Madeline and Ed Curtis/Miss Rose/The Road Home

Hello, Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,

As I told you last week, some of Hands On New Orleans' work now involves construction projects that nearly finish homes. I have been involved in several of those projects, and it's pretty cool to see the typical Hands On determination overlaid with our growing in-house expertise. I've done some work for Madeline and Ed Curtis, who live on the corner of Fairmont and W. St. Roch in the Gentilly section of New Orleans. Gentilly sits between the London Avenue Canal to the west and the Industrial Canal to the east, and much of it was hit hard by the overtopping and subsequent failures of sections of both levees. Mr. and Mrs. Curtis got out before the trouble began, first traveling to nearby Slidell to stay with their daughter and police officer son-in-law, then on to Houston to stay for several months with their other daughter. Every home in their neighborhood was hammered by the flooding, and not everyone left before the floodwaters arrived. Directly across the street from the Curtis home is a home where the occupant stayed inside as the water arrived, hoping for safety. The waters forced her to her attic, and continued to rise until she saved her own life by breaking through the roof, where she was rescued by helicopter. There is still a blue tarp covering the small hole in her roof, a wincing reminder of how it went during the time the waters rose.


Mr. and Mrs. Curtis live in a FEMA trailer directly in front of their house. Their entire block is full of FEMA trailers. At the end of their street is an abandoned school and neighborhood park, derelict and overgrown. Mr. Curtis told me that he considered he and his wife lucky. "After 46 years of marriage, we are lucky. We've been literally forced to be closer, and it's been OK for us." His concern was for the families down the block, staying in FEMA trailers with their children. No place to play, and way too little space inside. I hear this all the time, this theme of "we are lucky, but look at our neighbors. They've got it tough, but we're OK."

During the time I spoke with Mr. Curtis, I told him I was really happy to work on his home, especially to see it so close to completion (we finished the sheetrock today). I said I wished I could be there with him and his wife the day the truck backed up to his FEMA trailer, hooked it up, and drove it away forever. He looked at me and said, "Do you really believe that's going to happen?" He's 77, spent 35 years as a Jefferson Parish school counselor, and has a masters degree in education. Yet, after these past 18 months, he has lost his ability to envision the completion of his nearly-complete home. I told him of course he was moving back into his home. I assured him it would be soon, given the status of the work. He was stunned. He just didn't perceive that an end was near.

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On Tuesday, Erik and I went back to Miss Rose's home on St. Andrew Street. When Kelsey was here, I took her over to meet Miss Rose, and discovered that the City had cracked the water line leading from her meter to her home when they removed that giant pecan tree stump I showed you last fall. Bless 'em for taking the stump out for her, but shame on them for leaving her to fend for herself with her broken water line. She got a $700 water bill last month, which the Water Bureau expects her to pay. Erik has done some plumbing work professionally, and is a long-term Hands On volunteer, so he and I went over there and dug up her water line from her house to the meter. Erik fixed it and we re-buried it. We had to break the sidewalk from her property to her water meter, and a crew that was pouring a large slab two blocks away gave us concrete in a wheelbarrow that we borrowed from volunteers who were working at a church across the street. (A perfect storm of resources, don't you think? A couple of Hands On volunteers up to their knees in muck from Miss Rose's super-saturated yard using a wheelbarrow we borrowed to get concrete a professional crew around the corner gave us. I don't know why that makes me laugh, but it does.) Miss Rose scratched her name in the concrete later that day. Erik and I went back on Sunday after the ground had had a bit of time to dry out, and we raked the yard smooth, removing the remaining debris, which included one last syringe, a broken crack pipe, and a lighter from the squatters who took over her home after the flood.
When she wasn't watching, we then snuck a bunch of Jeff and Ann Hume's donated sunflower seeds into the ground to give Miss Rose something to look at over the summer. The best day off I've spent while I've been here.

