Thursday, December 08, 2005

Mississippi Trip – Friday Cont'd

As I mentioned earlier, we spent the morning working on two houses, one of which didn't necessarily feel quite as rewarding as others. I was looking forward to getting back at the work site, since it meant I could talk to a bunch of people pretty easily. But I wasn't quite as sure about going back to the same house, and it wasn't until later that I figured out why.

I went down to Mississippi to help people who'd been devastated by the storm. I'd seen homes which has been completely destroyed, and others which had either moved or been ruined from water damage.

The house we were working at didn't seem to have those problems. It seemed more like they were somewhat low income and saw a way to get some of the work done which they couldn't afford to complete. That's perfectly fine, and we really did impact their lives tremendously. But when you head down to support damage victims and it looks like there was very little water damage, it's hard to feel like you're really making a difference.

Again, looking at the earlier post, these people have gone way out of their way by allowing us into their personal things. I can't even imagine how hard it must be. And truly, I am glad we were able to help.

So, returning to our exciting drama...

We went on back to the home to tear out the walls and ceiling. We all arrived and set right to work. Since we were pulling down walls we all had to grab masks and pry bars. Thankfully I stayed outside and helped move the detritus (big word, means rubbish) to the street. The masks were uncomfortable but left your face with very stylish grey spots on either side of your nose. Look closely at Abby and Christine's nose and their stylin grey spots.


It was interesting, the afternoon went relatively quietly for me. With a bunch of people in the house tearing down walls, and others carting things back and forth, there just wasn't a lot of chance to talk. I also know I was getting a bit tired from going to bed late and getting up early. On top of it all it was beginning to hit me that this was my last real day, and this was the last job we'd do. This was the last bit of time I'd have to kid with Amber and Dave or to talk more with Abby. I was just kind of down and quiet that afternoon.

I did a couple different jobs through the afternoon. I actually did jump into the house and sweep up a bunch of the dust. I'm also sure tons of people were shocked to see me with a pry bar trying to get the sheet rock and nails out of the studs. I felt like such a man!

I did carry a bunch of the sheet rock and other things out to the people bringing items to the street. But it was so dusty and stuff was falling around so much I just couldn't take it. So, my manliness went out the window after the third time stuff fell into my contacts and I began the high honor of sweeping. But it did feel good to get the floor nice and clear.

The only real item of note was when one of the home owners came in and shouted "what's what you're doing, you almost took out the electric". The entire place (all 15 people in the house) fell silent. No hammering, grunting or anything. We were all just stunned. We soon realized he was yelling at one of the teenagers who lived there and was helping us out. It didn't take long before we were all back to work and moving things around.

Rob shared a great story from the homeowner. Since I wasn't there I can't do it justice. But apparently after uncovering a wall one of the owners saw a picture of their grandmother from years and years ago. The person just stood there and said they didn't even know it was still there. They put their hand on the picture and just stood there for a minute. I'm just so glad we made a difference for that one person. Isn't a day of work worth it to impact a life?

We finished up there around 4 o'clock having done as much as we could. The most fun part was probably carrying whole wood veneers from the wall up to the street, or carrying entire doors over our heads. Michael and I kept arguing over who was stringer... Amber or Abby. Of course, we know it was Amber!

We then headed over to one last place. This was a house pretty far off the beaten path. As we pulled up there was a bird walking around and I just couldn't remember what it was called. So I asked Dave, Missy and Hugh who were in the car with me. Of course that was no use. In the end I somehow figured out they were pheasants (Someone probably told me, my memory has never been my strong suit), which got me to thinking about dinner. Truly, if you've never had pheasant you should try it.

We said hello to the family by essentially asking if we could use their restroom. The previous site didn't have one that was usable, and it'd been a bit of a drive. While the insanely long line of people used the restroom I ended up talking to the homeowners (shocker, I know).

There were about 5 people living in the home that I could tell. We pulled up and I got to talk to Scott, a teenager there for a little bit. Turns out his house was a trailer across the way which was completely flipped over and unlivable. Beside it was the steel framing for another house, which it turns out his dad had been building. With all the water the steel was ruined and they just don't know what they were going to do. For the moment they were living at the neighbor's since it was taking a long time to get a FEMA trailer.

