Term has started... unexpectedly.

I know what you are thinking, Thursday followed Monday or April followed May... no, the unexpectedly part of the title is what's happening this term.

Monday I brought a big pile of Marti Gras beads to my class I'm taking next door (to Starr King) at the Pacific School of Religion, called "Interpreting Sacred Texts", or "NTOT" in the rather archaic terminology of the school. The lecture has sixty students, and so it was easy to spread the gifts around. A few of the guys were shy about taking beads... but many were fine with it, including a couple of PSR folks who have become my friends. Mostly the women enjoyed it, though I had to think about a couple of rejections-- was this a political statement about the wearing of ornamentation? Was it an unwillingness to receive gifts? Was it a cleanliness issue? or was it that they wanted nothing to do with me?

Well, the beads weren't the unexpected part. The class went normally, and enjoyably, just like "OTNT" last term.

Monday afternoon I have "How Did We Survive This?", taught by Rev. Dr. Dave Sammons, or simply "Dave". It's a survey of events in Unitarian and Universalist history, concentrating on the ones that almost sank the ship-- from the Dedham Case to LRY. I took a class with Dave last term, and so I think I know his style, and what's expected.

Tuesday morning I went to "Introduction to Preaching", with Rev. Alma Crawford. Alma is both a UCC and UU minister, and the class spans denominations from Catholic to Wiccan. It's oversized a bit, 24 of us, but the diversity will be fun. I have to preach three times for this class. Lots of reading, lots of writing, lots of speaking. Again, I expected this.

Then it was time to pay the bills. I had my once-a-semester chat with the Registrar, Becky Leyser, and she asked if I would take my New Orleans experience and do a "Write Up" for credit. I really didn't think of NOLA as school work, in fact I was overjoyed that it had no readings, no papers and no sitting and listening. (not that those are bad...) I thought maybe I'd get a sermon out of it.

So what should I do? Spend time reliving my two weeks, in hopes of coming up with something very distinct from this blog? I left a good number of loose references in the blog, for me, not for you the reader. If I left those breadcrumbs, shouldn't I go and follow them? Hum!

The administrative assistant for student services, Trudell Webster, is actually relocated from the Crescent City, so I spent a good while talking to her about my trip... it made me feel better about the questions above...

Becky also noted that Starr King School for the Ministry has a minister this term! I'd noticed a face in Tuesday's chapel, but assumed he was a 3-rd or 4-th year student, back from internship. Nope, it's Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, who has his own blog... read all about him!

Sean and I had been chatting before my apointment with Becky, and we talked more after. I'm glad he's here. The SKSM staff is very protective of the professors-- always reminding us to not take up their time with non-academic matters (we got another memo on this last week). Fall term I got the feeling of being a mouthless child in a candy store... ministers behind every door, but a rule that they were not to act like ministers to me. Rev. Sean will have plenty of work to do... plenty of human interaction and listening.

This brings me to the unexpected part.

I came back to school for my evening class, mysteriously called "Spiritual Companion:Artist" As I came in the door I saw a circle of chairs and several students I knew. I chatted with one guy from San Francisco Theological Seminary, and some others from SKSM. But just as the class was starting I learned that I was sitting in "Intro to Islam" or something like that. My class was meeting downstairs in the reading room.

And I am the only student.

Seated at the table is an old Irish woman, Dr. Dorothy Donnelly. The class description said that the class would be learning do's and don't's of pastoral listening, allowing the Spirit to guide us. The first crisis is: should we even have the class? The second crisis is: This is a bad time, when should we have the class? The third crisis is: How should the class be taught? Dotty, as she is called, lets me decide these, maybe... or maybe she just wants to read my eyes.

We go through a long process of talking times and days and methods, while I am still uncertain what the class was going to be about... I have fallen down a rabbit hole.

So now we will meet for tea on Mondays, and she will assign readings for me, so she doesn't have to simply talk to one student for three hours a week.

Homework: I am to pray for her, and to pray for myself. This may end up being the hardest class this semester.

Time to say adieu to the Big Easy! I took Friday off, and went into town for what was, in hindsight, a rather mild good bye.

On the bus in, a very Forest Gump-like man was sitting across from me. He had many bags filled with beads... several years worth of collected beads, and was putting them on, and telling me, and anyone else who would listen, when he'd gotten them. It was a cheery monologue, and I couldn't catch many of the words over the rumble of the bus, but he was obviously a parade junkie. He also told me that there would be a parade in the French Quarter at 2 PM. I didn't quite know whether to believe him, but what the heck... I'd look for it.

