I have been a pallbearer several times-I know I carried both of my grandparents (my mother's parents) to their final resting place. And there have been others. Today (well it is yesterday now) I helped carry my Aunt E*****'s mortal remains to her grave.
Don't cry for me Argentina-save your tears for my cousins Linda and Brenda (they're in my Top 40) and Linda's daughter Michelle. I can't say how hard things hit some of the other members of our family but I know this has been a wrenching experience for them. My mother (E***** was her older sister) seems to be doing well, though of course she is saddened.
My Aunt suffered from that demon known as Alzheimer's-probably one of the most sadistic diseases known to Man, if a disease can be termed sadistic. I had not seen her in many years, and am told that by the time of her death she had forgotten everything-who she was, who her daughters were, what food was and how to feed herself...you get the picture. So in my mind my Aunt has been gone for a long time. That may seem hard but I try to be a realist, and that is reality as I perceive it-make of it what you will.
I used to love to visit my Aunt when I was a boy. She owned a huge overgrown tract of land, and it was splendid fun to go exploring. Her husband, my Uncle H******, had chosen for whatever reason to equip a room for himself in the barn, so they both had separate domains. He worked at a local bakery (part of a national chain) and always came home smelling like freshly baked bread. He has been dead for years.
My Aunt loved animals, and took in a stray whenever she could. One day she found a dog she couldn't keep and called my wife and I. Gypsy was a fantastic loving animal, and we have never forgotten who gave her to us. It was probably one of the best gifts we have ever gotten.
My Aunt was also something of a pack rat. We had a special "game" we played...you see, the rule was no one ever went in her bedroom. She always said it was too dirty, too cluttered, etc. etc. Combine a room that was off-limits and a semi-mischievous pre-teen, and sit back and watch the fun. A strange sort of chess game ensued, played out turn by turn over the course of many visits. Aunt E**** did her level best to keep me out and I did my level best to get in. I'm not even sure now how I finally managed to give her slip-I think she just didn't realize I had grown tall enough to pop open the hook and eye lock she kept on the door.
The interior of that room was indescribable-but the thing that sticks out in my mind were all the carefully hoarded Watchtower's. Aunt E***** was a big time Jehovah's Witness. It's odd-I've never really heard of families as split by religion as ours, though I'm sure they must exist. We have JW's, Mormons, Wiccans, lapsed Catholic's, etc. I learned at a very early age not to discuss religion with Aunt E*****. Remember, Jehovah's Witnesses are those annoying people who knock on your door on the Saturday morning you've finally managed to sleep late, and they will not go away. Sometimes my Aunt could be a bit of a bulldog on the subject of her religion, but you usually felt that she had what she considered to be your best interests at heart. And that's more than I can say for some.
Apparently Jehovah's Witnesses are always called upon to "testify to the Good News" which explains (at least to my satisfaction) why my Aunt's funeral turned into a fifteen minute infomercial for the Faith. (Well if they'll wake you up from a sound sleep on Saturday morning...really decency doesn't even enter into it, does it?) I'm going to use some adjectives here: distasteful, manipulative, creepy. And ignored.
My little boy stayed at his maternal grandmother's today-he understands what Death is but he only saw my Aunt a very few times in his life, if at all, and he had to be very small. As far as I'm concerned he is still small...small enough to receive a tender mercy from his parents and be allowed to experience his first funeral when he is a lot (or at least a little) older, and better equipped to deal with the harsh realities our lives feature.
Anyone who knows me knows literacy and reading have always been large and treasured components of my life. I recently discovered a site called Shelfari which lets you list and commentate on the books you've read. I'm just starting out over there, but I've found the site to be a lot of fun. Down below you'll find the url to my personal shelf. I invite you to visit if you wish. Hope everyone is having a fantastic 2008 so far! Cut and paste this url
TAG! You’re it!
Current mood: amused
Category: Life
I am always so serious when I blog-but my darling friend Flame "tagged" me at just the right moment, so I'm going to step out of my comfort zone and do something a little different. Let's play!
Here's how you play: Once you've been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end choose 10 people to be tagged, list their names and why you tagged them. Don't forget to leave them a comment saying '(You're It!) and to go read your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you; so since you can't tag me back, let me know when you are done so that I can go read your blog answers.
Here goes:
1. I was a vegetarian for three years.
2. I was in law enforcement for six years.
3. I recently found out one of my good friends I'd lost contact with is still alive, which makes me deliriously happy, as I feared the worst.
4. My parents are Republicans. Don't worry I can't figure it out either.
5. I am a firm believer in science and rationality...but I wish there was a little more magic in the world. (Doesn't everyone?)
6. I'm a poet and essayist-or haven't you been reading any of my other blogs?
7. My diabetes is affecting my vision, and not in a good way.
8. I've talked two people out of suicide.
9. At one point in my life I had decided to become a Catholic Priest. (But I didn't like little boys, so that nixed that.)
10. I collect hourglasses, and masks from different cultures.
I tagged:
1. Sabine: Because I love her and she is my best friend.
2. Joy: Because she lives up to her name.
3. Sweet Caroline: She's sweet! Duh!
4. Heather: One of my most interesting and brilliant friends-she works too hard and maybe something "lite" will be a welcome distraction.
5. Tigerlicious Tess: Best Jersey Girl Ever! There are too many good things to say about Tess to include them all here.
6. Lee: Tough, smart, independent, funny human being. Another person I could rave about all day.
7. Silverbreeze: Is a true friend in all respects. Supportive, loving, sensible, kind-I could not ask for a better friend.
8. Sedgie: Is a truly remarkable person; we are always on the same wavelength.
9. The Lady Erzsebet: She knows why.
10. Blue: A great person I don't get to visit with nearly enough.
Things have changed. If you've been around this wide ole world long enough you know change is the only constant.
Our story begins, Constant Reader, the evening of Labor Day. After having two weeks off I am ready to return, girding my loins (metaphorically speaking) for the days to come. Two weeks off work means a huge backlog of unprocessed actions, and the Work Fairy is just some person who works in accounting. (Forgive my feeble attempt at humor-we don't have an accounting department.) It will be a long haul before I am caught up again-but that's ok, I'm up for it and knew the consequences when I took the leave. I would not have done things any differently. Haven't I just had literally the best vacation of my life?
And The Phone Rang.
"Your Dad has fallen and he can't stand. You have to come now."
Which is how I ended up sitting in my folks' living room after seven that evening. My father sits in my mother's wheelchair (Mom has been paralyzed on her left side since 2004 due to a stroke) and he is so weak he cannot rise. Dad is her primary caregiver and at 84 that is a herculean task-I assume he has finally worked himself into the ground. (And before you ask we have offered help many times in many forms. Keep reading.)
I did only one smart thing that evening-I called my sister. Cell phones being what they are I managed to catch her and her family coming back from the beach...and no problem they can divert their journey back home to swing by Mom and Dad's.
My parent's are both strong willed and private people. After giving birth to me Mom did not visit a physician again until her stroke some thirty-nine years later. Fiercely independent and stubborn are fair descriptions. So it is no surprise to me Dad does not want to go to the hospital-even after I rang his regular physician's on call number and was told he could either go to the hospital now or wait to visit the doctor at nine the next morning.
It took my brother in law calling a paramedic friend of his to finally convince Dad he needed to go-so while my cousin stayed behind to care for my Mom (she needs 24 hour attention) we (my brother in law and I) took Dad to the emergency room.
Questions were answered, tests were run. Initial diagnosis: pneumonia. My father (normally strong as a bull) is weak as a kitten. At five AM he is admitted to the hospital. He cannot construct a complete sentence, having deteriorated rapidly in the hours since the choice was first made to bring him in.
At seven AM I call work and explain the situation-and miss another day with no negative consequence. Everyone understands which is fortunate. Because everyone's understanding is going to strained a little before this is over.
I stayed with my father all that Tuesday. Dad was given massive antibiotics and slept a lot. If he had returned to the house he would just have tried to take care of Mom some more-I literally believe the only rest he would take was the one forced upon him by illness and circumstance. Dad was already talking about returning home as soon as he could.
I had not seen my father's face in repose since I moved out of my parent's house to start my own life decades ago. How long had Dad looked like this? When Dad was awake, smiling and laughing, he was the same as he had always been-but now, asleep, horizontal rather than vertical, I could see it-the skull beneath the skin.
Dad stayed in the hospital till Friday. Mom was cared for by various family members, including yours truly, in the interim. The days passed; Dad got stronger.
And Mom got weaker. It could have been a variety of things I imagine. My parents have never liked to be separated from one another and the coming Saturday would mark their Fifty-Ninth Wedding Anniversary. My mother's worry for my father was acute. Also my mother has always been a very modest person-and being paralyzed as she is has been an assault on her dignity that was simply unparalleled.
Of course previously my father took care of her private matters for her-but Dad could no longer even pick himself up, much less Mom. So it fell to us-her daughter, her son, etc.-to take care of her. To say Mom did not care for this arrangement was an understatement.
Hysterical crying jags became the norm. Suddenly Mom could not communicate; she simply couldn't find the right word which had not been a problem previously. And somewhere in the next three days (Tuesday Wednesday Thursday) Mom's mind slipped away into the Shadowlands.
Mom was brought to the hospital Friday via ambulance-she was seeing termites on the ceiling. The medical personnel thought at first she was having an allergic reaction to her medication-or maybe she was suffering from Septicemia (blood poisoning) which she had had once before. Or maybe it was another stroke....
But tests ruled out all those possibilities. And despite everyone's protestations Mom's problems were written off as stress related, and she was sent back home.
