06 February 2006
60. Just a Little Stunning
Biloxi H3’s Eat Mor Chikin Weekend - 20 January 06 to 22 January 06
Our latest road trip has been sponsored by storm-devastated Biloxi and surrounding areas. Tolerating me in the car this time around was Red Breast and Poke Her Cabana.
First up… The Things I Learned Before, During and After Eating Mor Chikin:
--Chick-fil-A has some great props for a weekend of this caliber.
--The Biloxi crowd really knows how to welcome out-of-towners.
--If you turn down a chance to play Tippy Cup in Biloxi, the Welcoming Committee will turn on you.
--If you walk around with a battery-operated chicken that makes hellish sounds of pain when you choke it, people will tire of it (and you) very quickly.
--Five months after d-day (K-day?), and you still have to drive forever to get to an open bar. But hey, once you’re there, Scareoke sounds exactly the same.
--Two out-of-towners laying trail can be quite entertaining.
--Porkymon’s house smells like my butt crack. And by butt crack, I don’t mean my butt crack after I shower, I mean my butt crack after I get done haring.
--Want an abandoned bike? Walk around Ocean Springs for a few minutes.
--If you’re wearing flour-covered running tights in Ocean Springs, and you put a plunger on your freshly shaved dome, one of the locals will stop and ask you what’s going on.
--If your name is Burn-n-Bush and you just got your house repaired, you might need to swallow quite a few Bravery Pills before you invite a bunch of drunk people over for a weekend.
--The more drunk you are, the cooler drinking games are.
--“What the Fuck” is the coolest drinking game that I can’t play whatsoever.
--How do you make a 79.9-proof Hurricane? Mix powdered flavoring into straight booze.
--If you drink hard liquor and beer all weekend, and forget to drink water, you tend to get quite ill after a couple days.
--If you drink too many Hurricanes, you will pass out. For a long time.
--I will always forget something at an out-of-town event. Sometimes, I’ll forget two or three somethings.
--If you say you’d be willing to have public sex with a Dwarf for a nominal fee, drunk hashers will whip out their cash faster than Paris Hilton whips out her wad at Louis Vuitton.
--There’s a new type of Christmas Tree. It’s a Biloxi Tree. Directions: Take a regular tree from the Biloxi area, add hurricane-force winds at a 20-plus-foot storm surge, and let the water recede. Ornaments will include clothes, paper bags, toys… and maybe even a full-size boat.
Up second: I’d like a Perspective Sandwich with a Side of Humility, Please.
I’ve tried writing this part multiple times and have given up each time. It’s so hard to put that much damage into words. Because it’s really beyond words, and even beyond pictures. You have to go there. In my case, words or pictures didn’t elicit anything close to the crippling feeling I got standing in the middle of what looks like the aftermath of a nuclear bombing. I found myself unable to speak. Sitting here thinking about it makes me feel the same way I did at Porkymon’s lot, looking around at what used to be his neighborhood.
There’s nothing.
Porky drove us around early Sunday afternoon so we could see some damage, including his house. This would have been the fourth time I made the drive to his place, so I thought I was a little familiar with the area. But too much was gone. We were at a part of town with sporadic housing, crippled businesses and countless piles of wood and other assorted garbage. I hadn’t realized it, but we were really close to his house; on Race Track, actually, just north of the back bay, heading east. There were empty lots everywhere. All of a sudden he turned left and said “OK, this is my street.” He could have slapped me and it would have caused the same reaction I had. I sat straight up in my seat, screamed something and looked around in amazement. It was Lepoma Avenue, but there were no houses. There wasn’t even a street, really. Just a vast expanse of mud and scattered garbage. I looked to my left at some trees, in what would have been some back yards. I looked to my right and saw through two lots to Brittany Avenue, and I could have sworn I even got a quick glimpse of a blue truck on M and L Road two streets over.
We parked in front of his house. It was one of the few left standing because it was one of the few made of brick. There was one other house close-by. In fact, it was in his driveway. We got out of the car. It smelled here, and it wasn’t just from the mold. It was rot of all types. I can only imagine what it smelled like before they carted all the crap away. I looked back toward the water and just stood there paralyzed. Talking was out of the question. I could barely even breathe. I actually felt something inside my chest; a tingling, as if someone were yanking something out. I didn’t understand what I seeing. That much power, ripping everything down. That much force, turning an entire neighborhood into a vast expanse of ruin. This many families that lost everything. And it wasn’t just here. There were miles and miles of areas that looked just like this.
I walked a couple of lots toward the water and stood on a slab that used to have a house on top of it. There was scattered pieces of tile here, and nearby, a stuffed doll face-down in the mud. A piece of wood. Another piece. A tiny ball. And holes everywhere, which would have been footprints if the earth had been able to support more weight. A fence popped up out of nowhere, showing where the lots were divided. I looked back, and for the first time, noticed some FEMA trailers. People who had nowhere to go, living here in what was now a desolate floodplain.