Miss Rose pulled me aside on Sunday morning to speak with me privately. She asked me if I knew of anyone who could help her fix the title to her home. Although she is, and has been, the only resident there for years, the deed is still in her dead parents' names. Like many homes in New Orleans, the people who live in the home aren't the people whose names are on the title. I told her I'd try to find someone who could help. Before Ann came back to New Orleans for her second trip last November, she worked at the Houston Quilt Show, where she ran into Lana Corll, who, in addition to apparently loving quilts, is the Director of Continuing Legal Education for the Loyola University College of Law here in New Orleans. She and Ann had a nice chat about the work down here, and they traded contact info so they could get together when Ann made it to New Orleans after the show. They never did get together, but Ann had her info, and I contacted Lana yesterday to ask if she could provide any assistance for Miss Rose. She said yep, she could, and I heard from her today after she had contacted a number of colleagues. She then sent a bunch of forms to me so I could help Miss Rose gather the appropriate info for her title work. In addition, she sent along all the contact info I needed for Miss Rose's Road Home application. The Road Home is the name of Louisiana's program to provide HUD money to homeowners to help them rebuild, and Miss Rose confided to me that she hadn't done anything about that yet, either. I got the package, and, let me tell you, it ain't simple. So, some evening after work this week, Miss Rose and I will sit down and try to go through this. After we do what we can with the paperwork, Lana is going to find us an advocate who can provide the actual legal services necessary to perfect her title. Then The Road Home process can move forward.

The Road Home program provides up to $150,000 in benefits to homeowners whose homes were severely damaged by the storm and the flood. Over 113,000 applications have been received, but only a couple of thousand have been closed so far, although the program is picking up steam and the State says several hundred a day are now closing. That's progress.

The weather is warming up considerably, and the humidity is rising along with it. Every mosquito egg in the area hatched on Saturday and Sunday, and all of a sudden us pasty-white folks are being eaten alive.

I love it here.

Love to all,

David/Dad

P.S. The pictures this week include a few from last Monday night, when a krewe of Indians (a long story, but a cool one about the old tradition of African Americans down here identifying with Indian tribes dating back to slavery days when runaways took refuge on Indian lands, where slaveowners were generally reluctant to tread in pursuit) paraded down Dryades Street past our home to meet with the Wild Magnolias, another Indian krewe whose clubhouse is one block south of our church. They met ceremonially in the street, and everyone came out to enjoy it.

Back Home in New Orleans

Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,

Kelsey and I arrived in New Orleans on Tuesday, March 6th. Kelsey took a week of her vacation to come down and work with us, and she hit the ground running. Not only was she a hard worker, she was a super-smart worker. Our first day was spent at Henry Carter's house on Louisiana street. He's restoring it so his adult daughter can return to New Orleans. Kelsey dove right in, and never once looked like a rookie. As you might expect of her, she was always the one still working to finish gutting a room properly long after more-experienced volunteers had moved on to another room. I couldn't be more proud of her. She gutted with gusto, and also got to spend one day at the Dryades YMCA Charter School, where she was one of the team leaders for art projects for the kids. The week went by so quickly, and our last work gig together was a neighborhood celebration we staffed in the Hoffman Triangle area. She and I were in charge of the inflated castle. It's that big thing kids climb in and bounce themselves silly. The park is the ONLY city park open in the city. ALL of the others are FEMA Trailer Farms. I was stunned when I heard that one. Anyway, the day was organized to give families a chance to play, and to give kids a chance to just be kids for a day. With the trailer farms and the shortage of schools comes a severe shortage of playgrounds, and the kids are bearing an awfully big burden, given what they saw during and after the storm, compounded by the lack of opportunity to simply have fun. So, for a day anyway, we helped them laugh. Before the event, we walked the neighborhoods and handed out fliers to everyone we saw. People came in droves, and most were unbelieving when we told them there was no charge for anything. Face-painting, games, Sunflower seed planting, hot dogs, popcorn, sodas, Kelsey and Dave's Bouncing Castle--everything was provided. Kelsey and I knew it was a great success when we counted the number of kids crying when their parents told them it was time to go home. Amazing how simple it is to make someone happy. A very good day.

One of the coolest gigs we're doing repeatedly with kids is the Sunflower Project. We're planting sunflowers in plots around the city, to add some color and to give kids a chance to show themselves and others what they can accomplish together. Jeff and Ann Hume of the Ed Hume Seed Company sent about $2000 worth of seeds with me on this trip, and they are being gratefully put to use throughout the city already. They sent a ton of sunflower seeds of different varieties, along with a rich assortment of vegetable seeds for community gardens. Jeff and Ann, thanks a lot for your generosity. It ain't just about the seeds--you can't buy the happiness you are providing these kids.

Kelsey and I also had a lot of non-work fun together. We went to the French Quarter on Saturday night, where she got to see the nightlife of New Orleans. For balance, she went to see the Lower Ninth the next day. This city is such a study in contrasts.

