he's a little bit young for you, isn't he?" She said, "I may be old, but I haven't lost my touch." No, she has not.

field

I spent two days mowing this field so kids can play soccer. I fought through wasp stings, fire ant attacks and flying beer bottles, but I made it. After 6 hours the first day I started hallucinating, but by golly I went back and finished it today. That's my push mower in the middle of the picture. Midwestern stubbornness is a wonderful thing, but when you stop sweating in mid-day New Orleans heat and start to picture Mary Ann and Ginger delivering cold drinks, it's time to throw in the towel. But... I finished that son of a bitch.

lost

No internet connection for the last few days. It's finally up and running so I'll do my best to post an update or two. Thanks for all the support and feedback. I never thought so many people would read this! By so many I mean about 13...

v

It took 70 years, but V finally got his ace on the par three number 7 at his favorite golf course. Must have felt great to write that 1 in the little box on the scorecard.
Way to go V!!

pictures

Finally found a place and a brief moment to post a few pictures. Just some stuff from a typical day, except for the fish... that was a special day.



Here's somebody's life on a curb. The first of 5 or 6 piles.



Mardi Gras beads make the job more tolerable...


Finished product.


My Red Fish tasted much better after it was grilled.

Gotta go. More stuff later if possible.

Cheeers, everyone.

gone

Today I went to where the levee broke, the cause of all this devastation. A rogue barge crashed through a concrete wall, spilling Mississippi water mixed with Gulf water into this neighborhood, leaving not much more than a landscape of brown liquid and roofs. We've all seen the pictures I'm sure. I drove there through the usual streets of overgrown wreckage; tilting houses spray painted with numbers for bodies, animals and toxicity. As I entered the blocks closer to the levee, things changed, almost by design. Power lines stand in rows, tall grasses and sunflowers fill the open space. There were driveways leading to empty lots and porch steps to nowhere. It was all set up nicely for a neighborhood but lacked one thing: Houses.
A few days ago I ran into a man who lived in that area and was there when the water came. It gushed with such force the blocks closest to the breech were literally washed away. He told me he sat on his roof and rode his house about a quarter mile down the street until the force of the water subsided enough to allow his home to come to rest against an impromptu levee made of his neighbors' homes. He sat on his roof for two days until a National Guard basked pulled him to the safety of a hovering helicopter. I've heard and read these stories before but seeing it come out of the mouth and eyes of this man was a new experience in survival.
I walked around that area for a while, looking at the empty spots where people used to live and I gotta say it may be the most peaceful spot I've found in this city so far. The irony of that statement can't really be measured.

ick

Jack is going to love this story...

Today I volunteered to do compost duty. Being sort of a hippie commune, this place does its fair share to replenish the earth by composting organic waste. This means after every meal all the unused food goes into five gallon buckets, which are then transported to a composting site. That's the simple version. Here's what really happens...
The food is put into five gallon buckets, but these buckets are not emptied regularly. Nope, they sit in an alley for several weeks at a time until they are all filled and ready to be emptied. It's constantly hot and humid here in Louisiana and those buckets sit filled to the brim, sealed with plastic lids, brewing and stewing until some sap like me says he'll empty them. So I loaded them in the truck and took them a few blocks away to Butch's house. Butch is a resident who learned how to compost in the army and has a whole composting setup in his backyard, right in the heart of the 9th Ward. It stinks, but of course nobody complains to Butch because he always carries a gun. My guess is he carries two; the one you can see, and one you can't. I poured the 75 gallons of stench in Butch's backyard, smiling at him the whole time and itching to get the hell out of there.
I returned to the center to finish my job which meant I needed to spray out each bucket with hot water. Easy enough. So as I sat in the alley, spraying out incredibly stinky buckets with incredibly hot water in 97 degree heat I closed my eyes, sweated and hoped for the best. Toward the end of this job I was getting terribly annoyed with the flies buzzing around my head and landing on my arms, but I worked diligently to finish the task. I sprayed the last bucket and set it down, eager to swat the damn flies off my arms because at this point they were driving me insane. However, after a quick glance downward I realized flies were not the issue. Nope, not flies; maggots. Both arms, covered with crawling white maggots. I calmly sprayed myself from head to toe with the hose, got in my car, drove down the street to the nearest bar and drank three beers very, very quickly.
Enjoy this story now because I will never speak of it again. Ever.