The other three were slowly walking toward Porky’s house, and I ran to catch up. We made our way over a small mountain of trash and up the porch steps to where the front door used to be. It was now lying inside, covering more garbage. The smell of rot was really strong and there was an almost imperceptible sound that I wasn’t able to place until later. It was actually a faint combination of sounds that for some reason forced me to remain as silent as possible, as if even the slightest amount of extra noise would upset the delicate balance of what was left here. There was a drop of water, a clicking of wood and a creaking of some sort. I couldn’t feel the breeze, but I knew there was at least a tiny bit of it slowly brushing past something. I walked though the living room and toward the kitchen and realized what Porky had meant by “unsalvageable.” It was actually difficult to focus on any one thing for too long, as if my brain didn’t want me to dwell on the loss. I remembered all of his costumes and all of his Halloween paraphernalia in the guest bedroom and made my way over to that part of the house. Again, nothing but a black pile of rotting waste.
At the side of the house, the carport had fallen over, and I didn’t even notice what we walked over to get to the back yard. The metal roof of the carport, maybe? There was more junk piled up, and you couldn’t even tell there was ever a large RV shed back here. It just floated off. A boy was close to us in the next lot over, wading though the mud with large rubber boots on. I noticed the stillness in the air, and I saw him bend over and pick up a golf ball. “You’d be amazed at how many of these you can find here,” he said as he saw me walk closer. He told me his uncle lived a couple lots over and liked to practice his swing once in a while. I mentioned how strange the neighborhood looked, and he said it was a lot worse before they carted all the junk away. He seemed out of place here, nonchalantly trudging around among the nothingness.
I walked back down the driveway to the extra house. The floor seemed weak as I stepped inside, but it could have just been the junk all around. There was that sound again. The roof had caved in at spots, and there was a lot of insulation everywhere. I looked over into the kitchen and saw the cupboard door open below the sink. The intact, shiny pipes struck me as odd, and seemed as out of place as the boy over in the next lot. I don’t remember seeing any drywall, which isn’t very surprising.
I walked back out to the muddy street and realized I had seen enough. From the ravaged casinos to the dense forests of debris-filled trees, to the rows and rows of apartments with the lower two stories missing, to this desolate mess, I finally came to grips with the magnitude of it all, and suddenly got really tired. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of silence on the drive home.
The flooding of New Orleans had an unexpected consequence: It took the media’s attention away from the sprawling, widespread damage across Mississippi, and made people lose perspective on what Hurricane Katrina really did to the Gulf Coast. That’s what made the trip down here so important. And I didn’t even see the area at its worst. People with empty lots are getting their finances straightened out, and others have their houses back together. There’s not a whole lot of happiness here yet. But there’s enough.
On On
Our latest road trip has been sponsored by storm-devastated Biloxi and surrounding areas. Tolerating me in the car this time around was Red Breast and Poke Her Cabana.
First up… The Things I Learned Before, During and After Eating Mor Chikin:
--Chick-fil-A has some great props for a weekend of this caliber.
--The Biloxi crowd really knows how to welcome out-of-towners.
--If you turn down a chance to play Tippy Cup in Biloxi, the Welcoming Committee will turn on you.
--If you walk around with a battery-operated chicken that makes hellish sounds of pain when you choke it, people will tire of it (and you) very quickly.
--Five months after d-day (K-day?), and you still have to drive forever to get to an open bar. But hey, once you’re there, Scareoke sounds exactly the same.
--Two out-of-towners laying trail can be quite entertaining.
--Porkymon’s house smells like my butt crack. And by butt crack, I don’t mean my butt crack after I shower, I mean my butt crack after I get done haring.
--Want an abandoned bike? Walk around Ocean Springs for a few minutes.
--If you’re wearing flour-covered running tights in Ocean Springs, and you put a plunger on your freshly shaved dome, one of the locals will stop and ask you what’s going on.
--If your name is Burn-n-Bush and you just got your house repaired, you might need to swallow quite a few Bravery Pills before you invite a bunch of drunk people over for a weekend.
--The more drunk you are, the cooler drinking games are.
--“What the Fuck” is the coolest drinking game that I can’t play whatsoever.
--How do you make a 79.9-proof Hurricane? Mix powdered flavoring into straight booze.
--If you drink hard liquor and beer all weekend, and forget to drink water, you tend to get quite ill after a couple days.
--If you drink too many Hurricanes, you will pass out. For a long time.
--I will always forget something at an out-of-town event. Sometimes, I’ll forget two or three somethings.
--If you say you’d be willing to have public sex with a Dwarf for a nominal fee, drunk hashers will whip out their cash faster than Paris Hilton whips out her wad at Louis Vuitton.
--There’s a new type of Christmas Tree. It’s a Biloxi Tree. Directions: Take a regular tree from the Biloxi area, add hurricane-force winds at a 20-plus-foot storm surge, and let the water recede. Ornaments will include clothes, paper bags, toys… and maybe even a full-size boat.
Up second: I’d like a Perspective Sandwich with a Side of Humility, Please.