For a brief few hours she and Dad were in the same hospital and Dad was wheelchaired down to see her. Mom and Dad were very happy to see each other. Though Mom's speech was still peppered with the occasional non sequitur we thought maybe things would be alright. Back home Mom continued to see termites on the ceiling. Things went from bad to worse and Mom was returned to the hospital; later she was transferred to the Neurological Center, where (as of this writing) she remains.
For a while Mom's communications were elliptical ramblings that covered events from as far as seven decades ago. My Uncle Roy, for instance, died when I was five-not yesterday. Mom's continually asking to be made ready for my own funeral was freaky at best. All her dreams were drenched in blood-we were treated to car wrecks, multiple rapes and "retribution" and I've no idea how much of that was real and how much was confabulated.
My sister and I had a conversation with Dad-one we have been dreading for years.
We pointed out that Dad just could not care for Mom by himself anymore-his health precluded it. And though we were happy to come over and help we could not do it forever-
Dad moved to my sister's that Saturday night. The house I grew up in is now untenanted for the first time since I was born. And no one knows what will happen next but we take it day by day. If my mother is released she will never come home. Though still confined, Mom seems to slowly be coming back to herself. She cracked a really good joke today at lunch that had us all laughing.
Average stays in the Neurological Center are measured in weeks not days I'm told. By the time she is ready for release my sister & brother in law will have completed converting their garage into an apartment for my parents.
My sister and I have spent the last three decades or so in various states of war-it took recent events to change that. I could write a list a mile long of all the ways she has offended and hurt me over the years and I'm sure she could do the same for me. The hell of it is we would both be right.
I told her I don't want anything to come between us again and she agreed. So though several chapters in everyone's life are closing, some new ones are opening too. I have several nieces and nephews I don't know very well at all. I feel like Scrooge on Christmas morning.
And yes I'm aware this leaves me emotionally vulnerable to a whole new group of people. That's the price you pay.
As things have slowed down (slightly) since all this madness began I've thought a lot about-madness. My mother's older sisters are both Alzheimer's sufferers. My Mom has been diagnosed with Senile Dementia with Psychosis. So forgive me, Constant Reader, if I don't glance in the mirror for a moment, at the skull beneath my skin.
Blade Runner is one of my favorite films, and there is a line from the original version that fits here just about perfectly:
"I don't know how long we have together... who does?"
Like a lot of people, I watched his movies and (later) listened to his speeches. And like a lot of people I was extremely saddened to hear of his death. As I sit here at my keyboard I wonder if I'm going to be able to do what I set out to do-to articulate clearly exactly what Christopher Reeve meant to me and why.
It's all about heroes.
Reeve is most closely associated with Superman, the character he portrayed in four motion pictures. I've heard many (myself included) express the sentiment that Reeve WAS Superman-at least in the sense that we accepted no other actor in the role he so clearly (to us) seemed born to play.
I think heroes are very important and necessary to humankind. My feeling is that heroes show us that we can be heroes ourselves-that we can sometimes be more than the sum of our parts. Of course that is very easy to do when you have a team of writers and special effects artists making sure you always look heroic.
Christopher Reeve did it the hard way-his heroism came from within. He was paralyzed for approximately nine years after his accident-in that time he showed us that grace and courage in the face of an implacable and unyielding foe is not only possible, but that that same grace and courage can sometimes win the day.
Mr. Reeve became a tireless advocate for people with spinal injuries such as he suffered-you might say that was something he did in his own self-interest and maybe you would even be right. As I said earlier: I didn't know Christopher Reeve. But I know what I saw. I saw a man who became more than a man-and he did it without the benefit of a costume or special effects.
I found myself admiring Christopher Reeve a lot more than I admired Superman. Not to downplay the importance of fictional heroes-if my son had to choose between today's politicians or Superman as a role model, I know which one I'd prefer he picked.
Had he lived I sincerely believe Christopher Reeve would have walked again. I believe it in the same way I believe the Sun will rise tomorrow. But sadly, such was not to be. I have a friend, who, when he heard of Reeves death, said this: "Maybe he won't ever walk again, but now I know he's flying again..."
And I knew the minute my father said that what had happened. Knew.
The rest of that conversation does not bear repeating-it is irrelevant.
I found this on the net:
John Michael Conway, 59, of Beaumont, died Thursday, March 8, 2007. A native of Port Arthur and lifelong resident of Beaumont, John was formerly a teacher at Monsignor Kelly High School. A nationally recognized educator, he wrote poetry and short stories, and was an avid reader. His father FE Conway; and sister, Peggy Waldrop preceded him in death. Survivors include his mother, Ruby Conway of Nederland; daughter, Erin Galloway and her husband Kenneth of Beaumont; son, Tim J. Conway of Beaumont; brother, Tom Conway and his wife Vivian of Austin; sisters, Connie Richmond and her husband Peyton of Nederland and Margaret Gray and her husband Warren of Kentucky; grandson, Jonathan "J.T." Galloway of Beaumont; and numerous nieces and nephews. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated 10:00 a.m. Monday, March 12, 2007 at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica with a committal service to follow at 2:30 p.m. at Broussard's Crematorium under the direction of Broussard's, 2000 McFaddin, Beaumont. A gathering of family and friends will be from 4:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. with a Christian Vigil at 6:00 p.m. Sunday, March 11, 2007 at the Mortuary. The family asks that everyone join them for a reception in The Cloister Room at St. Mark's Episcopal Church following the Mass at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica.
***********************************
John Conway was one of the most brilliant people I have ever known.
Being in the room with him was like standing next to heat lightning trapped in a bottle. His intellect was overpowering and intimidating, but he was never an intimidator. He was kind and good natured with a warm heart and an easy going temperament; keen of wit and sharp of eye. He was one of the few instructors I have ever had that I had to work to impress. He seemed to have a great deal of patience where the foibles of human nature were concerned. You could tell him anything and he would keep your secret.
He was the kind of person I wanted to grow up to be.
Irony department: I was thinking of him just a few days ago. I can't even really tell you why he dropped into my head-I don't spend a lot of my time thinking about ancient history anymore and the greater part of our association took place over two decades ago.
And now he's gone.
The last time I saw him was several years past-he was confined to a wheelchair then, but when we talked he certainly did not seem to have let that slow him down much. A black beret was perched jauntily on his head; he talked about playing with his grandson and writing and all the things that were important to him.
There is a saying (I can't remember it exactly I am too upset) that talks about how when any man dies we are all diminished. You don't know how true that is today.
(This semi-disjointed narrative was written in late 2005. As the site I store this at seems more and more unstable some days I am reposting it here for "posterity" and so that I don't forget what we went through. Not that I ever would anyway.)
I really had not planned on evacuating. They closed the office Thursday and Friday-but when they announced it Wednesday I thought it was a joke more than anything else. This was the result of nothing more than arrogance on my part-the area I live in has been under the gun numerous times, and we've dodged the bullet for as long as I can recall, coming away with only minor damage.
So though Laura and I discussed it we did not take Hurricane Rita seriously-we decided to see what the morning news brought and make a decision then.
The morning news brought Laura screaming into the bedroom (I always sleep later than her unless I have to get up for work) with the news that Rita had changed course and a mandatory evacuation had been called for.
We immediately set out to pack and leave-good thing we had at least gassed up the night before. We packed as hastily as possible, but even so we were not able to leave very speedily. We also made some dumb decisions and at least one choice that haunts me to this day.
Let's talk dumb decisions first: I had seen all the news coverage of New Orleans and I knew by leaving my house unattended I was probably going to be robbed-or at least that was how I felt. So I chose to take my DVD collection (which is vast) with me. My reasoning was that anyone who broke into my house to rob me while I was gone was unlikely to recognize the rare books I own as a possible source of revenue-they'd go right to what they could use to turn over a quick buck. So I left the really valuable stuff home and took what I thought people were most likely to steal with me. We also took our computers-most of our family photos are on them.
Taking the DVD's was a dumb decision-but it made a lot of sense at the time. We took our clothes, Colin's pictures, and our important documents too. And of course we tried to load up the most precious things (besides Colin) that we have-our pets.
This idea proved untenable. The cats had to double up in the cat carriers and it soon became readily apparent that they would kill each other before the trip was over. So we took two of our most docile cats, Tony (AKA Tony Soprano the Gangster of Love) and Marshmallow, along with our three dogs Buddy Zooey and Gidget and Colin's five hermit crabs Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, Turbo, Speedy, and Hellboy. We left all the other cats behind-we filled every container in the house that we could find with water and dumped all the cat food on the kitchen table in a huge mound. We also left a large supply of food and water outside for our outdoor cats, like Little Blackie and Sabrina.
As we were terrified of the results of a storm surge we left the back window open-that way if the water started to rise the cats might be able to get out of the house and have at least a fighting chance at survival. Better than drowning inside a box.
The last time I saw Mike was when I let him out of his carrier inside the house-I distinctly remember saying "Sorry Mike." I have never seen Mike or Sabrina again.
I had called my folks and learned they would be going to my sister's house in Sour Lake and from there evacuating with them. Laura's folks were going to go to my sister in law's home in Burke which is just outside Lufkin.
As for us, a co-worker had offered to let us stay at her house in Woodville so I called her up and said we were on our way. As things turned out we were a lot closer to the storm than either set of parents was when it hit.
So with both cars piled to the brim with cats, dogs, material possessions and ourselves we set out to get out of Dodge. Problem was everyone else was trying to get out too.