Kelsey went home on Monday, and I really miss her. She's already planning her next trip back, and Hands On is holding a space for her. She's one of us now.

Off to work I went on Monday after seeing Kelsey off. I got to help prep Miss Peggy Severe's home on Leonidas Street for insulation and sheetrock. Miss Peggy's place took about four feet of water. Her neighborhood is one of those far enough away from the levees that they thought they had been spared once the storm missed New Orleans. That evening, before the sun went down, they were celebrating their good fortune and thanking God when they noticed some water in the streets. It didn't quite register what was happening, but it was only a weird little nuisance. Over the next two days, the water slowly but surely continued to bleed into the area. For people who stayed, the danger was not readily apparent. What began as an oddity slowly became a calamity as water finally entered homes on the 31st, and continued to rise until the city's water level finally matched Lake Ponchartrain's on September 1st. Just imagine that sequence of events: The storm misses New Orleans. The day passes, and, while certain areas nearest to the levees have already taken a devastating hit, Miss Peggy and her neighbors thank God for their good fortune and safety. Water silently shows up in the streets, and people think "How strange." The water slowly rises over the next 2 days, and fear sets in, because, by now, who knows when it will stop?

Miss Peggy's project is one that illustrates the evolution of Hands On New Orleans' work. We are now involved in a number of projects that very nearly complete the rebuilding of homes. Insulation, sheetrock, and paint are all part of the repertoire now, and it feels really good to be involved in this work.

I really wish Kelsey had been here for my second week. It's Spring Break season, and the bunkhouse is full of college students investing their vacation in service to these great people down here. During Kelsey's week, we had groups from Viterbo University in Wisconsin, and Clark University in Massachusetts. All great kids, mind you, but the next week groups from Virginia Commonweatlth University (Go Rams!), the University of Florida (Come on Gators----Get Up and Go!), Appalachian State University (Go Mountaineers!), and the Juilliard School in New York all showed up at the same time. I can't tell you what a special week it was. I got to work with most of them during the week, and I was so happy to get to know many of them. Over the course of the week, I watched them bond with each other, and I bonded with many of them myself. One quick week, and poof!, they all headed back to school yesterday. Every single one of them came to work, and I could fill pages telling you about them. I am always impressed and inspired by the efforts and the commitment of young people down here, but these kids were very, very special.
The Juilliard students put in double-duty, working on-site, then heading off to the school to teach their other talents to the kids. And, what attention to detail! I have never seen a neater debris pile than the one they built outside Miss Peggy's house.
Need caulking work on your home? Dial 1-800-Juilliard. As Reggie told everyone at community meeting that night: "Those Juilliard kids really know how to handle caulk." Only Reggie can get away with a comment like that.

And so it went that week. Not only were the VCU and Florida kids similarly committed to doing a great job, their teams are both in the NCAA Tournament. I got to tag along with VCU on Thursday night to watch their opening-round game against Duke at a local sports bar. VCU took it to Duke, and won it at the wire. I was sad to see they couldn't quite put Pitt away in the second round yesterday because I've got a bit of Ram in me now, and knew our kids were on their way home to Richmond during the game yesterday. And the Florida kids--well, they have a right to crow about their team. Let's just say we all learned their various cheers during the week.

I kept forgetting that the four young women who came from Appalachian State were actually college students. Crystal and I got to work together a couple of times, and wow, can she get it done. I figured them all to be long-term, experienced volunteers simply because they approached their work with such confidence and expertise. One of the projects we worked on together was the gutting of a large home that was a group home for mentally-disabled adults. It was, for a normal team, a 4-day job, give or take. With Reggie's organization, and Crystal and Ashley among the team members, we finished this job in a day-and-a-half. Not almost finished. Done.
Reminded me of that scene in Cool Hand Luke where they were oiling that road, and, basically just for the hell of it, decided to knock it out in one morning of kick-ass hustling.

I saw Kelsey in her Tyvek suit as I worked with many of these kids this week. The hard work, the sense of humor, the commitment to help---these kids were the whole package.

I've got lots more for you, but I'll end now. For a comprehensive look at just how and when the flooding took place, check out this animated map done by the Times-Picayune:

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf

I can't close without thanking my friends Alysia and Brent at Batdorf & Bronson for sending Dancing Goats and Capitol Blend coffee with me. You've made many people in the bunkhouse happy and more productive with your generosity.

