"You Can't Go Home Again"
I don't know what I was expecting as a cat 4 storm slammed into Louisiana and Mississippi, but the fact that two beloved places of my childhood, that were my parents' homes, are changed forever -- well, it just is not really sinking in. It's been very hard to focus this week because thoughts of Aunt Sherry and her boys, on a personal level, are omnipresent; and behind those thoughts are images of New Orleans and Gulfport, as well as Slidell and Mandeville. I simply can't comprehend it. But the effects of the devastation will be with us a long time. And the New Orleans I was born in is gone. Someone in one of my classes said there was talk of deserting the city and not rebuilding it simply to be hit
again by future storms, but she's wrong; it will rebuild (she must be from someplace else); but its character will be altered. Our childhood memories of a place are like dream images -- based on reality but not true to it, as we notice when we return as adults and wonder why everything is smaller and less bright. It seems to me now that the real New Orleans and Gulfport have joined my childhood New Orleans and Gulfport in the world of memory and dreams.
posted by Kathy at 9/01/2005 06:16:00 AM
3 Comments:
I think what brought it a little more home to me was from the Sun Herald (local paper) site -- a video flyby from a helicopter of the Gulfport beach, showing what was left of places I recognized, like Marineland and the port itself -- just shells. And the casino sitting on Highway 90. And some buildings standing downtown, but many others down. I read that the only business on the beach that hadn't been wrecked or moved was the souvenir shop made from the boat that Camille had deposited across 90 from the beach -- remember that landmark?
That's true. And write them down, so they are safe somewhere, for our grandchildren.
Did everyone hear the good news about Jeffrey? Haley found a database of people searching for their relatives (in the thousands at this point) and found Jeff's ex wife, also searching. They exchanged emails and Brenda contacted Haley a few hours later to say she'd seen Jeff in a video about the Gulfport FD. Go to Sunherald.com and look for the clip about the GFD being out of water. "And there, glory be to God, was Jeff Doukas behind the hose," wrote Brenda. "I never thought I'd be happy at the sight of that smelly old firecoat." So we know he's fine, and logic says he would have contacted us if anyone else in the family were not. Still we wait to hear directly from Sherry or Marilyn or Steve.
Yes, thanks to Haley and Les who did yeoman's work on the 'net, and Les on the phones as well.
Now the task of rebuilding boggles the mind.
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