It was a beautiful day, with a bright blue sky and puffy white clouds like cotton...and a merciless sun that raised the temperature well past the one hundred degree mark. We left the house around 12:30 PM and got where we were going around 6:30 PM. [url=http://www.mapquest.com/main.adp]Mapquest[/url] tells me the distance between our home town and Woodville is around seventy miles and normally takes about one and a half hours to drive.
We made it in about six and that is indeed remarkable though perhaps not for the reason you think-because six hours is a fantastically short amount of time. I know people who were in their cars over twenty four hours when they evacuated. In fact my understanding is the evacuation actually killed more people than Hurricane Rita did, due to heat exhaustion and related disorders.
I could easily have been one of those statistics I imagine-I took eight soft drinks with me and drank them all to keep cool. I never had to stop because all the liquid I was drinking came right back out of my skin as sweat. Laura and Colin were luckier-they drove the car that had air conditioning, and that is where all the pets were too.
Most Texas highways are either two lane or four lane affairs-the problem with where I live is that most of the ways out narrow down or bottleneck to a few major highways. When everyone tries to leave at once-chaos! There is a term I have learned called "contra-flow" and this has nothing to do Iran Contra and everything to do with making all the lanes temporarily go one way-for whatever reason the authorities did not do that and so we had everyone from Port Arthur, Port Neches, Groves and Nederland trying to leave on two two lane highways. I swear it took us almost forty minutes to go fifteen miles.
The silver lining is that this is where I excelled. I grew up in this area and know every backroad Beaumont has to offer. After we went that fifteen miles we were able to pull off and start going down various streets I know. But first we stopped at the Humane Society.
Most of you know that Laura was the Vice President of the Humane Society of SE Texas-this is our local animal shelter. We got there to find the employees euthanizing all of the animals-the fear of a storm surge was very real at that time and no one at the Humane Society wanted to leave these animals to drown in a cage either. Saddest of all was that a lot of these animals were Hurricane Katrina survivors-there just wasn't anything else to do with these poor babies. (FYI-the Houston ASPCA did swoop in at the last minute and take approximately sixty animals, which was great.) It took some really harsh talk to get Laura back on the road-I had to convince her there was nothing else to be done there and we needed to get going.
Without boring you with a diatribe on the geography of my hometown let's just say I managed to circumnavigate Beaumont and come out on the other side (and back on the evacuation route) in about fifteen minutes. It was a feat made easier by the fact that every road we drove down was deserted.
And that was how it went-whenever we could we took side roads and cut around the massive traffic jams out of town. I got us about halfway to Woodville before we had no choice but to stay on the artery of Highway 69. My world became a blur of pain-pain in my legs and back from sitting in one place (remember every other available space in my car was filled with our things-I could not even stretch my right arm) and discomfort from the high temperature I was experiencing.
All the crazy stuff I saw on that drive-the abandoned cars that had presumably overheated, the traffic that was so slow a person in one car could ask the driver in the lane over for a soda (and get it.) I grew impatient-so I started to take risks and I was not the only one. Whenever I could I cut onto the shoulder and sped up, whizzing by the bumper to bumper traffic that clogged the highway proper. Sometimes I drove off the shoulder to get by someone who decided it was their job to regulate how fast I went. Colin says (he was in the car behind me with his mother) that someone shot at me; he described it as a loud bang and then he saw something whip across the road. Who knows? It's possible.I'm glad they were a poor shot.
We grew nearer and nearer our goal-finally near Hillister (and about eight miles outside Woodville) I heard a noise I could not explain: chunk chunk chunk Chunk CHUNK CHUNK. What the hell was that? Surely it couldn't be...
A flat tire.
Oh hell yes of course it could be-and was. I was forced to pull over.
I was screwed. All our crap was piled on top of the hold we keep the spare tire in. And I did not have a lug wrench to change the tire with. (We bought the car I drive used. I have since spent quite a bit of time trying to find a tool that will fit the lug bolts on my tires-with no success. Anywho...)
There was no other choice. I abandoned the car along the side of the road-I pulled it into the driveway of one of the many agricultural concerns that dot the area. This was away from the highway proper and surrounded by pine trees. I was reasonably confident that no one would break into my car-not with bumper to bumper traffic still clogging US 69. What made me nervous was the abundance of pine trees-everyone "knows" that pine trees attract lightning. I left behind our computers, some of our clothes, my presciptions, and my DVD's.
We took off in the Aztek and in about 45 more minutes we got to my coworkers home. (More on her later.) She agreed to watch Colin while Laura and I took a run back down the highway to retrieve our things. We kenneled the cats and Gidget and put Buddy and Zooey in the backyard with my coworker's dog, Texas.
So off we went to meet up with the wrecker we had called from her house-but it didn't work out quite the way we planned.
Remember that term I introduced earlier? Contraflow? Well the state troopers had finally gotten their shit together-the highway we needed to go down was now a one way affair going the wrong way! The wrecker driver refused to go get our car because of that and I can't say I blamed him. He was nice enough to pull out his county map and show me a fantastic side road that would take me back to a point on the highway that was hopefully before we had to pull off. All I would have to do was merge into traffic and let the flow carry me next to the car-I could pull off and throw everything in the now empty Aztek. Simple!
That was one freaky drive. Woodville is the beginning of Texas hill country and this road was not particularly well maintained. So there we were trying to make our best possible speed on this dark deserted road without snapping an axle.
Breaking down here would be terrible-there was literally no one to help. All of a sudden a huge set of greenhouses loomed out of the forest on the right-these were full of blooming bedding plants and were completely modern in design. I'm probably failing to describe how completely odd it was-I felt as though I might as well have been on the Moon.
Eventually we made our way back to the main highway again-only to discover that for all our cleverness we had not been clever enough. We were still not far enough along to reach the car. Shit! Never one to quit, I started to go further down the highway towards the car-keep in mind that this highway, normally a two lane two way affair, had now been transformed into a four lane (people were driving on both shoulders) one way nightmare. I eventually had to face facts-I was not going to make it.
A volunteer with one of the local fire departments came to our rescue-he let me hop in his truck and he used his siren to cut through traffic to get to the car. I have since measured how far it is from where we met up with him to where the car was parked and it is only seven tenths of a mile-it took us fifteen minutes with the sirens going to get to the Ford.
I took my prescriptions and our clothes, and left everything else. I just didn't feel right about trying to get anything more-there were a staggering number of ambulances on the road and I could not see any way to justify that kind of selfishness. So I took what I could not live without and left the rest.
By this time it was waaaaayyy past sundown and it took us the better part of an hour to get back to my co-worker's home. I was angry at myself for not taking more non-essentials from the car when we were abandoning it and I was also angry at myself for acting like a jerk-my DVD's were, after all (gasp!) able to be replaced and here I was in essence risking our lives to go get them. I wasn't in survival mode yet.
But I would be.
I feel obligated, before we leave the side of this particular highway, to try to impress upon you just how odd and terrible some of the things we saw were.
There was a point in the day in which the heat of the sun conspired with the constant friction of vehicles' tires to reduce the road to two lines of gooey tar that stuck to your tires like gum-please keep in mind this was not some half finished country lane but a well maintained state highway.
There was a great line of school buses reading "Port Arthur ISD" traveling in a caravan like a multi-segmented yellow caterpillar-so far away from home. There were guys pulling their boats behind them, stuffed with whatever they could contrive to haul inside their hulls. Occasionally emergency vehicles would try to cut through the stalled traffic-when one was going my way I shamelessly pulled in behind it and followed in its' wake. That is how desperate I was and I promise you I wasn't the only one.
At one point near Woodville we were behind an ambulance trapped in traffic about three to four car lengths ahead of us. The back doors were open and we could see the EMT's inside desperately working on someone-I feel in my heart that person died there, though of course I don't know that. It is a fact that more folks died due to the evacuation than due to Rita-somehow that statistic just seems so wrong and shameful to me.
I really can't say what permanent effect our experiences have had on Colin-I feel he has seen a side of life he should not have had to see. I do know what it has done to Laura and I-more on that later.
I have to take a tiny break from our narrative to talk about what went on at work. This has a bearing on the whole Rita experience, trust me-so we are going to take this part out of sequence because I am fuming about it.
Many of you know I work for the Federal Gov't-whether anyone perceives it or not the section I work for went above and beyond to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, many of whom were forced to relocate to our area. We were instructed that when we took any actions for Katrina victims we were supposed to use a special code, a type of designator, to show that what we were doing was Katrina related.
In a meeting we had recently we were reminded again that the same type of disaster relief that was available to Hurricane Katrina victims is also available to Hurricane Rita victims. We were instructed to use a special designator for any actions we initiate for Rita victims too--
but it is the same code.
This means that, statistically speaking, an action taken on behalf of a Rita victim is indistinguishable from an action taken on behalf of a Katrina victim. Once again, it's like Rita never happened. There are people who work with me who are STILL without power-they live in the same town I do!!! Except for local news I hear nothing about Rita.
I'm proud of myself-when the announcement I just told you about was made I flat out said I would not cooperate. This garnered a positive response (we were in a meeting and everyone began clapping) from not only my co-workers but also management, who I gather do not care for this nonsense either.
Ok, back to our regularly scheduled tale...
You may have wondered what kind of person agrees to take in a co-worker and his family in the face of an impending hurricane.
Frances is a tall curvy redhead-she is sassy and has a great sense of humor. She describes herself as a Christian. I felt very fortunate when I ascertained she seriously was going to let us wait through the hurricane at her home. I felt even more fortunate when I saw that home was a nice sturdy brick two story with attached garage. (Note: on fifteen acres of hardwood trees-I really had no idea what I was getting us into.)