Special props and love to Ann for taking care of Mom, and for the Care Packages which always blow the volunteers away. I always get a great laugh watching our volunteers take so much pleasure from a Fun-Size piece of candy. You've made a whole lot of new friends, baby. Thanks a lot for taking care of us.

OK, now I really will close by telling you that I'm continually amazed at the goodness of the people of New Orleans. Just ignore the crap the media is feeding you about crime down here. Yep, there is crime here, but to report that as if this city has gone mad is a giant insult to the 99.99% of the other citizens who are scrapping every day to get by, all the while maintaining an optimism that comes from generations of good people facing adversity. I'm humbled by the dignity with which these people carry themselves. It's in their blood, and it's just one of the many attributes that makes this city unlike any other. Tell your friends--nail by nail, stud by stud, this city is fighting.

Love to all,

David/Dad

Home is Where Your Heart Is

Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Olympia,

My month in New Orleans ended with wheels-up at 7:25 am Friday morning. It's wonderful to be home with Ann and Mom again, and, at the same time, Ann and I both miss New Orleans, our brothers and sisters at Hands On New Orleans, and our new friends throughout the city--Mr. Gibson, Miss Rose, Charles and Mr. Roosevelt, Jo at Igor's, and many others we have met down there. It was a great month, and both Ann and I are chomping at the bit to get back there. We get to return for a 10-day stay in early November, and neither of us can wait.

It's funny how attached you can get to a new place, having lived and worked there for a month. Although New Orleans is missing 60% of its population right now, you can feel the energy and drive to rebuild. Everywhere I visited, including the Lower 9th, I saw people rebuilding. There is still so much to do, and thousands of homes still in post-flood condition, but you can see the beginnings of New Orleans' rebirth wherever you travel in the city.

We finished the siding on Mr. Gibson's house on Tuesday. Mr. Gibson watched us all day, and, as we cut the last piece of siding, he asked if he could sign the back of it. I grabbed a Sharpie I stole from Ann, and he took it and proudly signed the last piece. I had the rest of our team do the same, and we slapped it up. Mr. Gibson now has a freshly-sided home, ready for paint, and, boy, is he proud. He sent his personal thanks to all of you who pitched in to help. I guarantee you, if you ever knocked on his door and told him you needed a place to stay for the night, he'd knock you down with the screen door trying to let you in.

The leadership of Hands On New Orleans decided that our current home at the First United Methodist Church simply wasn't safe enough anymore, and they've decided to move our home. Only problem is, they haven't decided where that is just yet. They moved our Americorps staff and our volunteers to Hands On's Biloxi, MS site last Wednesday for 10 days, after which they are planning on moving back to New Orleans and a new home base. That announcement caused a bit of a stir among the ranks, given how bonded everyone is to Central City, and how little anyone feared for their personal safety at our current site. Nevertheless, we had experienced some property crime recently, with a car window smashed and a tool trailer stolen, and the accumlulation of little stuff made their decision easier for them. So, our folks are now in Biloxi until the 15th, learning from them and working with them. Biloxi is ahead of New Orleans when it comes to rebuilding, so our folks are hopefully going to learn a lot from their folks about framing, drywalling, and the like. Hopefully, we'll return to New Orleans with skill-sets that will help us get on with the actual rebuilding that New Orleans needs so badly.

I'll close now, if for no other reason than to stun y'all at how brief I can be when I really try. Let me finish by saying that my work in New Orleans is the best, most satisfying work I've ever done. The people I've met, both those we have helped and those I've worked alongside, made Ann and I feel so welcome and so at home so far from home. You just have to do this yourselves to see what I'm talking about.

The first day we were there, Ann and I grabbed a bumper sticker to take home. It says: "New Orleans--Proud to Call it Home." I thought at the time, "This is nice, but it doesn't really fit because we live in Olympia." I laughed to myself as I headed to the airport on Friday morning how nicely the sticker said what I was feeling after one month there. It was my home, and, in a way, it will always feel like home to me. I know every time I visit there in the future, I will be welcomed as if I was a New Orleanian myself. And I'm very proud of that.

My love to all,

Dave/Dad

Blown Away in the Lower Ninth

Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,

Last week began with a Saturday gig in what's called the Hoffman Triangle, and area not far west from where we are staying. It was a big event, with several corporate sponsors, Hands On New Orleans, and the New Orleans Saints participating. I was assigned the house of Mr. Whitaker, who lives on the corner of Fourth and Prieur. If you watched ESPN last weekend, you may have seen him on any number of shows highlighting the return of the Saints to the Superdome. Jason Fife and Al Lynch were the two Saints assigned to Mr. Whitaker's home, and I had an especially fun visit with Fife, who was the Oregon Ducks quarterback right after Joey Harrington moved on to the NFL.