We began picking up wood from a pile and moving it over to the dirt road. I found out later we were supposed to bring the wood to the paved road, but that was a good 100 feet down, and we'd never get it all there before dark.

We were able to work together and pull down a huge branch from the tree which threatened to fall out and possibly on the dog house and shed with the next storm. It was great, everyone lined up and just pulled with all their might from different directions to get the branch down. I was sure to keep myself busy by taking pictures. But really there wasn't much room left on the rope.

After this was done Scott (the guy from across the street) brought out their bunny rabbit and soon a circle of people gathered around. It worked great until we had to leave and I had to be the mean adult who says we have to go.

We headed back to the work camp for our last night and last supper.

On the way Missy, Dave, Hugh and I got to random threads of conversations. It started with some of the best movies we've seen and morphed into any decent movie we could think of, then onto movies with Robin Williams in them to comedians we like, and how Robin Williams is too profane now in his stand-up. I took forever remembering Sinbad, who I really like, and reminds me of a worldly Bill Cosby. Which got to discussing Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Then I mentioned another comedian who was in Casual Sex? (how could I remember that awful movie but not the comedian) which I had to search on my phone and finally figured out was Andrew Dice Clay.

So, with arriving to the work camp our random conversation, which I've just bored you with, came to an end. I sat and had dinner with a bunch of friends, I think Dave and Amber, and we decided to stay until lights out (10:00 p.m.). It was our last night and I had no intention of leaving early (much to some people's chagrin). Amber asked if we were staying and whether we'd be playing spoons.

By the time I got things together one table was already full (like 13 people at a table for 8 full) so we started our own game. We still got about 10 people at our table. Now, I'd never played spoons before. If you're curious, the idea is to pass cards around the table really quickly and find 4 of a kind. If you find one grab a spoon. If you see a spoon get grabbed, grab one yourself. Just make sure you're not the last one to get a spoon.

So I sat across from Amber and Michael so that I could better distract them. Of course, that didn't work, I was too busy being distracted myself. So we all just played spoons for a while. People were jumping over tables (mainly Nate one table over and I) and just having a blast. I swear, every time I went to grab a spoon three came back. At one point I'd grabbed two spoons and held one high for Amber while she and Matt fought for the one on the floor (Don't worry, I did hand over my spoon to Michael before I knew who won the contest). It was awesome fun. The picture on the right is my holding up my spoons in triumph (only to be beaten out early on in our next game by what I'd call a foul).

9:45 came far too quickly and we had to say goodbye. We were leaving at 5:00 a.m, so we knew this was the last chance we had together. At the time I had no ideas what would happen.

On our mission trip in August I got e-mail addresses and screen names for a bunch of people who were with the other group which joined us. I talked to one person a couple times, but haven't said anything to them since. I do miss that group, but I knew I'd miss Dave and Amber more.

I almost didn't give Abby a hug, since I felt like I'd just met her that day, and had no idea how she'd react. But in the end hugs were shared all around (I even think Michael and Rob hugged, and they were going to see each-other in a few hours).

We chatted for a few more minutes (they were gracious enough to delay lights out for us), just saying goodbye while I was hoping against hope that we'd keep in touch. Thinking about how boring tomorrow would be without them, and wondering what I will need to do to keep everything going. In the end that proved very easy, since Abby, Amber, Dave and I talk almost every other day.

We all headed back to the preschool and headed off to bed. We were set to meet the other car first thing in the morning and head back home.

I had a really hard time going to sleep that night, feeling really conflicted. I didn't want to leave, just for one more day which I could spend with the Lock Haven group and to keep making a difference. At the same time I missed Erin and Rachel desperately. Since I didn't have a choice, I decided to wait impatiently to get home and see Rachel and Erin.

Tomorrow is the last day, thank goodness. I'm ready to start writing on my mind wanderings again. To be able to talk about how awesome Amber, Abby, Dave and Missy are. But that story will have to wait. Until morning....

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

1 comment(s):

I have been corrected. As my memory really is pretty bad, I was wrong about the pheasants. Abby was good enough to let me know they were actually guineas!

Thank goodness there are people around me who actually have memories.

By Blogger Tom, at 12/11/2005 8:52 PM  

> Post a comment

<< Home

Locations of visitors to this page