Every time there is a hurricane all of my wife's family runs to the same place-my sister-in-law Allison's house. Allie lives just outside Lufkin. We thought we had found the perfect solution-we would wait out the storm at Frances' and then return home in a day or so. This way we would not be a burden on our family.
Shows you what we know.
Frances was a study in preparedness-she had multiple light sources laid out and every available container was filled with water. But there were some problems-sure Frances had said we could stay at her house and she had said we could bring our animals with us. What she had not said (not her fault I didn't think to ask) was that they could not stay in the house with us.
This was not such a problem with the cats and our small dog, Gidget-we brought enough cages to kennel all of them and keep them in her garage and she let Colin keep the hermit crabs inside. Her grandchildren were fascinated with them-they are four and seven and Colin was delighted to find himself with some new playmates. They all got along famously.
We tried various solutions with the dogs. We found we could not keep them in the yard with Frances' dog Texas-she (the dog, guys) proved to be extremely territorial and attacked Buddy and Zooey almost immediately. We tried letting them run loose-but our dogs suffer from separation anxiety, which means exactly what it sounds like: when they are separated from us they get anxious. They clawed Frances door, and we couldn't have that. We finally put them in a small fenced off patio area at the front of the house-as long as they could hear the sounds of our voices inside they were ok.
Of course this proved temporary too-as night fell the dogs began to cry and this was not something Frances was willing to put up with. (Hey! It's her house folks.) Frances' property is vast-we finally were forced to put them in a hog pen on top of a nearby hill. It wasn't something I wanted to do-but my options kept evaporating.
For those unfamiliar with them, a hog pen is a large cage made of metal-it usually has some type of bait inside it to lure a boar into it, whereupon a tripwire will close the door. I had to put my dogs in an open air cage with no roof that evening as a hurricane was fast approaching-and I was sure they would be dead before sunrise. But it was the only chance I had at maybe preserving their lives.
As we caught more and more news broadcasts we began to realize a horrible thing-we had jumped to the wrong lilypad. Rita was going to keep coming inland and squash us like bugs. I remember that conversation:
L: "I don't think we've run far enough." R: "Me either." L: "I think we're going to die here." R: "I think the same thing."
We watched a lot of news that afternoon and evening-I thought a lot about my friend Andre as Frances is a Fox News fanatic. I thought to myself that Andre would have a good laugh at the thought of me being trapped in a situation where I had no choice but to watch the much loathed Fox News Network.
The situation in my hometown seemed to become worse and worse-it was as if Rita was barreling right for it like a bullet from a gun. At one point a reporter was talking in front of the old *** building which is in downtown Beaumont and I said "You know I bet James (an old family friend) is in there right now." (Turns out I was right-James works up there and he decided the best place to be was in a twenty story office building built like a rock. Good move, as it turned out.)
As things seemed to go from bad to worse I began to say good-bye, for lack of a better way to phrase it. The pets I'd left behind were dead or soon would be. My rare books, my comics-shredded by the wind. The home my family and I had shared-gone.
I was certainly upset, and concerned-but I also have to admit I felt very free. There are certain burdens one thinks one cannot bear to lay down-for instance I have carried the same sets of books with me for thirty plus years. I'm referring to my collection of pulp adventures-Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, The Spider. I can't tell you how long it has been since I sat down and read one of those books.
All of those things suddenly became just--things. I ceased to expend metal energy worrying about them. As a friend reminded me, I got all the most important things out with me. He meant my wife and son, of course. My car, left to shake rattle and roll on the side of US 69, didn't mean much anymore, and neither did the things inside it. My material possessions-I could replace those.
I felt strangely at peace.
We had arranged saferooms at Frances' direction-Laura Colin and I would stay in the washroom at one end of the house, while Frances and her two grandchildren stayed in the master bath at the opposite end. (FYI-Frances' husband is a sailor who was in Alaskan waters at the time of the hurricane.) We put mattresses on the floors and stocked food and water in each room in case the house collapsed on us.
I know thanks to the clock on Frances' stove that the electricity went out at exactly 1:27 am. The wind was screaming like a banshee. Frances retired to her saferoom where her grandchildren were, leaving Laura & I the living room-we would jump in our saferoom when we felt it was too rough to remain out, we agreed.
And so by flashlight we literally wrote our will together, and sealed it inside a ziploc bag, and put it on Laura-perhaps it would be found if something happened to us. (This is another example of us being woefully unprepared for what lay ahead.)
After we finished we turned off the flashlights so as not to waste battery power. And while the wind howled and the rain lashed the house and the noise of tree limbs straining against their inevitable fate reached a crescendo we waited in the dark to die. I'm not sure I can describe that sensation.
Eventually things got bad enough that we decided to retreat to the washroom. Colin was already asleep on the mattress on the floor. It was at this time I made what I considered to be an eminently rational decision.
I had no power. If the wind decided to tear the roof off-what could I do? I could not save my wife and son, I could not save my pets, I could not save myself. And there was no one else to help me. So I did the only thing I possibly could...
I went to sleep. Yes that's correct: as anti-climactic as it sounds, I laid down next to Colin on the mattress we had placed in Frances' washroom and fell fast asleep. I slept through Rita's passing. Physical evidence suggests several tornadoes also touched down near Frances house-you can tell by how the trees shattered. I slept through those too. So did Colin.
Laura stayed awake through the whole thing (more on that later) and paced and prayed, etc. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth I'm sure. But the end result seems to have been the same-we survived.
When I awoke that morning the rain was still sheeting against the house and high winds persisted. But a quick check of the (battery powered) radio told us Rita had passed.
Hedging in the house was a green hell. Frances' rambling driveway was covered in downed trees and limbs. A huge oak at the back of her home had split and fallen away from the house-it now formed a sort of crude bridge that started about twelve feet in the air and crossed the back fence. (And yes Frances' dog Texas came through without a scratch.)
We soon ascertained there was no structural damage to the house itself-the roof was missing some shingles but we weren't shipping water. I tried to go and check on the dogs (I slept in my clothes) but Laura and Frances told me in no uncertain terms to stay put-what if I got clocked by a falling limb, etc. etc. etc.?
This argument held me for about an hour before I finally said "Fuck it, I'm going" and lit out the front door with protests ringing in my ears. The dogs weren't barking-Frances assured me that if I got out there and found them in a bad way she could shoot them with her rifle, which I thought was a generous offer, but since I figured they were dead it seemed like a moot point.
It was still drizzling and I got soaked pretty quickly. There was no way to go directly from Frances' front door to where the dogs were. (To refresh your memory, Constant Reader, I was forced to leave our dogs, Buddy and Zooey, in a hog pen exposed to the elements.) Looking at the devastation in Frances' yard I gave them zero chance of survival-but I had to go see..
The hog pen was located behind Frances' barn, on a hill next to her house. The direct path between the two points was impassable due to brush and uprooted trees-so I had to go down the driveway to the point where it forked and then take the other fork back up to the barn. Think of it as two sides of a roughly equilateral triangle.
This was not an easy trip to make-I had to be sure not to step on any downed powerlines, watch out for falling limbs while trying to maintain some degree of visibility (I cannot see without my glasses and rain was beading on the lenses) and find a path where there was no path that would get me where I needed to be.
Confession time: I enjoyed myself tremendously. Yes I was sorry about what had happened to Frances' yard, yes I was worried about my dogs, yes I thought I might get injured at any moment and yes I sincerely thought I probably did not have a home to return to-but for now I was strictly living in the moment. I was finally getting to take some action and not be so passive. This suited me very well.
I quickly learned the driveway was not navigable by car-hell, it was barely navigable by foot. We would have to cut our way out.
Finally I made it to the top of the hill, rounded the barn...I could see that a tree had fallen across the hog pen. Another tree that was growing next to it had been pulled right out the ground, but had fallen away from the enclosure. I could also see Buddy and Zooey laying at the bottom of the cage-and they were so still.
So I called them. "BUDDY! ZOOEY!"
And they both picked their heads up.
I cannot imagine what living through a hurricane and associated tornadoes in a freakin' hog pen outside would be like, and my dogs can't tell me. I'd speculate they both got so exhausted they fell asleep (see, animals-and smart people-know what to do.)
The tree that had fallen across the hog pen had not blocked the gate-so getting them out was child's play. And because they are pretty good at following verbal commands, getting them to come with me was not too hard. That was one joyous reunion in the front yard in the rain.
There was no more talk of hog pens either-the dogs stayed in the fenced in patio area or (when we were with them) ran loose for the rest of our stay.
We never realize it but the truth is we lead very noisy lives. The susurrus of the air conditioner, the hum of the small engine that powers your fridge, the whisper of traffic on the highway, the jangle of the phone....all stuff we take for granted. Until it's gone.
After Rita swept through the only sound was the wind and the rain-at first. Then slowly but from all sides came a new sound-one I would grow very familiar with.
Chainsaws.
The peculiar Chunk Chunk a chainsaw makes when it starts up, the ggggrrrrooowwwlll of a chainsaw as it bites into wood-all around us people had to be doing what we were doing: assessing the damage and working on getting the hell out.
It was readily apparent the winding driveway that led to Frances' house was impassable by car. After securing the dogs Frances and I walked to the very front of her land. I noted a superabundance of wasps-all walking on the ground as if drunk. I stepped on every one I saw.
We found some of Frances' neighbors engaging in some improptu volunteer work-they were cutting up trees and making the two lane blacktop accessible just in front of her drive.
I keep flashing back to a scene out of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where Grumpy complains about women's "wicked wiles." I personally will never complain about such a thing-in less time than it takes to tell about it Frances had a bunch of virtual strangers clearing the trees and fallen brush from her driveway.
