Pascagoula Progress!

A house has finally emerged from the rubble of 2 years back. My folks finally have a new driveway.

Proof that I am from the MS Gulf Coast!

My parents in Pascagoula have a fiddler crab problem. No joke. My mother informed me today of this problem as if she was just talking about dust bunnies under her sofa. I asked my mom how progress was going with her lazy contractor and her primary complaint was that there is no weather stripping at her front door. I'm thinking...it's letting the cold air out and the warm air in. Hence the name 'weather stripping.' No...it's the fiddler crabs getting in the house. While most people deal with the occasional house fly or cockroach...my folks squash crabs.

Before and After

I noticed that by older brother http://subarumanandsidekickwilly.blogspot.com/posted a picture that was taken almost at the same angle as one recently taken by another person. The one at the very top shows him on top of the debris pile. He may not be aware of it but when I stood there the previous week I noticed that the pile was an entire house. It was flattened by Katrina and it appears that as it floated toward our house it actually took out the east corner of it. It may make little sense but I remember standing there and noticing that the pipe work floor tile were all connected. The rear of our old house is the background. But what you can't see is that there is no front. This dynamic conveniently served as a gigantic, debris catching glove that collected the subdivision south of the house.

The second photo is the new house. My parents live in a trailer on the same property. This house is bigger and better but I also wonder what our first Christmas will feel like. Will every morning be a reminder for my parents of what happened? Will anyone down there ever completely forget? Well, right now they have a constant reminder as they still wake up in a 30 foot trailer and take a shower in a shed. So if you have to remember I guess it is better to remember the past in a 2400 sq. ft. home.

Nice looking deck isn't it?

Progress down South

It's easy to forget about the victims of Katrina. My parents are still living in a 30 foot trailer but anticipate moving into the house above by early July. Hurricanes were fun growing up. It is hard to explain it but when you don't have to pay the house note or the car payment, hurricanes are the next best thing to anticipating a trip to Disney World. We get out of school, we get national TV exposure (which rarely happens in Pascagoula unless Trent Lott slips up and says something wrong), and we get to flee the city for a nice hotel room somewhere north of Hattiesburg. Elena and Frederick were weanies. They just blew down about 18 of our trees. I remember the mosquitos, the heat, the clean up, the dead squirrels, the grilling out, the oak tree top in our attic, and skateboarding at night through in valleys of piled up debris in the streets.
But I still say I wouldn't trade the memories for anything. There is something hautingly fun about taping up our windows 2 hours before the world caves in.
But I am reminded now of what Katrina did. As I sit here with my youngest child in my lap, it is strange to find myself so content in Memphis, TN. Sometimes I feel as if I should be going through hell myself down there. Many people who moved after Katrina feel guilty for doing so and are moving back. I would have left also, I admit. Now my memories are filled with the darkened streets of that first entry into Pascagoula a week after the storm. I recall my mom crying on my shoulder, sitting by myself on the destroyed property as my mom stood in a 6 hour FEMA line, pulling out other people's lives from my house (this included hot water heaters, guns, dishwashers, plates, pictures, clothes, decks, sinks, mattresses, furniture, and jewelry), standing on an entire house in my front lawn but oddly enouph only being about 5 feet off the ground, the rescue helicopters that made it sound like a war zone, rumors of dead friends, rumors of hundreds dead in a nearby neighborhood, the awful signs that we wrote to scare off looters, and a father who just happened to be an insurance agent at the worst possible moment.
But now I can gaze at the house above and realize that, although this country has enormous problems, it is a pretty good deal. My parents will live well now for the rest of their lives. I also look at my parents as heros. My brother and I used to talk about how they couldn't survive anything like hurricane Ivan that came a year before and caused a big scare. They fooled us all. They stuck it out. They survived and will in some weird way cherish it all. The Apostle Paul said that we can take joy in our sufferings. I believe what he said. But honestly I think that joy only comes as the years pass by.