As I entered the Quarter I heard a very loud calliope! Where was it? Block after block it got louder-- not like the usual music that floods out of the stripper clubs! I walked about 10 blocks before seeing it. It turns out it was on the Natchez, a paddle-wheel steamboat at the waterfront. This was their pre-departure concert... a very effective crowd-getter for their river tours.



After that ended, the riverbank became more quiet, almost contemplative.



But I had to find that parade... It turns out it was for a new musical opening at Harrah's Casino-- "Hats"



This woman, it seems, just jumped into the start of the parade-- and was having a fine time strutting along... The drum major was fine with this, and even loaned her the baton.



Of course the music was the important thing...




and the very simple, horse or tractor drawn floats, where they threw beads... I wish they'd had coins too, but for an off-season parade, this was pretty good. I ran out of pocket space to hold red and purple beads.



The parade went through the Quarter, then up--and down Canal Street. By the time it got there, nobody much cared, and I had had plenty of beads thrown at me.



With that out of the way, I could have gone to a museum, or a Gray Line tour... I decided to do the cheap thing, and take the free ferry across to Algiers-- the part of New Orleans that is south of the river. Once there, I could have toured the warehouses where they assemble the Mardi Gras floats, but I was getting hungry, so I turned around and took the ferry back.



Here's a view of the French Quarter from the boat:



And the obligatory streetcar shot... not quite Desire, but something.



I spent the next four or so hours visiting bars, eating more beignets, poking my head into shops. There were large groups of volunteer workers... Presbyterian, Catholic, and a group of guys with "CAW-TCA" on their shirts and caps-- I'd seen one of them at the Rock-n-Bowl, so now I had to ask. It turns out they are all Canadian Auto Workers. It's true that volunteers are what's keeping the economy afloat, judging by the way these guys shopped.

I ate at the same place I'd eaten on the first night-- though this time I didn't have the fried food, I had some sort of sandwich with olives and ham and other meats... and it was VERY GOOD. Wish I could remember what it was called.

The day made me look at the French Quarter from a different angle-- as a place, rather than an amusement park. It's full of residences, some very elegant, as well as topless and bottomless shows, bars and souvenir shops. At one narrow sidewalk I yielded right-of-way to a nun who was late for 5 PM mass... she was heading down the street in a white habit, at full speed! Maybe it's that aspect that makes New Orleans real and wonderful and Las Vegas so plastic.



But, like the entire New Orleans adventure, my day too, had to come to an end. I took the bus back along St. Charles... I couldn't figure out where the South Claiborne bus stopped on Canal, or if it still ran that late at night.

Forest Gump wasn't on the bus, but there was a large man with large round glasses, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, looking like a character out of Confederacy of Dunces, or perhaps an oversized Truman Capote... He pulled out a book of expert cryptic crosswords and started in working. Oh I love this town!

Saturday morning I woke up and packed. Thanks to Sharon and George who drove me to MSY-- the New Orleans airport. I got back to Berkeley about 7:30 PM... almost ready for the term to start.

It was a great two weeks... good bye New Orleans

A tour, a dance and a bowling alley

After lunch we went back to the work site to pick up a pickup that a firefighter friend had loaned to George. They wanted to do more work, but I was beat, so I snoozed in the cab for an hour.

Then we all went off on a tour of town. Here's a view of the lower ninth ward, from a bridge:



And we got talking about how scenes of destroyed homes and businesses had started to seem routine... we were getting acclimatized to the destruction.



We saw whole shopping centers with nothing done to them, just wood on the windows. Mounds of junk cars... and houses with the Xs on them... I didn't see any where "Number of bodies" was not 0, but one said "K9" and several said "SPCA". I assume that means dead pets. One said "SPCA feed dog--->" sounds like a guard dog left in a house.

But in other ways, the town seems like any other town.



We ate dinner at Frostop... and I had to have red beans and rice... just once. Afterward we slept a little and then went out to the amazing "Rock N Bowl" for Zydeco night!



Geno Delafose's band was on stage, near lane 1 of the bowling alley, and the hall was jumpin! The alley is on the 2nd floor, so no flood damage-- 20 lanes, all busy, and a dance floor and bar. What a trip!



We met up with a professor friend of Sharon's (he'd joined me, Nick and Beth for dinner last week), and the four of us mostly talked, though each of got a chance to dance. The tunes were mostly in French, but a couple of familiar tunes appeared, "Easy Like Sunday Morning" works well as a Zydeco tune, as does "Cool Jerk"!