Of course I imagine they just may have been being neighborly-the next few weeks would be marked by a lot of total strangers being neighborly to other total strangers. In any event our new found friends soon cut away and moved all the timber that blocked our way-except for the last curve of the driveway in front of Frances' house. I've no idea why we did not ask them to clear that too. I suppose we did not want to impose on their kindness too much.
That blocked up section of driveway is going to be important later but for now let's leave it. Frances' said we could just drive around the other (wrong) side of the tree down there and be fine, and it was her yard, so we went inside and broke out the brand spanking new Coleman stove Frances had. Nothing like a hot meal after clearing some brush.
Speaking of hot...Rita had served to cool things off for a while, but by now the Sun was peeking out from behind some fringes of cloud. Forecast: heat heat and more heat. We opened windows but there was no breeze. It started to get muggy and uncomfortable.
It's always the simple things-even flushing the toilet became work as with no electricity we had no working septic system. We had to pour water into the tank to flush which is harder than it looks at night with just a flashlight.
Frances' used her cell phone to call the driver of the tow truck after we ate-he agreed to meet me in Woodville and follow me to where we'd left our other car. Getting out of Frances' property was hard-I had to turn the Aztek around in a very small space, go "off-road" to circle around the afore-mentioned blocked section of driveway, and get on the highway. I had no idea what conditions were like on the road-I would have to take my chances. Please understand time had passed-by now it was getting closer and closer to dusk.
I made it out despite the fact that the two lane highway sometimes narrowed to one lane-at one point I literally had to go in the ditch to get around a huge uprooted tree-and found that the town of Woodville was a shambles. No power anywhere-all the power lines in my part of Texas are aboveground and trees had literally fallen between each pole bringing the wires down. I soon apprehended I was not looking at a simple repair job.
Woodville looked as if it had been hit with a nuclear blast. The facades of buildings were twisted into impossible origami, trees brush & unclassifiable debris were everywhere. And again that eerie silence, broken only by the buzz of chainsaws. I don't remember seeing a bird in the sky and I looked for them.
A lot of the people I saw were in their yards looking at their houses as if they could not comprehend how they could still be standing. A lot of houses weren't still standing-homes and businesses were skewered by the trees that used to shade them. Every hill I topped or curve I traversed brought a new scene of surreal insanity-crushed cars, overturned mobile homes, broken billboards...it was unbelievable.
I wondered if my other car was still where I'd left it-I remembered all the pine tress I'd had to leave it under.
Schrodinger's Cat is a famous illustration of an aspect of quantum physics.
Basically in this experiment you place a cat in a sealed box. Inside the box with the cat is a lethal contraption that dispenses poison gas, but which may or may not have been activated. Until you open the box you do not know which of two states kitty is in: dead or alive. According to quantum physics that cat is BOTH dead and alive until the box is opened.
Head hurt? I did not know what state my car or home was in. Despite numerous conversations with my better half, all we could do was game out all the options and hope for the best-I would not know anything until I saw it with my own eyes.
I found our car to be totally untouched and undamaged. No one had even siphoned the gas out of it. We had it towed to the Woodville Modica Brothers and left it there. Whenever the electricity was restored to the area they could presumably fix our tire.
Meanwhile I rapidly loaded our remaining material possessions into the (previously emptied) Aztek, and headed back to Frances' house. I recalled the instructions she had given me about keeping close to the tree and not rutting the yard. As the Sun was going down I pulled triumphantly into Frances' driveway, did my best to split the difference between the two imperatives I was working under-
And got the Aztek stuck up to the axle in Frances' front yard.
This was bad. I had just successfully blocked the only exit we had. Frances was livid, as she had forgotten that "no ruts" bit. This was illustrative of how things were going from bad to worse.
When Frances opened her home to us I think she thought (as we did) that this would be a one of two day thing, and then we'd return home. Now we did not know the state our home was in and the authorities (per the radio) were not allowing anyone to go back.
No one said it out loud but I think we all did the math in our heads-there were not enough resources for all of us to survive there for an extended period. So we had to leave.
I spent the night sleeping in a recliner in the living room-it was slightly less hot at night. But it was still misery. In the morning we assessed the damage. We soon learned there was no amount of pushing or putting boards under wheels that would help us-we were not getting that car moved by ourselves.
We set to the task of clearing that last blocked stretch of driveway. We had no chainsaws and no axes. So Laura and I worked with the only tools available-two loppers (I called mine Cindy Lopper) and elbow grease.
It took hours, but we cleared that driveway. Now what to do about the car?
Once again, "women's wiles" came to the rescue-Laura walked down the road, found a guy with a working tractor and persuaded him to give her a ride back to where the Aztek was stuck. He latched on to the Aztek with a chain and liberated it from the mud in short order.
Frances let us borrow her cell phone and we called Laura's sister, who said it would be alright to stay with her at her home in Burke, which is a small community about four miles outside Lufkin. Frances also agreed to let us store our non-essentials at her house-so we locked up our computers and DVD's in her garage, loaded up the animals and our matching set of poverty luggage (read: garbage bags full of our stuff) and left, once again hoping our other car would be alright.
Colin was sorry to go-he was so happy to have some children to play with. But we thought we had transformed from guests to a burden. Also we felt the odds were better that we'd be in a place with restored electric service sooner if we went to a more populated area. (Turned out we were right-Frances got her electricity back weeks later than we did.)
The drive from Woodville to Lufkin was mind-boggling. Not because it was slow (almost no one was driving) but because every rise and fall of the road caused some new miniature disaster to hove into view. Houses knocked from their foundations, debris everywhere....Have you ever watched one of those disaster movies? Real last man on Earth stuff? That was what it was like.
We got to my sister in law's with ease, which was wonderful as there were no working gas pumps. One thing you can say about the Aztek-for a big car it gets good gas mileage. We would now be staying with family-a lot of family. Specifically we would be living in a three bedroom house with twenty people and their pets.
Actually my in laws are not as bad as all that.
Whoops! I did a quick head count and it turns out there were only sixteen people staying in my sister in law's home, not twenty. I guess in my mind I just sort of rounded up. Sorry.
So now that that is corrected I thought it would be kind of fun, and a good writing exercise, to produce some quick character sketches of my wife's extended family. So without further ado:
Allison-Allie is Laura's sister and she is my age. (If you'll recall she owns the house we fled to after we had to bail from Frances' home.) Allison is a trim brunette whose feet are firmly on the ground. I've come to respect her a lot as the years have passed. Allie is incredibly smart and not just booksmart-she has taught herself how to build computers and do a host of other things. She is also a talented artist. She doesn't take any bullshit off anyone and she has a heart of gold. If I were forced to name one of Laura's sisters as my favorite it would be Allison.
Jeff-Jeff is Allie's husband, and he is the brother in law I get along with the best. He's got a great sense of humor and we can commiserate about our high blood pressure. Jeff is an avid outdoorsman and also has a generous nature-look how he and Allie opened their doors to us even when their house was already full. You could pass Jeff in Wal-Mart or Academy without noticing him-he is blond, about six feet and...ok, maybe the ladies would notice him.
Josh-Josh is Jeff and Allie's oldest child-I am so proud of how he and his sister have turned out. They are both good kids that get their blond hair from their father. Josh is going to college and he is also the manager of one of the local theaters in Lufkin. Josh was the family's secret weapon when we there-you see though the electricity was out at Allie's most of Lufkin still was powered. Josh was able to provide us with all the ice we needed.
Sarah-Sarah is Josh's sister. I remember when she was born-now she has transmogrified from "baby Sarah" to gawky teenager to graceful young woman. Really it is kind of eerie. Colin absolutely adores her. Sarah will be graduating from high school next year, and she looks like a model. Though she can be as silly as the next teen her Mom's pluckiness and no-bullshit attitude seems to have carried over to the next generation.
Mom & Dad-Laura's parents, not mine though I have called them Mom and Dad forever. Mom has not eaten a hot meal in forty years-she is the kind of person who always makes sure everyone else at the table is eating and likes what they have-if they don't she will cook whatever they like on the spot. She always takes care of others. Mom has a great shock of white hair-when she has not had it "done" she looks like she has been hit by lightning.
Dad is in one of the early stages of Alzheimer's. This breaks my heart-he is a brilliant man who could have done so much with his intellect but he was never able to get the education to go with it. First that little conflict we call the Korean War pulled him overseas and then when he got back he had a family to support. This is a man who could figure out how things worked in the refinery he retired from better than the engineers who built the damn thing could. Saddest of all I believe that at this stage of things he knows what is happening to him-knows that he is diminished a bit more each day he wakes up.
Cathy-Cathy is Laura's oldest sister and I must be honest and say I have nothing positive to say about her. She has spent her life waiting for (insert name of popular hot stud that stars in women's fantasies here) to come to his senses and sweep her off her feet. She is a black hole of spirit destroying negativity. Sorry folks I call 'em like I see 'em.
Bonnie-Another of Laura's sister's and a very good soul. Bonnie will worry herself to death over something and I often have suspected she has obsessive compulsive disorder as she often engages in that type of behavior. Bonnie is what you would describe as "salt of the earth" and she can also be very funny, sometimes without meaning to be. She owns a huge house and usually hosts the family Thanksgiving and Xmas dinners there. She's a good cook BTW.
Jim-Bonnie's husband. He has a sense of humor that can sneak up on you. Jim looks like a bear with his big beard and long hair. He is the kind of person kids always like. Jim is a carpenter of superlative skill who enjoys his Jack Daniels and his cigarettes.
Casey-Casey is Bonnie and Jim's son. He has it all together as far as I am concerned, with a good job a loving wife and two good step-children. Casey is lanky and a little over six feet tall. He has a good dollop of common sense and is very sharp.