Reggie and Amanda made pals with Steve Gleason, who became quite the hero on Monday night when he blocked a Falcons punt early in the game and his teammate scooped up the ball and scored. Gleason liked Reggie and Amanda so much that they were his guests at the game and the after-game get together. Those of us breathing less-rare air watched the game at the Bulldog, a pub on Magazine Street. We were all adopted and thanked by the Saints fans who packed the place, and we had quite a great time rooting the Saints on. There was just no other acceptable result than to have the Saints blow the Falcons out, and they came through. The city really rocked that day.

Several of us spent Monday back at the Triangle, finishing up landscaping and painting. I worked with Troy and Brian, two new volunteers, and promptly sucked them into Team Nasty when I saw how incredibly hard they worked. Brian broke old sod so we could lay new sod. Try that with a shovel sometime. No rototiller, just a shovel. Great guys, both of them. I met Troy at breakfast that morning, introduced myself, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I'm Dave. Nice to meet you.

Troy: I'm Troy.

Me: Where are you from Troy?

Troy: Portland

Me: Hey! Me too. Where did you live?

Troy: Northwest.

Me: Hey! Me too. Did you go to Lincoln?

Troy: No. I went to Jesuit.

Me: Hey! Me too.

And so forth. He was Class of '94, and I was a few classes ahead of him, but talk about small world. Anyway, both he and Alabama Brian joined us back at Miss Rose's place the next day, where our job was to "repair" the roof over her kitchen, which is the room all the way at the back of the house. At first, we thought we'd get away with stripping the shingles, installing a new sub-sheet over the old planks, then re-roofing. Whatever we did, it had to be completed in one day, because the risk of rain was too high overnight. So, once we started, we were committed. After stripping the shingles, we found so much rot in the planks that held up the shingles that we decided to remove them before sub-sheeting. After removing them, we discovered so much rot in the rafters themselves that they had to be removed. So, before noon, the kitchen was entirely open to the sky. We spent the afternoon framing the new rafters, sub-sheeting, tar-papering, and reinstalling the flashing. The next morning, we roofed it, then headed back over to Mr. Gibson's to begin the next push of siding. By Saturday afternoon, we'd gotten to the top of the windows on the far side of his house and completed the back wall. Monday should be completion day. Each day, you can see Mr. Gibson's pride grow as he watches his house begin to look new again. He is really happy. He is pretty smitten with Ann, and asks about her every day. "Miss Ann" is his girl.


Today, my last Sunday here, Troy and I took a car into the Lower Ninth Ward to take a look. I've attached pictures that show you what we saw, but they don't in any way give you an adequate appreciation of the vastness of that devastation. The Lower Ninth Ward, by my half-assed estimate using Google Earth, is about 400 blocks in size. It's western edge sits hard against the levee separating it from the Industrial Canal. The levee breached in several places along this route, and the water absolutely obliterated homes near the breaks, and pretty much destroyed everything else in the vicinity. In the two rows of blocks nearest the breaks, there are only foundations, foundation blocks, and concrete front steps left. The homes are completely gone. I can't properly describe what we saw this afternoon. Where houses still stand, entire blocks are abandoned. Water was running in one gutted house, spraying from a broken toilet. One house was lifted off its foundation and deposited on its owner's car in the driveway. Another was torn in two, the two pieces completely reversed in position. There is no high-water mark on the houses here. The water was over the top of them.

We waved to the few folks we saw along the way, and stopped to talk with two fellows who were sitting outside a house immediately next to the levee. Charles and Mr. Roosevelt, his neighbor, were chatting away in the very hot afternoon sun. We introduced ourselves to them, and I commented on how I was happy to see him and to see the condition of his house, which was clearly being rebuilt. He said he just got his electric meter reinstalled so he had power again. Then he said, "God is good." He was happy in general, and happy to see and visit with us, just like neighbors who run into each other and haven't chatted in awhile. I was so taken by this guy's general outlook on life, given what he's been through. Things are looking up for him. Troy and I were so moved by that man's spirit and resilience. His house was three blocks south of three levee breaches. I can't believe it's standing today.

