Cajun Adventure, Post-Hurricane Rita
(continued)
Walter was a man of few words but many smiles, as was his friend Freeman. Freeman was the man who had built new lower cabinets in the kitchen. Our job was to strip the top cabinets so all the cabinets could be painted to match. While we slathered on the stinky stripping solution, Walter took trim boards outdoors to paint. Freeman nailed up paneling and did other carpenter work all around the house.
Walter had lost his left leg below the knee in a car accident about 30 years earlier. Using crutches didn’t slow him down. He was everywhere in the house and yard, doing projects, moving building materials and running errands.
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| gail grenier sweet photo | gail grenier sweet photo |
Walter. |
Walter’s new shotgun design. |
Dolores and Huey had re-designed their house to accommodate a wheelchair for James. Similarly, Walter and Marian took the disaster as an opportunity for redesigning their home. Walter explained to us how his house used to be laid out. As long as old stud walls had to be torn out and new stud walls had to be rebuilt, they might as well be situated more conveniently. What Walter created was a shotgun house, where you could stand at the front door and shoot a gun straight through a long hallway and out the back door. I had seen a lot of those homes in Key West and New Orleans and always wondered how they’d be arranged on the inside. Now I knew. The living room, bedrooms, kitchen, and dinette extend off the central hallway like peas in a pod.
There was a storage room off the living room. I said, “That would make a good utility room.”
Walter loved the idea. “I never thought of that!” he said. He and Marian had lived with their washer and dryer in the kitchenette for so long they didn’t question it. We brainstormed a while about water pipes and electric or gas to the dryer, but both Walter and Freeman thought it was do-able. I felt like a regular house-designer.
After we’d been working on the cabinets for a few hours, Walter introduced us to Marian. She was bed-ridden in their FEMA trailer in the neat-as-a-pin back yard. Walter told us that Marian had a kidney transplant 16 years earlier, but Marian was having medical problems now. She hoped she wouldn’t need dialysis again.
Anna and I approached Marian’s bed slowly. Marian looked tiny. Here eyes were sunken and black-rimmed. But Marian was all smiles, just like Walter. She thanked us for helping and she spoke of her faith. She said it was what kept her going. She laughed about the nosy neighbors who wanted to know about “those people” who were helping.
“I just told them the church sent them, God sent them!” she said with another laugh.
Anna told me later, “After we met Marian, I had a shot of energy.” Before that, she was about ready to quit for the day. We had talked about driving again to Avery Island and trying to catch the tour of the Tabasco factory before it closed at 4:00 pm. No chance of that after meeting Marian. Anna was on fire.
At about 2:00 in the afternoon, I realized I had pushed too hard as I rubbed against the wood to get off the old finish. My old herniated discs in my neck must have got irritated, inflamed, and squeezed the nerve again. Then the nerve tells the muscles to get irritated and pretty soon I have a big tight painful mess in my neck and shoulder. I knew I had to stop or I might have to go to the doctor, which happened recently when I painted a small room back home.
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| gail grenier sweet photo | gail grenier sweet photo | gail grenier sweet photo |
Anna and Gail and cabinets “before.” |
Anna stripping varnish outside. | Anna scraping wood inside |