I’ve tried writing this part multiple times and have given up each time. It’s so hard to put that much damage into words. Because it’s really beyond words, and even beyond pictures. You have to go there. In my case, words or pictures didn’t elicit anything close to the crippling feeling I got standing in the middle of what looks like the aftermath of a nuclear bombing. I found myself unable to speak. Sitting here thinking about it makes me feel the same way I did at Porkymon’s lot, looking around at what used to be his neighborhood.
There’s nothing.
Porky drove us around early Sunday afternoon so we could see some damage, including his house. This would have been the fourth time I made the drive to his place, so I thought I was a little familiar with the area. But too much was gone. We were at a part of town with sporadic housing, crippled businesses and countless piles of wood and other assorted garbage. I hadn’t realized it, but we were really close to his house; on Race Track, actually, just north of the back bay, heading east. There were empty lots everywhere. All of a sudden he turned left and said “OK, this is my street.” He could have slapped me and it would have caused the same reaction I had. I sat straight up in my seat, screamed something and looked around in amazement. It was Lepoma Avenue, but there were no houses. There wasn’t even a street, really. Just a vast expanse of mud and scattered garbage. I looked to my left at some trees, in what would have been some back yards. I looked to my right and saw through two lots to Brittany Avenue, and I could have sworn I even got a quick glimpse of a blue truck on M and L Road two streets over.
We parked in front of his house. It was one of the few left standing because it was one of the few made of brick. There was one other house close-by. In fact, it was in his driveway. We got out of the car. It smelled here, and it wasn’t just from the mold. It was rot of all types. I can only imagine what it smelled like before they carted all the crap away. I looked back toward the water and just stood there paralyzed. Talking was out of the question. I could barely even breathe. I actually felt something inside my chest; a tingling, as if someone were yanking something out. I didn’t understand what I seeing. That much power, ripping everything down. That much force, turning an entire neighborhood into a vast expanse of ruin. This many families that lost everything. And it wasn’t just here. There were miles and miles of areas that looked just like this.
I walked a couple of lots toward the water and stood on a slab that used to have a house on top of it. There was scattered pieces of tile here, and nearby, a stuffed doll face-down in the mud. A piece of wood. Another piece. A tiny ball. And holes everywhere, which would have been footprints if the earth had been able to support more weight. A fence popped up out of nowhere, showing where the lots were divided. I looked back, and for the first time, noticed some FEMA trailers. People who had nowhere to go, living here in what was now a desolate floodplain.
The other three were slowly walking toward Porky’s house, and I ran to catch up. We made our way over a small mountain of trash and up the porch steps to where the front door used to be. It was now lying inside, covering more garbage. The smell of rot was really strong and there was an almost imperceptible sound that I wasn’t able to place until later. It was actually a faint combination of sounds that for some reason forced me to remain as silent as possible, as if even the slightest amount of extra noise would upset the delicate balance of what was left here. There was a drop of water, a clicking of wood and a creaking of some sort. I couldn’t feel the breeze, but I knew there was at least a tiny bit of it slowly brushing past something. I walked though the living room and toward the kitchen and realized what Porky had meant by “unsalvageable.” It was actually difficult to focus on any one thing for too long, as if my brain didn’t want me to dwell on the loss. I remembered all of his costumes and all of his Halloween paraphernalia in the guest bedroom and made my way over to that part of the house. Again, nothing but a black pile of rotting waste.
At the side of the house, the carport had fallen over, and I didn’t even notice what we walked over to get to the back yard. The metal roof of the carport, maybe? There was more junk piled up, and you couldn’t even tell there was ever a large RV shed back here. It just floated off. A boy was close to us in the next lot over, wading though the mud with large rubber boots on. I noticed the stillness in the air, and I saw him bend over and pick up a golf ball. “You’d be amazed at how many of these you can find here,” he said as he saw me walk closer. He told me his uncle lived a couple lots over and liked to practice his swing once in a while. I mentioned how strange the neighborhood looked, and he said it was a lot worse before they carted all the junk away. He seemed out of place here, nonchalantly trudging around among the nothingness.
I walked back down the driveway to the extra house. The floor seemed weak as I stepped inside, but it could have just been the junk all around. There was that sound again. The roof had caved in at spots, and there was a lot of insulation everywhere. I looked over into the kitchen and saw the cupboard door open below the sink. The intact, shiny pipes struck me as odd, and seemed as out of place as the boy over in the next lot. I don’t remember seeing any drywall, which isn’t very surprising.
I walked back out to the muddy street and realized I had seen enough. From the ravaged casinos to the dense forests of debris-filled trees, to the rows and rows of apartments with the lower two stories missing, to this desolate mess, I finally came to grips with the magnitude of it all, and suddenly got really tired. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of silence on the drive home.
The flooding of New Orleans had an unexpected consequence: It took the media’s attention away from the sprawling, widespread damage across Mississippi, and made people lose perspective on what Hurricane Katrina really did to the Gulf Coast. That’s what made the trip down here so important. And I didn’t even see the area at its worst. People with empty lots are getting their finances straightened out, and others have their houses back together. There’s not a whole lot of happiness here yet. But there’s enough.
On On
# posted by L&F @ 11:34 PM 