There are pockets of activity in the Lower Ninth. FEMA trailers dot certain blocks, and people were working on a Sunday afternoon. Other places, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's like a movie set--it seems very post-Armageddon. It reminded me of that film taken at Alamagordo, NM when we detonated the first atomic bomb. Remember the one I'm talking about? It's the one that shows houses exploding in a fierce wind. Near the levee breaches, nothing remains. Beyond that initial area, houses were lifted off their foundations and deposited nearby, completely unrecoverable. Beyond that, houses are bent over, still on their foundations. Further beyond that, houses abandoned, everything inside ruined. Nothing was left untouched.

Nic told me later that the reason there was no debris on the foundations that were right next to the levee breaches was that the houses themselves were washed away, and ended up in the middle of roads and intersections. They were the first ones removed simply because they had to be. He also told me that what Troy and I saw today was "much, much better" than what he saw just several months ago. Unbelievable.

The people of the Lower Ninth apparently are a determined bunch. People are slowly returning from distant cities to begin again, to rebuild below sea level next to levees they no longer take for granted. I can't quite figure out how to feel about that. On the one hand, the human spirit in the face of incredible adversity is something to behold and honor. It's pretty humbling to meet a Charles and see how grateful he is for what he's got. On the other hand, here they are, below sea level, and nothing is going to change that. Most of their homes are total losses.

One thing we all have in common with them is that home is home. These folks just want to go home.

I love and miss you all.

David/Dad

P.S. Thanks to your incredible generosity, we've raised $4000 so far, and more is coming. After Hands On saw what you've done, they shifted gears. The Outback Steakhouse grant did not allow for the hiring of any professionals. Only materials and supplies could be purchased with that money. That severely limited the scope of the projects Hands On felt it could undertake. For example, Entergy will not turn on the power to any house that suffered damage until a licensed electrician has signed off on it. With the funding limitations, Hands On simply couldn't consider getting that far with Miss Rose's house. Now, though, with part of our funds, we are going to hire an electrician to get Miss Rose's house powered-up again. Your money not only made that possible, it led to some out-of-the-box thinking by Hands On staff as to how much we can accomplish when we take on a project. You are personally responsible for that.

Miss Rose

Hello Everyone, and Greetings From New Orleans,

Starting last Saturday, Reggie, Sushi, and I (three members of the Gibson siding team) were asked to join the rebuilding effort about to begin at 2209 St. Andrew Street. This place is just a few houses down from Mr. Gibson's home.

As I told you last week, about 5 feet of water showed up in this area. Miss Rose is 4 feet 8 inches tall. She lived alone in this home, having survived the death of her husband a few years back. This is the home she lived in since she was 4 years old, and was willed to her by her parents. The brick exterior tells me that, at one time, it was a tidy, well-cared-for home, one a bit more tricked-out than others in the area.

If you check this address out on Google Earth (it's St. Andrew St. not St. Andrews St., and Miss Rose's place is the second one from the corner, not the corner place), you'll see her entire front yard and a significant portion of her house is shrouded by a giant tree. This pecan tree looked to be in excess of 100 years old, based on the stump that now exists in the front yard. During the storm, the wind took it out, and took with it the entire electrical panel from her home. There she was, all alone, with water 4 inches over the top of her head when standing on the street. She took shelter in her home, and refused evacuation when a boat came by and offered it. She simply did not want to abandon her home. The following day, she was evacuated by helicopter.

She didn't want to abandon her home out of fear that what happened next might happen. Her home was overtaken by squatters, who were marauding throughout all abandoned areas of the city in the absence of any viable law enforcement. It was used for weeks as a drug den by people behaving more like a pack of wild dogs than people. When we got to it, it was full of syringes and other drug paraphernalia, and the sinks and bathtub were full of human waste. I'm not telling you this for the shock value, I'm simply reporting it so you get a better picture of what we're dealing with here. This home was destroyed by strangers whose behavior was so uncivilized and vile that it's really difficult to imagine. Seeing it gives you a better idea.

I wasn't assigned to this job until it was time to actually do some rebuilding. This project had been referred to as "The Nasty Gut" on our jobs board, and no one save the most experienced AmeriCorps kids were allowed to work on it or see it. They went in every day last week, and cleaned this stuff out before gutting the house to the studs and beams. I just can't tell you how much affection I have for these people who do the shittiest (pun intended) work we've got without bitching or complaining. In fact, they were proud to be assigned to it.

