Ghosts and Blessings

A house stands in northwest New Orleans, maybe 20 blocks from Lake Pontchartrain, across the street from the gutted Unitarian Church we had just toured, the water line clearly visible about 8 feet up on the wall/roof.  Located amidst of block after block of deserted houses, this house is different.  Unlike Biloxi, where the houses were demolished, destroyed by the hurricane, these houses were just empty, gutted.  But this particular house was not empty-deserted, but not empty.  Nothing had been touched in this house since the floodwaters receded.  The carport and car were covered with an inch of dried, cracked mud.  A snow shovel and two of the four-legged walker type canes were among the things in the carport.  Were these retirees, recently moved from snow country? I could see into the house through an open door from the carport, mud and rotten drywall everywhere.  A rack of ties, askew on the floor of the dining room, stood out incongruously from the general shambles.  A built-in book case filled the wall in the far corner of the room, still shelved with ruined books.  The destroyed kitchen was visible over a high countertop.  I started to walk through the dining room to the hallway and bedrooms to the left, but quickly retreated when I felt myself becoming congested from mold.  On the front of the house we read a posted letter, stating that the house was not eligible for rebuilding because the framing was not structurally sound and the insulation contained asbestos.  There was a line for signature by the owners-it was blank.

"The Rev" Arsell McGee is a joy-filled older black gentleman, a deacon in the Baptist church, whom we assisted on our first day in Mississippi.  Through the course of the morning we spread about six yards of dirt over the site where his house used to be, where he now wants to plant grass.  The house had disappeared in the hurricane and flood.  Next door was another residence he owned, miraculously still there, and nearing the point where it could be lived in again.  In the meantime, the Rev was living in one of the infamous FEMA trailers parked in his now vacant lot.  While we worked the Rev was off helping a neighbor re-roof.  During our initial conversation just after we arrived, one of us asked the Rev about the large boat on a trailer in his vacant lot.  "That boat," smiled the Rev, "that's a blessing."  And he proceeded to tell us the story.  The boat had finished the storm wedged between two neighbors' houses.  Not knowing what to do, the neighbors told Rev that if he could get it out of there, it was his.  The Rev rented a crane and hoisted the boat onto the much too small trailer that normally carried his 16' fishing boat-the same boat that had miraculously floated around his yard during the storm and flood, bumping up against the closed fence gate where it came to rest when the waters receded.  He bought himself an appropriately sized used trailer for $300, hauled his new boat down to the harbor and made the trailer switch.  Now it sat there with a new owner, The Salty Dog, needing some engine and electrical work, but otherwise seaworthy.  A Blessing.

Bryan