Monday: Sadness and Humor
Monday.
This weekend we started to hear about deaths. A doctor in Hancock County died and, we hear, a doctor in Jackson County who had a hurricane proof house died along with all his family. I began to hear stories of tragedy in families. Now that two weeks has passed, people have already mourned the loss of their homes or businesses and I guess they are now finding about their friends and relatives. People have figured out the signs on houses. People are starting to look for others by cell phone or just visiting. However, the problem is that so many have had to abandon their homes, have no phones and no way to communicate. So, there are plenty of missing people, which adds to the fear of death. One Hancock County minister told my wife that he cannot find his congregation and is sadly making decisions about the church alone.
Amongst all this, people have kept their sense of humor. It is a remarkable human gift to make light of what can’t be changed. Here are some examples:
* We were driving down Highway 90 to Biloxi and saw the local goofy golf, Fun Time USA, and still standing was Humpty Dumpty, still on his wall.
* In Biloxi, the Ronald McDonald statute still stands and welcomes people, but the building is just beams and strewn about bricks.
* One torn up house has a sign in front: "Extreme Home Makeover".
* A Dodge Ram truck with a large tree imbedded across it has a sign, "Ram tough, not Katrina tough."
* A sign in front of one house has " Coast 0, Katrina 1, 1st half."
* One store had a sign that said, " No shoes, No shirt, No-rmal."
* We have borrowed the garden club sign that says "Yard of the Month" and are sticking it in front of friends houses and taking pictures of the sign in front of a damaged house, trees down, and piles of debris. We will frame and present them later.
*As we were making deliveries one day, our church van sputtered and spat and turned over and over with out starting. One of the ministers put his hands together like prayer and it turned over, then they laughed and laughed.
* Speaking of that van, it kept backfiring a lot and often in uneasy situtions, like when we passed police or Guard blockades. We started laughing that the National Guard was going to shoot back. Well, it was funny at the time.
* One resident who lives on 2nd Street, which parallels the beach highway, said this was really a good thing for the real estate market... now we have beach front for two and three blocks back from the beach.
* We are constantly laughing and marvelling about small things----
like how a house will be missing from a lot, but the periwinkles are still blooming in the front bed; or
how two 30-40' boats are just sitting, not crashed, in a cemetary about 300 yards from water, having mysteriously gotten through 50 yards of large trees, yet all the real and plastic flowers in the vases on the gravesites are still there;
how a wall will be missing but the dishes in the shelves against that wall are still there; or
how a piece of pine straw can be imbedded one inch into another tree trunk;
how people can laugh with such sadness all around.
This weekend we started to hear about deaths. A doctor in Hancock County died and, we hear, a doctor in Jackson County who had a hurricane proof house died along with all his family. I began to hear stories of tragedy in families. Now that two weeks has passed, people have already mourned the loss of their homes or businesses and I guess they are now finding about their friends and relatives. People have figured out the signs on houses. People are starting to look for others by cell phone or just visiting. However, the problem is that so many have had to abandon their homes, have no phones and no way to communicate. So, there are plenty of missing people, which adds to the fear of death. One Hancock County minister told my wife that he cannot find his congregation and is sadly making decisions about the church alone.
Amongst all this, people have kept their sense of humor. It is a remarkable human gift to make light of what can’t be changed. Here are some examples:
* We were driving down Highway 90 to Biloxi and saw the local goofy golf, Fun Time USA, and still standing was Humpty Dumpty, still on his wall.
* In Biloxi, the Ronald McDonald statute still stands and welcomes people, but the building is just beams and strewn about bricks.
* One torn up house has a sign in front: "Extreme Home Makeover".
* A Dodge Ram truck with a large tree imbedded across it has a sign, "Ram tough, not Katrina tough."
* A sign in front of one house has " Coast 0, Katrina 1, 1st half."
* One store had a sign that said, " No shoes, No shirt, No-rmal."
* We have borrowed the garden club sign that says "Yard of the Month" and are sticking it in front of friends houses and taking pictures of the sign in front of a damaged house, trees down, and piles of debris. We will frame and present them later.
*As we were making deliveries one day, our church van sputtered and spat and turned over and over with out starting. One of the ministers put his hands together like prayer and it turned over, then they laughed and laughed.
* Speaking of that van, it kept backfiring a lot and often in uneasy situtions, like when we passed police or Guard blockades. We started laughing that the National Guard was going to shoot back. Well, it was funny at the time.
* One resident who lives on 2nd Street, which parallels the beach highway, said this was really a good thing for the real estate market... now we have beach front for two and three blocks back from the beach.
* We are constantly laughing and marvelling about small things----
like how a house will be missing from a lot, but the periwinkles are still blooming in the front bed; or
how two 30-40' boats are just sitting, not crashed, in a cemetary about 300 yards from water, having mysteriously gotten through 50 yards of large trees, yet all the real and plastic flowers in the vases on the gravesites are still there;
how a wall will be missing but the dishes in the shelves against that wall are still there; or
how a piece of pine straw can be imbedded one inch into another tree trunk;
how people can laugh with such sadness all around.
posted by HurricaneHelper at 8:02 AM
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