When Reggie, Sushi, and I joined up on Saturday morning, it was to help begin the rebuilding. The water damage in the house was very severe, and structural beams under the perimeter walls as well as most studs were severely rotted. The gutting team pulled out a number of floor beams that had failed, and our job was to jack the house up and replace the failed perimeter beams with new beams. Following that, we were to replace studs that were rotted out, replace the floor beams that held up the kitchen and bathroom floors, and resheet the floors in both spaces.

We did actually succeed in replacing the perimeter beams without bringing the house down, although we did make one quick dash out of the house at one point when the back wall of the house began to swing away from the foundation. Hearing a house frame groan when you are down on your knees in the dirt pumping a bottle jack to lift it will give you pause, believe me.

Anyway, we did lift it, removed the rotted beams, and successfully inserted and spliced the replacements. What stunned me was that, when we released the jacks and put the house down on the new beams, they were in the same plane as the new floor beams, and everything was level. Someone just wanted that part of the job to be finished properly, and level and square was a great reward for our effort.

On Monday, Team Nasty went back in to replace the floor beams in the bathroom, which is the last step before the floors could be sheeted and the house de-molded. Our team leader, Matt, was off for one day to try to get himself admitted to medical school at UNC Chapel Hill, so it was Reggie, Sushi, and me for the day. We got it done, and I was so proud of the work we've become able to do together. It's like our training as a team is now complete, and we're ready to go, except it was Sushi's last day before returning to Japan. It was fun and sad at the same time, all day long.

We worked the next three days mostly on Mr. Gibson's house, getting the sub-sheeting and house wrap put up on the far side of his home in preparation for the siding you folks have so generously funded. On Friday, Reggie, Shawn (newest member of Team Nasty), Melissa, and I went back to Miss Rose's place. In one complete work day, we sheeted the floors in the kitchen and bathroom, and damn, are they solid as a rock. Miss Rose returned from some errand-running just as we were packing up for the day, and we let her go in alone to check it out. Time passed. More time passed. Finally she came out and some teary-eyed hugs were exchanged. I told her we were planning a neighborhood dance on her new kitchen floor since it was so solid. She told me she had just finished dancing on it herself.

Once some roofing and siding repair takes place, our official involvement with Miss Rose comes to an end. What she'll be left with is the shell of a house that is ready for the next phase--wiring, cabinets, drywall, flooring, sinks, a toilet, carpet, and lights. Then, it will be her home again. There's no budget for that on our radar, and she doesn't have the means herself. That's so sad to me, yet, in the short time I've been here, I realize that progress comes in such tiny, tiny doses. What she'll have is a foundation (literally) that will stand up to the next storm. She won't have a place to live in, but it will still be her home.....except for what you have done with your generosity. So far, you've contributed $2610, which is about $1800 more than what we need to complete the siding project for Mr. Gibson. I'm meeting with our Project Manager later today to discuss how we can do more for Miss Rose with the additional money you have sent. Mr. Gibson and Miss Rose are very grateful for your help. Ann and I are, too. Thank you from my heart.

Let's turn the page--now's a good time to stop and tell you a bit about who I've been working with:

The original Mr. Gibson Siding Team consisted of Ann, Reggie, Sushi, Jim, me, and one other person who joined the team each day. This group of people, it turns out, likes each other very much, and worked very well together. Ann brought the design and precision skills to the job, along with her sense of humor and her care for others. Those of you who have seen us work together know that Ann and I make a real good team. We communicate in a shorthand that comes from having built a few things together over the years. Reggie says it like this: "Dave's up on the ladder and yells to Ann: Baby--it's 45 from the right, 3 and 3/4 down from the top at 50, with a groove in 15 from the left for 2-1/2. Ann takes a couple of minutes with the saw and her speed square, then hands Dave the board. It fits."

Reggie Derman is our team leader--a bright, 20-year old South African who will one day rule the world. Remember his name. Sushi (formal name Atsushi Itokawa, pronounced E-tow-kawa) is a 19-year old who came to us from Japan. One day last month, he knocked on the door of the church, and announced he was here from Japan to help out until September 19th, when he'd return home and go back to college. He just got on a plane and came. His English is getting good, but you really have to pay attention to have a two-way talk with him the first time you meet him. After awhile, something just clicked with us all, and Sushi had no trouble being understood. Jim Murray is a retired engineer from Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. Got a rocket question for an honest-to-God rocket scientist? Jim's your guy. He came with his wife Lindsey and UCLA Bruin son Alex for a week. Jim brought a lot of practical experience to the job and a great way with people to go along with it. My kind of Rocket Scientist.