Lydia-Lydia is Casey's wife, and I think my opinion of her is the one that changed the most dramatically while we were there. Lydia had recently had surgery and was temporarily wheelchair-bound during the evacuation. I was so impressed by her indefatigable good nature and willingness to pitch in even when she could not walk. It would have been easy to play the "I can't help I cannot walk" card but Lydia didn't do that. I really did not care for Lydia when I first met her but I truly misjudged her. I am so glad she has joined the family.
Brandon & Basia-Lydia's children. Reasonably good kids, and I think having Casey for a step-father has been good for them.
And of course Laura Colin and I were also there-that makes sixteen!
It wasn't so bad-generally speaking it was cooler outside the house than in. We had to bring Buddy and Zooey somewhere else just after getting there-I think the stress finally got to them and they snapped at Allison. We found a temporary shelter for them in Nacogdoches being run by the ASPCA so we brought them there. We didn't like it but we had no choice.
So now we were spread out all over the Texas countryside-we had a home in an indeterminate state, a car in Woodville, animals in Nacogdoches (the cats were lucky and got fostered by a friend of ours-more on her later) and we were staying just outside Lufkin. Not cool.
Speaking of not cool, the heat was terrific. I shamelessly doused myself with water from the garden hose-I was the only adult who would sacrifice their dignity enough to do so, but evaporation is a natural cooling process so I was cooler than anyone else and I decided I didn't give damn what anyone else thought.
I spent the night asleep in the Aztek-it was more comfortable in there than in Allie's house.
By now I had had enough time to get really agitated that I did not know where my own parents were. I began to be convinced they were dead. I borrowed Allie's cell phone but could not locate them. I still slept like a log-I was learning to get sleep whenever I could.
Gidget (the only dog we kept with us) came prancing up to the house in the morning with a baby ground Rattler in her mouth-I cut it in two with a shovel. Talk about a dog earning her keep!
You have to understand what conditions were like-we were now almost out of gas and if Allie had turned us away we would have been out of luck
. But then again that is why we went there-because they were family and would not turn us away. "Home is where they always have to take you in."
I had never been in a situation like this-where even the most basic necessities are unobtainable. The few gas stations that had electricity had no gas-it had all been sold. We only had water to bathe in, not to drink. Something as simple as going to the store was now an act to be meticulously planned and executed rather than the casual "I'm going to the store need anything" it used to be.
When Allie heard about a place that had gotten gas we all piled in our cars and went there immediately to try and beat the rush-of course so did a lot of other people. The lines at the gas pumps were unbelievable-there were even people parked at gas stations that had no gas so they could be first when the station did get some in.
A funny thing happened-even though I was last in line when we drove our little convoy to the pumps the attendant directed me to pull ahead of everyone else. I don't know why-I suppose he took one look at me with my unkempt hair and beard and said "That motherfucker's nuts-I better get him some gas before he kills somebody." Whatever works.
Two days later electricity was restored to Allison's neighborhood, and we then had another stroke of luck-some hotel rooms became available in Diboll. We snapped them up, so the actual time we spent at Allison's was minimal which was good because no one wants to be a burden.
In the next few days we did a lot of things I swore I'd never do. For instance we got cell phones. I have never wanted to be tethered to one of these damn things-there are times when I want to be alone. But I've had it for a while now and must admit I'm addicted to the convenience. And Laura has something to fall back on if I'm not with her and the car breaks down or something.
We also asked for the various forms of assistance available to Hurricane Rita victims. We were able to apply for FEMA assistance online (which turns out to be the smart way to do it, as with direct deposit we got our money in a few days.) We had to stand in line to get Red Cross help-I found this to be an especially humbling experience as I have administered various welfare programs over the years-now I was on the other side of the desk asking for help and needing compassion.
We also filed a claim with our insurance company-one of the heartaches we did not experience was difficulty in this area as apparently we have the "right" insurance. State Farm has been nothing but good to us. Other people who were staying in the same hotel (we were all refugees from all over) had Farmer's or Allstate and they were fighting them tooth and claw over every part of their claim-our insurance company has been nothing but exemplary.
I want to take a minute to mention Diana, who came to our rescue when we were placing our dogs in a shelter. She runs an animal welfare organization in Nacogdoches and she agreed to foster our cats Tony and Marshmallow at her home. This meant that they did not have to stay in the shelter!! They got excellent care from her. We knew of each other but met in person that morning by pure coincidence.
For those who care the hermit crabs and Gidget were able to stay in the hotel with us. Laura and l became a little intense about being organized as we were now living in what was essentially a pretty small place. We bought some luggage from Academy, of all places.
And so the days passed. We made lists of what we needed to accomplish each day. Gas prices remained high and eating out proved onerous. Every hotel was filled to capacity with people in the same boat we were, and they all needed to go out to eat and shop at the local Wal-Mart just like we did. Though we heard whispers of some refugees being rude or thuggish we never experienced any of that-everyone was remarkably nice.
I was finally able to locate my parents-turned out they really had left with my sister and were perfectly safe. And it turned out an old family friend was staying at the same hotel we were. Leon almost married my sister back in the seventies. But bi-racial marriages are barely accepted in Texas even today. I imagine the pressures of that along with the usual pressures couples face kept Dru and Leon apart.
Leon's whole family was with him and we had a great time hanging out. My sister in law Bonnie was five doors down from us and my mother and father in law were a few doors in the opposite direction on the first floor. Everyone who was in the hotel sort of bonded-we looked out for each other.
I ended up moving the dogs from Nacogdoches to a shelter in Lufkin that was a little closer. Eventually I was able to get back to Frances' home and retrieve our things-I set our computer up in our hotel room. And so the days passed.
The nights didn't pass nearly so well.
I had a hard time adjusting to sleeping in a real bed again, for one thing. Those of you who have gotten up at odd hours of the night and seen me online might suspect I sometimes suffer from insomnia-in a hotel room with two other people there is no "other end of the house" to go to. So I was forced to lay in bed and seethe.
Laura's nightmares began around this time. She would wake up screaming "We have to go! We haven't run far enough!" or some variation of that. I had to remind her the hurricane was over and we were safe. Then she went back to sleep.
We bought Colin a sleeping bag but he did not always want to use it. So he was often sandwiched between us at night. (One room equals one bed.) I speculate that the evacuation and subsequent vagabonding had a bad effect on Colin. He seemed to regress in some ways and become more babyish. I think of that as a coping mechanism though and he seems fine now I'm happy to say. I am keeping an eye on him.
You'd think that someone who could sleep through a hurricane like I did would have no bad dreams-you'd be wrong. My nightmares started a few days after Laura's-I can't remember most of them but one snippet I do recollect concerned a telethon for Hurricane Rita aid in which the only celebrity they could get to attend was Rex Smith. (Yeah that's a nightmare alright.)
Whatever was rummaging around in my subconscious was not pleasant. I was having the kind of phantasmagorical dreams I'd associate with a high fever. But I didn't have a fever. Just desperation.
I tried drugging myself. I even tried a mental exercise in which I wove my very own dreamcatcher to keep the bad dreams away. None of this was effective.
After a few days the kinks seemed to work themselves out which was good-I got tired of sitting bolt upright from a sound sleep two or three times a night.
One evening something worse happened-though I'd imagine worse is a relative term. This next part is extremely hard to write about. If you've been reading this narrative at all I hope you've picked up on the fact that I have tried to be as honest as I could in every detail, even when those details are not very complimentary to me.
But this is just weird.
We were in the hotel-I can't even remember what day this was but we stayed there till almost mid-October so there are lots of days to choose from. I had gotten up to go get something and it suddenly hit me.
I had dreamed every bit of this. Everything. The hurricane, the hotel, and everything in between. And then I had forgotten it. Till something I was doing triggered my memory and I could recall the dream.
True confession time: I have had other dreams that have come true. I rarely talk about this. Mostly I'll have dreamed about something completely useless or trivial. When I was a kid (long before the days of the internet) I was always dreaming what the cover of a book or comic looked like-then a month or so later I'd run across that item and it would be what I'd seen in my dream.
But people who have these experiences are often trivialized or denigrated. I did not want that. So I've ignored this part of me.
But this experience was different. What if I'd remembered this dream earlier? Say a few days BEFORE an evacuation was announced? Suddenly it mattered. So I had to decide if what I was experiencing was real. I'm fully conversant with the idea of deja vu. I'm reasonably well educated and reasonably intelligent. Was I just experiencing deja vu or had I really "predicted" Rita-and then buried the memory so deep it took me till after the storm was over to recollect it.
You have to understand why this question suddenly became so important to answer. If my experience was real, it changed everything.
Constant Reader: you've come this far...are you willing to go a little farther?
I'd imagine when you started this thread you never thought you'd end up in my brain...yet here we are.
I have been a stone cold atheist for years. Diane (a good friend of mine) and I once had a conversation about atheists-I was going to write an essay about it, and perhaps someday that will happen. I have saved that conversation for a while now, as it was going to be at the heart of my essay, and here it is:
R:I have this oversimplified theory about atheists I want to bounce off you. It's this: speaking generally I think there are two kinds of atheists. Type A: Mad at God because he doesn't exist, despite the obvious illogic. AND Type B: Not mad at God because he doesn't exist.
D:I've had the much the same observation about atheists. I'd expand the number of simplistic categories by a few though:
1) angry atheists a) reject the existence of God because he doesn't seem to be doing his job. Obviously (to us anyway) some of these are not atheists at all, but have just decided they no longer owe God any allegiance). b) reject the existence of God, but anger is mainly because they feel they've been duped by religion (parents, pastors, society in general).