Got home about midnight, just as the half moon was setting. It was cold last night again, though Friday should be warmer. I'm taking Friday as a tourist day, seeing the town, and thinking about all the stuff I've seen in the past two weeks.

Thursday... work party.

Well, I fly home Saturday, and am taking Friday off to sight-see, so this represented the last work day I had on this trip to New Orleans. It started off with the gift of jewelry..



Actually, this is a tree I passed on the way to the bus. I took the St Charles bus (they are working on re-stringing the St. Charles streetcar wires) over to Canal, then walked briskly across the French Quarter and on to ACORN.



The folks who I met yesterday were very concerned about me when I didn't show up at 7:30... of course, the bus connections were lousy, and I'm amazed I got there by 8 AM. The house was a smaller one, but also plaster, so a big crew of people were in a small area swinging crowbars. Also, the floor got covered with lath and nails... we flatted one wheelbarrow, and folks were getting lath attached to their shoe soles... definitely a boot day!

I worked on some things, but after swinging a crowbar for a while, I just had had it. Here's a picture of what the group had done by noon:



At noon we went over to St Luke Assembly of God, a church near ACORN, for a nice hot, franks and beans lunch. They had canned water, specially made by Anhauser Busch for relief and refugee use.



There we met folks from yet another relief agency, associated with the church. George mentioned that he is a plumber, so they asked him to come help them on a project Friday, while Sharon goes back to ACORN. The AofG folks seemed very well organized... better than ACORN, who are quite well organized already. It's good to see the variety of folks working to rebuild the city.

That's it for now... look for me tonight!

Another cold day of destruction!

Just a quick report today... I have to get up early tomorrow, as today we finished the site near where I am staying.

Once again, I worked with ACORN:



The house we were working on was across the street from an unused elementary school... so much of the city is simply missing, that schools are sitting idle. This is a view of the entryway floor:



Today the bicycle people didn't show, but Sharon(?) did. She's from Maine... "oh, you must know Nick and Beth!", "Why yes, I do!"

So why do the Canadians get offended when I assume they know everyone else in Canada?


The site was so close, I walked there, and walked part of the way home, pausing to take a picture of a bird.


It looks like Sharon, who was down over Thanksgiving, and George, a plumber friend who will also be working with ACORN, will end up at the church too.. I had dinner with them at Voo Doo BBQ, which was actually great... though the building was cold (it's chilly out there!)

Tuesday... with a crowbar and spacesuit

Hi there, this is me:


Today I'm working with ACORN, an advocacy group with a chapter in New Orleans. They also get some of their funds from the same Unitarian Universalist fund that supports the other work I was doing. Since I'm the only one here at the moment, ACORN has adopted me.

The day started early, with a cross-town bus ride, starting right in front of the church.


Connections were awful, so I had 30 minutes at Cafe Du Monde to get coffee. Then I took the Elysian Fields bus to St. Claude where their office is. Unfortunately, the project was actually quite near me... near Louisiana St. The house was being gutted. Fortunately, it was dry inside, and gutting was easy, except for all the pink walls.



The house is pretty old, as you can see by the wiring... anybody know what the wiring method is called?



The only other ones on the bus were this couple, who are riding bikes across country from Pennsylvania to Seattle:



Here's what we did today:



And here's the very efficient sanitation folks taking it all away!



The little one got to pick up the scraps:


All gone!


And I should get to sleep... another early day tomorrow. ACORN works from 8 AM to 2:30 PM.

Question Time...

Ok, I have a few more days here, but before I go I want to make sure the Blog addresses important questions about my visit here.

I could make up my own questions, but that would be a monologue. If anyone is reading this, click 'comments' and leave me a question or two. Does that make it dialogue or polylog?

thanks
Charlie

Monday Post... oops a little late.

I wrote this Monday night, but didn't get it to the blog:
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No pictures today... tomorrow maybe you'll see me without my beard... it seems the work tomorrow needs a respirator... and that needs a good fit to the face... so bye bye beard.

The NOLA buses are pretty rare, but that's how I'm getting across town... have to leave at 6:45 to be sure I catch the connection to get to ACORN by 8 AM. Oh well, at least they are working.

Today I ate lunch at the Frostop, and got canned ravioli for dinner... with "Bunny Bread"... that's what I said! It's worse than Wonder Bread... or maybe just the same, I haven't tried Wonder Bread for several decades. But Walgreens had it, so I ate it.

No more... must go chop beard.

Who's reading this blog?

