Cajun Adventure, Post-Hurricane Rita
(continued)
After an hour and a half of stories, we were ready to start work. We tuned KBON in on the radio, to steam us along. God must have a black sense of humor because our first job was one of my most hated: taping seams on drywall. I clearly remember proclaiming about 20 years ago to Mike: “I will never do drywall again!”
Ha, ha. Joke’s on me. Actually, the first pass-through wasn’t hard – we just had to get the tape to stick to the wall. Eventually Bob and B.J. came and assured us that they would do the finer work of smoothing mud over tape during the next two days, allowing for drying time between work sessions. Bob was a distant relative of the family, and he knew drywall. I never found out if he and B.J. were volunteers like us, or if they were getting paid. Bob was frankly horrified that United Way and the Diocese of Lafayette would send amateurs like us to do drywall. I told him that somehow the message had got through that the home would be ready for painting that week, and we could certainly paint. Ah, well. It worked out fine -- we did the rough work and left the fine work to Bob and B.J.
After a half-day of taping seams, we were as far as we could go on the drywall, so we worked for the rest of the day cleaning the yard. It was a perfect day, about 70 degrees (I saw a mosquito!), and the air felt great. After Anna and I lugged debris for a while, Dolores and Huey and their daughter-in-law Soraya and assorted grandkids joined in. We were like a team of ants, hauling brush, lumber, limbs, glass, drywall, and five-gallon motor oil buckets.
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gail grenier sweet photo |
Debris “neatly” piled up. |
Gradually we formed the debris into piles, which is what Dolores said she had done before Hurricane Rita hit. Rita’s water surge undid all the piles Dolores had made, strewing the mess into the back of their yard, and also floating two boats from neighboring lots to right beside their home.
At the end of the afternoon, we had gathered two giant mounds of wood for bonfires, plus a long assortment of junk at the road near the freezer and stove that were there already. A garbage man sat on a front-end loader at the road for about an hour, watching us work. He was clearly on Southern time, waiting for his truck-partner. The garbage man told me he would take everything except the freezer, which stank something amazing when we bumped it. If you bump a stinky freezer once, I guarantee you’ll never bump it again. The smell of death.
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| gail grenier sweet photo | gail grenier sweet photo |
Freezer at the road – smell of death. |
Dolores and Huey’s home after we cleaned the yard. |