2) "logical" atheists who have no attachment to the idea of religion, so don't really give a fuck when signs point to there being no gods.
R: But....I don't think it's uncommon for people to go through one of the first two categories before reaching the second. I rejected God for logical reasons, but was antireligion for a while after that because I felt burned by authority. When I see/hear an angry atheist, my first thought is: new convert. I think that in a lot of cases, the people who continue to be angry aren't so much atheist as rebelling against their religion. They're probably the ones who succumb to that "no atheists in a foxhole" bit. My feeling is, if you don't live in a theocracy, why worry about it? But that's oversimplistic generalization on my part, I know. I haven't exactly done a poll. I do, however, tend to look down on that category of atheist; it gives the rest of us a bad name.
D: I hope your essay addresses the "atheists must have no moral code, since they don't believe in gods" fallacy. That one always irks the hell out of me.
For years I have been the second type of person described above. And I was happy. I had the universe "figured out" after all.
But I am as capable of hypocrisy as the next person. Inconvenient facts which did not fit into my scheme of things were ignored. But this last occurence-no way to ignore that.
So was it real? Did I dream about Hurricane Rita before it happened? Or could I somehow be imagining the whole thing? Let me skip several boring paragraphs of epistemological tail-chasing and say: I don't know. I am mortal and heir to all the weaknesses of the flesh-so I am as subject to suffer a delusion because "the mind plays tricks on you" as the next man. I have no facts to offer as a tie-breaker. I have had dreams that seem to have later been realized in the physical world. These dreams seem to come at random and the only evidence I can offer that this has occurred is strictly anecdotal-which as far as I am concerned is not really evidence at all. It certainly does not qualify as proof, even though I've since had another dream that came true-I dreamed my cat Mike who was lost came back and he did.
Big deal. I can shoot holes through that in five seconds.
But you have to understand where I'm coming from-if what I have experienced is real then what else that I have written off might also be real? This had really opened up a door to new possibilities.
Don't panic! I'm not about to announce some big religious conversion. This is not some zen algebra equation where predictive dreams equals God exists. The Bard said it best: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth...than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
What I am trying to say is that I have changed. When I was a young man I had a real problem with religious issues. I was not ok with not knowing. I had to figure everything out and it had to all make sense. Therefore I dealt in absolutes. Now that I'm older I'm a little more mellow-it is ok that there are some things science cannot adequately explain. It is equally ok that there are some things religions or spiritualism cannot adequately explain. It's Schrodinger's Cat all over again-call it the Indeterminacy of Life principle.
So I am now armed with a mind that is a little more open than it was before. If I can be said to have learned anything from Rita, I've learned to (hopefully) let go: of the past, of self imposed burdens and of preconceived notions. I am very lucky. It has only taken me four decades to get this far.
We heard through the grapevine (remember how close I said the denizens of the hotel we were staying at had become) that the Authorities were finally going to allow us to return to our homes-just for one day to survey the damage Finally we would be able to learn what had happened to our house.
I left alone in the Aztek around three AM that morning-I will never forget that drive. I was very aware that there was no gas available near our home, so in addition to filling up the gas tank I purchased and filled two five gallon containers of gas. This proved to be a blessing (I had to detour several times-more on that later) but also a curse: the stench of the gas was so overpowering I had to drive with the windows down. I nearly froze to death.
At first it was just me and some eighteen wheelers cruising down the highway. Then it was just me. The highway unspooled before me in the dark like some freakish tongue-Gene Simmons where are you when I need you?
Every time I started to get near the house I ran into another Department of Public Safety roadblock-I kept getting shunted and funneled further THAT way, which was not the way I wanted to go at all. Even driving at top speed it took me over three hours to get within thirty miles of my house-by that time the sun was rising.
After the heartbreak of being turned away when I was so close (yes I ran into yet another roadblock) I was finally able to get off on an unwatched side road. This had the added benefit of letting me scope out my sister in law Debbie's house to see if it had been damaged.
Debbie did not (obviously) evacuate to Allison's house-she has been caring for her mother-in-law Pearl for over a decade. Pearl had a stroke soon after Laura and I got married and she had become bedridden. Debbie had no choice but to run as far away as she could as she had to keep Pearl near a working hospital. (Pearl died without ever getting to go back home-another of Rita's victims. I think the stress of the evacuation killed her as sure as I'm sitting here typing.)
Debbie's house seemed relatively intact. I got back on the road.
My course took me through Beaumont-I had to drive over several power lines that were just laying there-I kept expecting electrocution. There was, for lack of a better word, crap everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Trees, glass, fence etc. Houses and businesses knocked off kilter and leaning so precariously I wasn't sure how they were still standing. Billboards were bent over against the ground like they'd been pressed there by a gigantic hand.
I grew up in Beaumont-I pass through there every day on my way to work. It was a shock to see it looking like this. So many trees had been knocked down the very outlines of every vista I looked upon were different. This caused me to constantly do double takes.
I finally made it to the highway leading to my house-to find another roadblock by state troopers. I joined a growing throng of people waiting to go back home-we were all parked in the middle of what used to be a busy highway. And I thought I had gotten up early!
I later learned that we were being held up because the next town over, Port Arthur, had been deemed unsafe to return to. And the powers that be had failed to insure that all the ways there had been buttoned up tight.
Finally we were allowed to return to our homes-over an hour later than the announced time the highway was opened up.
My heart kept getting heavier and I heavier as I drove those last few miles. Everything was broken. Every tree, every house, every stop sign and street light. There is a point where a canal runs parallel to the highway-on the other side of the canal are (were) huge wooden poles that support the major power lines running into the tow we live. Those poles were all in the water now.
Eventually I made it to my home. To find that, except for some minor damage, it seemed perfectly intact.
I had some damage to my roof, but there was not a house in my area that didn't. My carport covering has peeled away but the structure itself was intact. Tin was scattered all over my front yard. One of my pecan trees was shredded like a stalk of broccoli but it had missed my roof. My outbuilding took some hits-there were limbs laying all over it.
My mission in returning to the house was three-fold. I wanted to assess the damage, I wanted to locate the pets we had left behind, and I wanted to clean out the fridge. I emptied the gas cans into my car immediately-the smell inside the car had been horrendous. While I was doing this I idly noted the sign my neighbor had affixed to what remained of his fence: "Enter here & die." This was jauntily stenciled in blue on a random piece of plywood. It turned out my neighbor had been here the whole time and had turned several looters over to the police-they must be easy to spot when you are sleeping in your truck in your front yard.
Witness to our conversation: crows. Hundreds of crows were everywhere, perched on trees and fences and those utility cables which were still intact. They seemed especially bold birds-even as the familiar song of chainsaws began to flare up around us they stayed put.
I think my neighbor is the main reason my house was unmolested while we were away. Not that I have much to steal but my neighbor's presence was a major load off my mind.
An inspection soon proved that there were no leaks in the roof of my home. I could only find two of our cats: Harvey (named after the title character in the Jimmy Stewart classic) and Harry Potter. I caught a glimpse of black flashing into a backroom however and that told me there was at least one more cat here. No matter how much I called and called no one else would come to me-but I could not imagine the trauma the cats had gone through. They were naturally skittish. I could only hope they'd turn up later.
I began the odious task of cleaning out the refrigerator-there was still no electricity of course. I had packed some simple surgical masks to serve as a breathing filter and some heavy work gloves. I do not want to even begin to describe the Lovecraftian horrors that awaited me when I first opened the fridge-let's just say it was exceedingly vile. Cleaning out the cat's litter boxes wasn't so peachy either.
It was a lot easier leaving home than getting there-I had bought a lot of plastic containers so that I could scavenge some belongings but that proved unnecessary so I ended up returning them to that omnipresent retailer, Wal-Mart. I was able to drive back through Beaumont and check on my parent's house-their roof was damaged and the kitchen ceiling had collapsed from water damage. The smell of mold inside was horrendous. But I thought both of our houses were able to be salvaged-which eventually proved to be true.
I was also able to cruise by the Humane Society-the buildings had suffered major damage. But they, too, proved resilient and eventually they reopened.
My biggest regret was leaving our animals behind, all of whom were probably wondering why we'd left and why we hadn't come back. But I would come back, of course.
I thought it might be nice to spend a few minutes filling in some gaps. There are some things that don't particularly fit into the flow of my narrative but that I still feel should be communicated. So I'm going to shoehorn some of that stuff in now.
I feel so regretful about Sabrina-if only we had taken her with us. There are many people (I am related to some of them) who would say "So what-it's just a cat." And they'd go on to say that I have other cats yada yada yada. Well fuck them.
Originally Sabrina lived with the poor white trash who rented the house next door to us. (This house was already deserted when it was made unlivable by Hurricane Rita-YES!!!!) They locked her in their house and left for days-whenever she was able to slip away she'd come to my house as there is always food out. Sabrina was a "common" short haired black cat, thin due to starvation and lacking any distinguishing characteristics at first glance.
I finally got tired of seeing this obviously malnourished animal. So one day I grabbed her and brought her inside the house. Five weeks later her owners finally bothered to come looking for her. "Nope I'm sorry I haven't seen her." Of course they were looking right at her while they were asking me their questions-but by this time Sabrina had put on some pounds. Her coat was glossy and her eyes were bright. They didn't recognize her.
Sabrina was very affectionate-she just wanted to love and be loved, which seems to be the real need most of our animal companions ask us to meet. She would often run to greet me when I got home from work-and when I see a black cat running towards me these days I can't help but stop and think "Hey is that...?" But it is Little Blackie, a slightly more compact kitty of ours.