Hi! Click on "Comments" to say hi back.
Tell me a name or nickname, and where you are.

Charlie

Sunday, a day off (in several ways)

The morning began with a warm wind... and the threat of thundershowers. Betty, John and I went down to the French Quarter for breakfast... back to the Cafe Du Monde for coffee and beignets.



John had loaned out some tools to a church member for the Saturday work party, and needed them back before he left for Texas. So we made a rendezvous at the church, and transferred the goods. The church member noticed that she had no turn signals, and wanted some help on this. After John left, I worked on the problem, finding that the brake light fuse and the turn signal fuse were both burned out. The church sexton went off and bought her some fuses, while I went off to church.

Church was ok... it was teacher recognition Sunday, but only one teacher showed up, so she got lots of recognition. The minister explained that this was the first Sunday in many weeks where there were no religious education classes scheduled, so the half dozen teachers were taking advantage of the break!

Last Sunday, after the service we had a group go to brunch, and we also did a sing along at the piano. This week there was no such activity, as everyone scattered for their football parties. The service was over about 11:30, and the game started at 2 PM. The minister expressed thanks that church was no longer at 2:30 PM (before this new location was rehabilitated, they shared another church building, and had an afternoon timeslot), as she was sure nobody would have attended.

So at 2 PM I was still working on yesterday's blog entry, but I finished by 4, and decided to go see what was up with the Saints. The warm rain had ended, and the main street's sidewalks had huge wet patches, so I took another route through the neighborhood. As I walked through the back streets it was clear that every occupied house was watching the game. Cheers or moans would come from all directions as if the town was haunted by demons. My goal was to visit the Frostop-- we had gone back yesterday for lunch, and the catfish po'boy was worth having again, but it was closed today, so I went to a Mexican place down the street. A small crowd had assembled to watch the game, and when I walked in the Saints were down by 2. Almost immediately things turned for the worse, and I left before the end, figuring I'd jinxed them somehow.

That's all... I chatted online for a bit, and began reading "Thematic Preaching", trying to find inspiration for sermons in what I'd seen today... in snow and fumbles. But then I gave up, and took a nap.

Texas to the Rescue!

Saturday I spent with a new group of folks, this time from Texas. It reminds me of the joke about the farmer from Texas and the farmer from Maine... but John and Betty (yes, they are both married, but not to each other!) are two wonderful folks from the Houston area. They come east for a couple of days each month to do what they can in rehabbing houses. Here they are with Reese (left), the homeowner on his porch:




It seems that in the Broadmoor section of town, raising up houses above the flood level is what folks are doing... here's the house across the street, being worked on by a group from Honduras:



Each month, in addition to the Houston folks, a group comes down from Baton Rouge. About a dozen came down this weekend, and they worked on a half dozen projects. On Friday Betty and John had put a 'blue roof' on another house across town. Another group was cleaning out a back yard.

Here is a picture of our project's crew:



The youngster, Cody, was too short to spackle, so he got the job of filling mud trays, and was declared "Official Mud Man Cody", working as hard as the rest of us. We went through 2 1/2 buckets of wallboard compound in one day... and that's with half of us sanding. One nifty thing I learned about was corner tape with metal bonded to it-- it makes very pretty corners, even when the wallboard didn't quite make it to the edge (and this is common with volunteer labor!)

Reese's house is actually a two-family 'shotgun' house. Each half has four rooms: Great Room, Bathroom, Kitchen, Bedroom. His daughters will live in one side, and he'll live in the other.

It was a very jovial work party, both John and Cody's grandfather enjoyed singing bits of old songs as they spackled. Reese's three dogs, who could chase each other circularly around the two halves, kept it fun, too.

Afterward, folks from all the groups went to one house for beers. I got to meet folks from other workgroups, including Irene (http://katowoman.blogspot.com) who writes a wonderful blog, and takes better pictures than I can.

The host is a very creative woman, and the small-ish house was filled with interesting touches. She designed a custom-built spiral staircase for the back of the house. It goes to a tiny second floor apartment (just in case it floods again). Take a look at the wrought iron!



John wanted oysters for dinner... so we went off to the Garden District to Felix Oyster House, for good oysters and very easygoing service.

Now that's two groups of people I'm going to miss! John and Betty headed home to Texas on Sunday morning.

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Day 6, Fire and accomplishment.

We were back at the same site as the previous day, putting mold-resistant drywall in a house. This was the last day of work for the Maine folks, here's a picture of them with a small piece of drywall behind them:



They left Saturday morning for Maine... after fixing a flat tire.

