Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Mississippi Trip – Friday

I woke up on this last day of the trip with a mission. It would seem to be a simple mission but, trust me, it wasn't. I was off to get doughnuts! I'd promised everyone on our group doughnuts and by golly I was going to come through.

So I took to the streets again at 5:15 a.m. Again without contacts (don't tell the police, what is the statute of limitations?), though with clear windows. After driving around the local area I found nothing. The coffee place I found yesterday was actually a restaurant, and didn't open until 6.

I expanded the search area and headed down some big looking road (I didn't know the name then and I sure don't know it now). I lucked out, I almost immediately hit a Winn Dixie (a grocery store). I quickly park and go jogging into the building. I get into a decent conversation with the check-out lady on my way in. She lets me know that they have no doughnuts... Seriously, no doughnuts in a grocery store? The south is crazy! She suggests that a Wal Mart a few miles down the road may have some. So I'm off again.

Thankfully I hit a coffee place before going much farther (I was getting nervous about time). I park this 12 person van in front of the coffee shop with lots of stares from the couple having their morning brew. I got in and, guess what, no doughnuts. I'm never going to Mississippi again without bringing 3 dozen myself! Anyway, I got myself a frozen fru-fru coffee drink and Melissa a black coffee (we can tell who the real man is) and 12 muffins. In my defense the muffins were really good.

I headed back to the daycare to let my bright, shining morning voice wake everyone up. They greeted me with cheers and excitement as I walked through the door brandishing my drinks and muffins in conquest!

Ok, the last part didn't happen. I got all them grumbly people up by throwing them the muffin they wanted.

We all got ready for the day and headed out. We arrived in the middle of breakfast and sat with friends for the morning. I again headed out with the same awesome group of friends, plus a few new people, to clean up.

The first place we went was relatively close to the work site. This was a family from St. Patrick's. It really felt good to help clean up the house of one of the parishoner's from Melissa's old church.

The job was relatively simple, move the rubbish to the street. We dove in. Amber and I tried turning on the radio, but we didn't want to disturb the neighbors. So I decided to regale everyone in some song of my own. People would name songs for me to sing, and I'd tell them I didn't know it. So I just picked my own music. I won't play it here because, honestly, if I did, your computer screen would shatter. Pretty soon everyone got to digging and moving, and I'm sure it's to get some other noise in their head.

Thankfully other people did sing, and did a somewhat better job than I did. The best thing though was that people just sang.

At a retreat one saying came up regarding our singing. It was simply this: "Sing out loud. If you can sing, thank god for the gift he's given you. If you can't sing make God wish he'd given you the gift!" It was more eloquent than that, but there's the gist.

Anyway, a lot of us were singing. On and off key, probably making God's eardrums burst. We did finally stop when we couldn't even think of song titles and half the people didn't want country (crazy, miseducated fools).

I remember moving a huge refrigerator, which took most of the group. But more than that I remember the well which I thought was some concrete to be move to the sidewalk. In my defense, it was covered in branches. But when Dave and I both tried to move it, and it didn't budge, we decided it belonged right where it was.

I did get to stand on top of a pile of tree branches pulling out the branches beneath me while we tried to uncover a roof top. It really was a fun morning of hard work and good smiles.

We then drove about 20 minutes and ended up at a gas station where we all piled out and took over the place.

As I walked in the door I noticed a sign saying "We have boiled peanuts". Now, I'll be honest, I was ignorant in the world of southern living. Not only had I never tried boiled peanuts, I couldn't even imagine what they were. So, of course, I had to try them.

I looked all over the store and couldn't find them anywhere. I finally asked and was directed to a counter in back with two pots with unshelled peanuts in them, one marked regular and one marked Cajun. Well, I was feeling daring... but not that daring. Plus, if regular is what everyone eats then it's good enough for me. So I got three big cups (the smallest size was a big cup) of boiled peanuts and shared them between the cars.

Now, I've never had anything like it before. Judging by the people's reactions, they hadn't either. The closest thing I could say is that they tasted like baked potato. One or two people said it was ok, but were glad to have tried only one or two.

We set off to the work site with Missy and I constantly eating the boiled peanuts. We both got sick of them but , like all peanuts, you just can't stop shelling and eating them.

We finally got to the work site and freedom from the forced peanut eating.

This was a home where a couple families lived together in a circle of trailers and homes. They needed the walls and ceiling torn down. So we formed long lines and moved all of the personal belongings out of the house. Then we started handing out parts of wall which were carted up to the road. I generally carted wall up to the street.

Honestly, this was an ok project for me, but I didn't really see any water damage. What I saw were people similar to those who lived around me in Washington, DC. People who lived essentially in the projects, where one person worked to support 4 or 5 people who had a hard time getting job (or even finding the drive to find one).

This didn't go over so well with some of the people in our group. At one point the people living there were sitting in lawn chairs and watching us work. While I understand how this might bother some people in our group, I also had a hard time empathizing with the upset people. I tried to keep on a considered face but all I could think was to see the point of view of the home owners...

25 people show up and with very little talking and begin moving all of my personal things. Thinking that these white, middle and upper class kids and adults are looking at all my belongings and forming an opinion about me without understanding anything about me.

And honestly, I was doing just that at times.

It was also easy to forget that some of the people living there did try and help. But there were so many of us that it was hard to take part without feeling in the way. Truly, how hard must that be? To have a bunch of people who know each-other working in your house. For you to feel like an outsider in your own home?

It did give me time to just talk though. To focus on the person on either side of me and talk about things. I even got to move farther back in line and stood with Abby for a while. That was great since it was the first chance I really had to talk to her. Now we talk all the time over IM, the Internet really is the geographic bridge.

After we got everything out of the house we headed back to the work site for lunch. It was easy to tell that feelings were a little gruff. But we got together in different groups at lunch and just talked about ourselves and the day.

I'll post the incredible afternoon and evening later.

Peace,
+Tom/Bob

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