Odds and Ends

A few things I'd written down but hadn't posted:

I love paper. Of course, there are newspapers. I save them, not just the ones I have stories in, but historic ones, too: the Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup victory, the Yankee 3-peat, beastly Pedro Martinez manhandling Don Zimmer, 9/11, Katrina, etc. I love writing paper and can spend hours in stationery stores. I love finding old calendars and notebooks that tell you stories from someone's life -- including my own.

While gutting, I've had such fun with the puzzles of paper, like half-written grocery lists and, one random afternoon, boxes of checks from 1965. (Yes, '65!) There were payments, like $10 to the energy company and $5 for monthly insurance. On eweekend, we were doing a street clean-up and I kept finding documents from a local funeral home, like a pricing guide and a cancelled check. I also found other types of paper on that median -- straw wrappers and sugar packets and napkins, the archeologist's clue that a McDonald's was nearby.

One day, I went to a gutting assignment in New Orleans East with a group from the Episcopal Church. We didn't know what to expect as we'd been told the house was "mostly empty" of contents. Lies! It was filled, and it was deceptively large. The occupants had been musicians and we found an organ -- and old fashioned one with tons of pipes, made somewhere in the Mid-West, leading someone to joke that today, such a thing would be made in China -- that we had to take out in huge hunking pieces; two upright pianos; a box filled with triangles and cymbols and wood blocks and Glockenspiels. (Remember those from elementary school chorus and how exciting it was if you were chosen to be the one to play the Glockenspiel?)

There were boxes of sheet music, too, lots of old time stuff. And interspersed we found newspapers, old ones: Ones detailing the struggle for "negro rights" and the Kennedy assassination. They'd been so carefully saved and now they were moldy. I wanted to save them, thinking maybe the family could put them in frames or do something to preserve them. (This is unusual for me, as I'm usually the one who wants to throw everything out if there's a hint of mold on it.) My gutting companions told me no.

But I did take down a framed, oversized proclamation, still hanging on a wall, that was signed by former NO Mayor Dutch Morial. It was in honor of a Baptist Church. It was moldy, true, but we all agreed there was something special about it. A few hours later, we met Yvonne, 78, and her nephew Luis. This had been her family home. The proclamation had been given to her father. How happy she was to see it! She thanked us over and over again and said, like so many other homeowners have, that God was good and she knew it because we were there helping her. She couldn't stop smiling. She insisted we take a photo of her and Luis with the frame.

It's nice to know other people appreciate the power of paper.

Some more tidbits/advice from our favorite storyteller (See below and "It's All in the Way You Tell the Story"):

1) Keep extra copies of your "skinny" photos. Because if there's a flood and they're all in one place, you'll never have proof of those glory days.

2) Some people have questioned the idea of private companies offering "disaster tours" of the city. Not everyone. "I would have charged $5 a head if people wanted to tour my destroyed home. Hell, I would have let them take a piece of sheetrock as a souvenir. Busses, stop here! I could have quit my job."

3) In the days after the storm, there were tears, of course, but many other emotions. What really made her cry, however, was when someone from The Salvation Army gave her a $25 gift card. "I could buy underwear!" she said. "I could handle anger. I could handle frustration. I couldn't handle compassion."

Another story from another fine storyteller:

Two of her friends, brothers, decided to stay in their NO home for Katrina because it would be too difficult to move their elderly mother. (Either they didn't have transportation or it was a pick up but there was some reason they just couldn't drive out of the city.) Confined to a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer's, she was fragile, often unresponsive, although sometimes they'd see a light in her eyes when they spoke to her. She liked watching "Golden Girls" and, although she didn't speak, she did laugh. Sometimes, her sons would see her rocking slightly and laughing, "Hee hee hee hee" during the show.

Their house didn't flood during the storm. They didn't have electricity and it was hella hot, but they couldn't leave. Worried about their mother, they moved her outside to the front porch where they took turns fanning her. They were out there when a National Guard truck came by. It saw them, stopped, and dropped off some water. They were thrilled.

The next day, the brothers were on the porch. Their mother was inside. One Guard truck rolled down the street and the brothers waved, expecting it to stop and leave food or some supplies. It rolled on. A second truck passed later. Again, they waved but the truck kept on going.

They knew what they were missing.

"Ma," they said, "We've got to bring you outside again. Because people will stop for you. Nobody stops for us. We're sorry."

And she just laughed, they said, her little "Hee, hee, hee, hee," head shaking. She loved being useful and needed. She went outside and -- sure enough -- someone stopped by with MRE's later that day.

She died a year after the storm, her sons by her hospital bed.