But back to Friday... investigating a bit more, I found that the house, in the Gentilly section of town, had been pretty deep underwater. Time to play 'find the water level' again...



At one point we were returning some tools, and were just coming back to her house, and just as we arrived I saw black smoke... house fire smoke. Yep, a block a way a house that hadn't even been gutted had burst into flames, and was beginning to have the glass break. Of course I was not able to do anything about it except watch. Three engines and a ladder came, and were there for a couple of hours.



We went back inside and hung more venetian blinds until the homeowner came back with her 10 year old son. They were moving in, even though the place wasn't finished. There had been a shooting in front of the house they were living in across town... a man shot 14 times at 4 AM. So they were moving in to the new place early.



Dinner was at the St Charles Tavern, a local bar/diner that we decided was about our speed... simple local food.

Another Day In The Crescent City

Ok, Day 5.

Today we worked at a different site. This is a house that is almost ready for the resident to move back... actually, she bought this house after hers was torn down, but it's hers now! Nick and Beth were working on drywall, and putting blinds up, and I was taping drywall, and getting a bit better at it.



The project's neighborhood has mostly brick houses, and is coming back more quickly than the first one... maybe 25% of the places show signs of being worked on or occupied. One sign of this came in the form of two moving vans which stopped outside the house.



Out jumped two fellows selling bedroom sets door to door... like some sort of Fuller Brush Man thing. They rang the bell and started their spiel, but we said we weren't interested... still, a couple from down the block came out. We watched as the stairs came out, and the rear van was converted to a sort of showroom. Capitalism at its best!

For the first time I had two different projects to compare. I spent a long time thinking about who should be helped when the whole town is hurting... the first project was for a disabled war veteran, and a Native American. This one is for a woman, I've never met her. Does any of that matter? Shouldn't it just matter that the homes are owned by people? This has been puzzling me, and I don't have a good answer.

I now know the projects I'll be doing after tomorrow... the weekend I'll be doing things for church members, and next week I may be working with Project Acorn, in the lower 9th ward... or for another local group... we shall see.

My back was slowing me down a bit... I didn't do exercises this morning, and that may have contributed to the situation.



As we were going out to the site, we passed a dump truck with stuffed animals on it. I guess the driver didn't have the heart to throw these lost toys into the landfill, so they get a home on the rails. Tonight the truck was parked across from the church, so I got a good shot of it. It makes for a small bit of jolliness in an otherwise grim landscape. I can't imagine being a kid in the city these days.

At dinner the waitress heard that we were down to work, and she came over and said thank you. A sweet and genuine end to another day of work.

Day 4 in NOLA

Today we stayed closer to home.

It was clear that our work at the first site was done yesterday, so today we hoped to go over to another work site. In the morning we tried to contact the work coordinator, but couldn't. We'd been given a couple of simple jobs that needed doing at the church, so we did them.

Here are Nick and Beth, the folks from Maine, hanging a door.



Around 1 PM we took a break, having replaced a plywood wall with an exit door in one part of the church complex. We headed off to a drive-in hamburger joint called FROSTOP. Someday maybe they will re-mount the giant mug of root beer!



On the way back we wondered how deep the water had been. We didn't have to wonder long:



Remember, the surge was 2-3 feet deeper.

We then looked for the right interior door for another exit from the gymnasium/theater room in the church. Finally, Nick got a call from the coordinator and decided to pick up the key for tomorrow. I stayed behind, finding and hanging the interior door. The place has about 50 different doors-- from leaded glass doors to plain hollow-core doors, and if there was a system to how they were stored, I couldn't figure it out. But by measuring the location of hinges relative to the top of the door, I found one that fit.

When the other two returned, we decided to take a bus to the French Quarter... we took what would have been the St Charles trolley, but that isn't repaired yet, so it's a city bus.

Nick wanted to go to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, but it seemed to be not-open (Believe it or not, they said they were open!) So we went across Jackson Square (see first photo) to the Cafe Du Monde



Nick is on a no-sugar, no-flour diet, so he only had 2 1/2 of these beignets. I had the same number, and we then walked down Bourbon St., finding a nice place to eat, Sammy's. Where he had a steak, salad and cheesecake. (I had catfish and then bread pudding.) We had a good time walking back to the bus on Bourbon street... it was pretty dead, but the music was plenty loud.

Well, it was a nice break, and the weather, which started out near freezing in the morning, warmed up to almost 50 degrees. The heat down here is all heat-pump, and that doesn't work well when it gets really cold.

That's it for now.