Sic Semper Tyrannis

Back from New Orleans

Well, I’m back from an awesome trip to New Orleans last week. I spent the bulk of the week doing some heavy-duty, sweaty domestic destruction in the name of the Lord.

I, along with 18 others, gutted a whole house in four days and started on another one of Friday.

We had the pleasure of meeting and working alongside Zippy, the homeowner. He and his wife were awesome to us, bringing us breakfast and lunch and hanging out with us downtown on Thursday night. I don’t think Zippy ever quite understood that we were supposed to be helping him, not the other way around! He was pretty reluctant to quit working whenever we took breaks.

As everyone else would probably say- it was the toughest week of hard labor that I’ve ever known. I have a desk job. We had to wear HAZMAT suits in the house and I was soaked in sweat about fifteen to twenty minutes into each day. It looked like I went to White Water in my clothes. So, lots of physical labor and less-than-luxurious accommodations, (read: no A/C, just fans.) But it was worth it to know that Zippy appreciated it. I consider him and Pam to be long-distance friends now.

And I do have the distinction of bringing home a war wound. I stepped into a broken piece of glass that was obscured by weeds and had to get five stitches on my shin. Thankfully, that was the morning of the last day of work and we quit early so it could have been a lot worse.

And as I’ve been asked quite a bit—yes, New Orleans still needs A LOT of work. The neighborhood we were working in was pretty quiet- a few people living in FEMA trailers outside their badly damaged houses, but for the most part, it looked like a young ghost town. (I got an eerie feeling every time I went off to the backyard next door to pee and was surrounded by the silence of the neighborhood. Just by the sound of it, I could have sworn I was in some beautiful meadow somewhere, the distant chirping of birds and the humming of insects. But it wasn’t beautiful. It was sad and confusing and scary. I wondered if anyone would ever come back to rebuild all of this.)

And the area that was close to the levee break—it looks pretty much unrecoverable. Those cheaply-built little wooden houses had no chance and they look like it--ripped from their foundations, squashed to the point of unrecognizability. I’ve never seen a “war zone,” but in my head…

If you are the kind of person who prays or sends up good thoughts or whatever, the people of New Orleans could still use it.

If I ever see any of you, dear readers, maybe I will tell you tales of the hot tub we pulled out of the house.

posted by Mike @ 3:47 PM