frustration

Frustration set in today. Hard.
I was sent to do yardwork around the neighborhood which I thought was a grand idea. However, this yardwork turned out to be a political move, something that is becoming very apparent in this organization. I thought I would be cutting the grass for people like Miss Rita, but that wasn't the case. I was sent to mow the grass of abandoned houses. See, if the grass in front of a house gets too high, the city begins imposing fines. If those fines aren't paid, it indicates the person is not returning to that home, which gives the city leverage to take the house. Some people don't like that. But as I was trying to cut down four foot high weeds with a malfunctioning weed whacker and a high school girl from Brooklyn who has never cut a blade of grass in her life, I started to wonder about things. It's one hundred degrees and I'm struggling to mow the front of a house which is clearly falling over for a person that may be dead or living in another city, all in the name of keeping "The Man" from infringing on this neighborhood. Meanwhile, Miss Rita is sitting in her chair while her grass grows taller around her. So I stopped. Stopped and sat down. Soon the high schooler began lecturing me that if we didn't cut the grass the city would fine the people... regurgitating exactly what she hears from people she is following blindly and without question, which was precisely what I was doing thirty seconds prior to that moment. It was alarming. Suddenly I lost my vision of helping and felt swept up in something much bigger and much less appealing. What purpose is sweating to save a house nobody wants in first place? And do the neighbors really want an empty, rotting house next door? I would have asked, but there were no neighbors, just more tall grass and empty, rotting houses. Why was I working so hard for something that doesn't exist? These are super-hard questions down here that can drive a person insane if he thinks about it.
So there I sat; a weed whacker that wouldn't stat, a righteous, nasal voiced 17 year old who wouldn't shut up and my frustrated self. It was about that time the fire ants attacked my hand. I've had better days.
Tomorrow I go back to gutting houses. Thank heavens.

miss rita

Today I was gutting a house a few blocks from where I sleep. A car pulled up and an old woman got out and asked if we could help her. I walked down the street with my new friend Jen, the dredlocked angel, and checked out the woman's problem. She had a detached brick garage which was teetering on the brink of collapse. She asked if we could clean it out, but after a brief discussion we decided there was no way in hell we should touch anything in that structure. After our apologetic refusal, she graciously thanked us and blessed us over and over.
Before leaving she mentioned her neighbor might need some help, so we stopped by to check on her. A woman quickly emerged from the small brick house, then retreated to "put herself together." After a few minutes she reappeared and apologized, saying it takes her about 5 minutes to put on a blouse these days because of arthritis. She said her name was Miss Rita and being in your 80's can get tiresome. She took us to her shed in her back yard and asked if we could remove some things before it gets demolished. Over the next half hour we moved out tools, chairs, an oil can, a framed picture of Jesus and other miscellaneous rusted items she will never use again. Her shed was very obviously underwater and these things were absolutely destroyed, but they were hers and she wanted them. They reminded her of her husband, she said. She told us she'd been widowed for ten years and things were bearable until that storm. Now it's day by day, the phrase I hear constantly from the people around here.
Afterward she took us to her house. The inside was basically empty, except for a chair, a cement floor covered by a rug with the image of a lion's head, a refrigerator and a gas stove that doesn't work because she has no gas. When she needs to cook or make hot water, she uses a hot plate. It was at least 100 degrees inside, with no fans or open windows to move the air. This is where Miss Rita sits, every day.
We told her about the center where we work and how she can get three hot meals a day. We also told her we can cut her grass for free and she was overwhelmed with joy because she can save the money she pays monthly to have it done now.
Jen and I walked the mile back to our center, fixed three lunches for Miss Rita, stopped at the gas station on the walk back and got her two gallons of water. We were met at her door with overwhelming gratitude and blessings with a promise we'd see her soon at the center for lunch and maybe even dinner. As she walked us to the gate, arm in arm with Jen, she told us she loved us. We told Miss Rita we love her too.
Jen and I walked back down the street, grinning and silent.
If anybody has any question about why I'm here, it was just answered.
Actually, I wasn't really even sure, until today.
Love.

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With love!

words

No pictures today. That really bums me out. I have a plan though... maybe by the weekend.
Gutted another house today. This one had someone's life in it. Geraldine Howard is her name. I know because I had to clean up the prescription bottles from her kitchen cupboards. By the looks of that cupboard I know she likes popcorn, Jesus and making her own grape flavored snowcones.
Grape flavored snowcone mix does not keep well when stored in river water for two years, unless you're a Cockroach or an Earwig; then it's just right. Back there tomorrow to figure out how to get her bathtub out of the bathroom and on to the curb. Those things are a bitch.

home

Unfortunately, the computers at this place are too elderly to accept photos from my camera. Until I can remedy that, I'll have to post from my phone which isn't easy since I don't carry it with me all the time due to continuous sweating. Anyway, here's my new home sweet home. I live here with 5 other people. The place is gutted, but there's some very tasteful cardboard and blankets hanging from the beams to create rooms. Plus my tent spruces up the place nicely. The faint spray painting on the front isn't graffiti, it indicates the place was underwater but there were no bodies found inside. That's a good thing. If nothing else, the orange vibe sure looks good parked in front!

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2:00 sunday afternoon, nashville, tennessee.

out

Thanks
Thanks
Thanks

One for each.

Heading south now.