When I first returned to our home I found there were gangs of feral dogs running through our neighborhood-and I wonder if Sabrina just didn't run fast enough. All our animals live together and Sabrina was not afraid of dogs. Or maybe someone else did what I did and took Sabrina in. I hope so. I hope she is living the life of Riley even as we speak.
In the end such speculation is pointless-so I've ditched the negativity and hung on to the hope. And sometimes that is hard to do.
I was seeing small tent cities clustered around the major churches in this area. Finally those have disappeared. I hope that is because now everyone has a place to stay. Housing is now at an unbelievable premium around here. So much so that if you didn't own a place or had a friend or relative to stay with you were shit out of luck and welcome to Tent City. The only other alternative was to be in a financial position to buy a home-and not everyone can do that.
(No this story is not in the media-none of them care. The story just isn't sexy enough.)
My drive to and from work each day is a tour of cratered businesses. You don't spend a lot of time thinking about the corner convenience store or gas station or fast food joint and in fact if you are like me you have probably often thought there were too many of them. But when there really is a dearth of them your attitude changes. Every one of those trashed businesses-how many jobs does each one represent? Is that five people out of work? Ten? Twenty or thirty?
The local mall which is essentially just down the street from me was demolished-I have it on good authority it will not reopen till 2006. And how many hundreds of jobs does that encompass?
The businesses that are still open often don't have enough employees to maintain regular business hours-not enough personnel.
Where are the people who worked at those jobs? If they are like the Humane Society employees, I know where they are-they're wherever they fled to when Rita came. Fully half the staff chose not to return to this area-they didn't have the resources that would allow them to wait for their old jobs to come open again, they are wage slaves just like the rest of us. They found work where they ran to because they had no choice they have bills to pay.
And of course they will be paying those bills elsewhere-and buying groceries and gas elsewhere, and paying taxes elsewhere....it is like a row of falling dominoes. A contracting tax base is not a good thing for a community-and this area was not in the greatest of fiscal shape BEFORE Rita.
And there are all the Rita fatalities you don't hear about-like Pearl or like the man who fell from his roof while sweeping debris off & broke his back. Still I am hopeful, even if I can't exactly tell you why. I'm hopeful Sabrina is out there somewhere, and I'm hopeful this area will recover. The final chapter has yet to be written about Southeast Texas.
I would say the destruction around our home was "destruction-lite" really. There is no one in town who escaped without some damage to their roof. But most on my block do not seem to have had major damage. Lots of broken fences and outbuildings but with the exception of the house right next to us everything here seems to be livable. Now there are some houses as close as the next block over that seem to have been rendered unlivable. It seems to me though I can't prove it that we had a tornado spin through here while we were away. I base that on the breakage of the trees and the seeming arbitrariness of what the wind picked up and what it didn't. Case in point: we left some cat carriers in our front yard under out carport when we left. When I came back I discovered the carport was gone-but the cat carriers were all still where I'd left them. Empty they can't weigh more than ten pounds. How much force does it take to shred a tin roof like paper? Yet that same force left some very light objects placed directly under that roof right where I left them. Goofy.
When Nofi called I didn't know who she was.
I was in Wal-Mart when my brand spanking new cell phone rang. I was totally zoned out with what turned out to be some bad sinus infections-medical care was also somewhat hard to come by while we were evacuated and I finally had to go to a clinic in Livingston to get antibiotics. These infections were bad-I lost both my sense of taste and smell for several days
Roger-"Hello?" Nofi-"Hello? Roger?" R-"Yes. Hello? Who is this? N-"It's Nofi!" R-"Who?" N-"Nofi" R-"Who?" N-"NOFI!" R-"WHO?" N-"Nofi-from the internet." R-"NOFI!!!"
I'm sure she thought I was insane, or at least incoherent. Once the fog that surrounded my brain lifted, we had a few moments to play catch up. It was the sweetest thing-and to think I never wanted a cell phone.
I soon got another call-one not nearly as unexpected. "Hey we're going back to work. The office will reopen on the Tuesday after Columbus Day."
Ok-I still did not have electricity at my house, but ok. We eventually came up with a plan. I would pack my little car with as much of our stuff as I could and return to the house Monday afternoon. I'd let Laura know how conditions were and we'd decide if I she and Colin could come back. And if things proved unlivable I'd have to tell work I couldn't come back yet.
In other words, this was the plan I always seem to favor: "Wing it!"
Backtrack time-Remember that by this time we had retrieved the small car I always drive from Woodville. We had also gotten all our animals boarded in Lufkin where they were close by. The Aztek had taken some minor damage, presumably during the hurricane itself, so we had put it in the shop. Our insurance was paying for the repairs as well as a nice rental car for us. Oddly we managed to secure a sweet mid-size rental even though the competion for rental cars was exceptionally fierce.
I let Laura keep that to drive, and that Monday afternoon I said my good-byes and took off for the house.
I found that, sure enough, I still had no electricity. That is why I chose to return as evening was falling-so it would be marginally cooler.
I had the battery powered lamps I'd had the foresight to buy. And the water was working even though it was not yet safe to drink, so I could get cleaned up. As I have a gas water heater it was even comfortable to do so. I had brought bottled water with me-I also had some "Heater Meals" which are TV dinners that literally heat themselves. I called a friend I work with and arranged for him to call me on my cell when he got up in the morning-I then promptly misplaced my cell phone and spent over an hour of battery time looking for the damn thing.
But really I was set-I could always go out to eat IF I could find anyplace that was open. I could wash up early each morning, stay at work all day, and come back home. I could stay.
That was not my desire. It was still so miserably hot, even with all the windows flung wide open. But something changed my mind.
It started off slowly-understand this was the first time I had returned to the house when I wasn't moving like a whirling dervish. I was sitting in my ratty easy chair, when Smudge, one of our cats, appeared. And then Hermoine showed up. And Holly. And Ron. And Jenny.
You get the picture-soon I was covered in a carpet of very affectionate cats. And that made up my mind; I picked up the cell phone: "Honey I'm not coming back up there I'm staying here." Everyone was very happy about the reunion I described, and even though not all the cats had shown up yet I now had hope that they would. I just couldn't desert them again.
Laura and Colin returned to the house two days later in the rental car, with a promise that work on the Aztek would be finished the next day. But she couldn't stand being away from home anymore, and I don't blame her. While I was at work that Wednesday there was a white tornado in the kitchen-Laura worked herself into the ground cleaning the house. (The electricity came on that Wednesday morning sometime after I left for work and before she and Colin came home.)
Originally Laura & Colin were going to go back to Lufkin that Thursday, return the rental car, pick up the Aztek, get Buddy, Zooey, Tony and Marshmallow from where they were boarded, and come back home while I went to work. But that didn't happen-she worked so hard on the house and the yard that she literally made herself sick.
Change of plan: Colin and I would take care of those final errands. (Colin's school suffered major damage and Colin did not return to school till close to Halloween.) I called work and arranged for a personal day, no problem.
So that Thursday morning we hit the road one last time.
That last trip went like clockwork. Colin and I were able to return the rental car and pick up the Aztek-it was now back in the same shape it was when we bought it and it looked great. (Two weeks later a rock hit the windshield, and now there's a great crack in it. Life is like that sometimes...)
Then Colin and I ate at the Arby's in Lufkin-I had grown addicted to their roast beef sandwiches during the course of our stay, so I indulged one more time. Then we went to pick up the animals.
To review, we had recently boarded Buddy, Zooey, Marshmallow and Tony in Lufkin to keep them as close to us as possible. When we picked them up the cats were very sanguine (well they are cats) but the dogs! I think they knew they were finally going home before I even told them-that was a joyous reunion.
Poor Zooey. Zooey suffers from separation anxiety, which is a fancy shmancy way of saying she gets nervous and upset when she is not with us. End result: she barks. And barks. And barks. Sometime during the last few weeks she must have simply barked too much.
Now she has literally lost the ability to bark. Her personality remains unchanged, and she was never much of a watchdog anyway, but I still feel sorry for her. To me a dog's ability to bark allows it to express itself, and now that is denied Zooey, maybe forever. The best she can manage now is a kind of strangled cough. Alternately she is still alive, so you don't have to look far for your silver lining. (Note: Zooey healed up perfectly and now barks just as she always did-too much!)
It was mid-afternoon by the time we started to drive back. (You should have seen how happy the dogs were when we got home.) I was one of the lucky ones-my wife and the life we knew was waiting for me at the other end of the road. The Aztek ate up the miles, skimming out of the beginning of the Texas hill country into the lowlands.
I'm a dedicated radio listener. When I finally thought to turn on the radio that day, one of my favorite "old" songs was playing. I was sort of vexed I did not get to hear the whole thing-then the DJ came on and said (I swear this is true) "Let's hear it again!"
And it seems altogether fitting and appropriate that I end this narrative with the lyrics to that song. They are not as "cool" on paper as when sung. Life is like that sometimes too.
***************
We sailed away We walked two thousand miles and then we slipped away We looked so hard But couldn't seem to find just what the world was for Now we know Just what the journey's for
Looking out to the stars Think about what you are What do they think of you Animals in their zoo They haven't got the time Landing's not on their minds How do they have the nerve We're animals in preserve
They watch us all They're only making sure that we don't trip and fall They look so hard But they can't tell us why they're here and just what for Because they don't know Who opened up the door
How can we find out more Who owns the keyless door Where does the circle end Who are the unwatched men Where do we go from here Faith is a fading fear Life is a waiting room I hope they don't call me soon
How much more do you really think you know than a flower does about who's behind the door!
awake
amused
sad