With Sushi's departure last Tuesday, here I am, just a bit over one week into this, and the team I started with, save for Reggie, who is a staff member, is now gone. Other folks have taken their place on the job, but not in my heart.

Sushi now knows a lot of American colloquialisms, I am happy to report. Ask him about music, and he'll tell you ".38 Special--Kicks Ass." "Kansas? Not so much." And, "J. Geils sucks". He has others, too, but, for the sake of our younger readers, let me just close by saying he can say many of the things I often say, including the Bronx alphabet. It was quite poignant on Monday night at dinner, when he stood up and read a farewell he had written so his English would be good enough to be understood. He's a really fine young man (damn, don't I sound old saying that?), and I have a lot of affection for him. He typifies the spirit of what's going on down here. Just showed up and said he was here to work. Can you believe that? Sushi is home now, and all of us here miss him very much.

There you go, folks. I'm all talked out. I'll keep you posted on your fundraising effort, and I can't wait to visit with Miss Rose to tell her about the next steps.

One more thing: I know the pictures make these emails huge, and slow to download. I've done my best to select carefully. If you are having trouble getting my email because of them, let me know, and I can eliminate them for you. I'm still trying to figure out where I could post them on the Web, but Flickr (the app Hands On uses) is a hassle for you to use, and I don't know what else to do yet. I will send just four pictures with this email, then another email with the other four for this week. Hope that helps for now.

Love to all.

David/Dad

Week 1

Hi Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,

After the gutting job I told you about last week, I got assigned to a project on St. Andrew Street, just north of Simon Bolivar Blvd. Our 82-year old homeowner, James Gibson, has lived in this place for 60 years. The water on St. Andrew St. was high enough to make it into his home. All in all, about 5 feet of water made it into this area, and when it came, it came pretty quickly. Mr. Gibson might have been a track star in his youth, but he's not as mobile these days. He made it out, made it back, and has been ambitiously pursuing a complete rebuild, using his own resources as they have become available, and our help where we have been able to provide it.

Mr. Gibson's home was pretty severely damaged, but he has already repaired much of the interior. He ran out of funds when it came time to repair the exterior, and we jumped in by providing funds for siding on one side of his place. As you can see from the pictures, the condition of the exterior prior to our work was pretty bad, jeopardizing the work he'd already done on the interior. We had a very productive 4-and-a-half days on this job. Ann ran the saw, and I provided the manufactured confidence everyone needed to believe we could actually pull this off. We first removed the existing siding, which was concrete-composite shingles, under which was the original wood clapboard. My first instinct was to remove the clapboard, too, since it was nearly dust anyway, but was told by my boss that it was probably holding the studs up (you just can't believe the condition of stuff we simply have to accept as OK, because there's so much to do, and not enough funding). So, we covered it with sheets of plywood, and tied it all together into what hopefully is a stable structure. Following that, we re-cased the windows to provide right-angles for the new siding to meet. We then installed the siding, and spent our last morning on the job caulking the seams. That completed the job we had funds for. The other side of his house isn't in our budget, but it needs the same help. The cost of materials for the other wall is about $850. I talked to my boss about this, and asked if he'd assign my crew to the other side of the house if I could raise the money for it. He agreed, so I'm inviting all of you to help Mr. Gibson out by making a tax-deductible donation to Hands On New Orleans and getting your check to Ann this week. She'll bundle these checks and send them to me. I'll then use them for a directed donation on behalf of Mr. Gibson, and we'll use our new siding expertise to finish his place. No donation is too small, and no donation is too large. If you can help with the funds, I'll provide the sweat to get this job finished, and we can then say we did this together. You'll be proud of our work.

Make your check payable to Hands On New Orleans. Please help.

Hands On New Orleans' current work in the Central City area is funded by a grant from Outback Steakhouse. It is supposed to provide funds to rehab 50 homes here in this area. Some homes require a lot more money than others to do even the basic work required to get a home back on track, so our bosses allocate the money the best they can, budgeting more to some and less to others. For example, on this block alone, we are working on three houses, and Mr. Gibson's is by far the least damaged of the three. It's financial triage at work.

Gibson postscript: Each day we worked on his place, Mr. Gibson sat outside and watched us work. He admired our efforts, our teamwork, and our collective sense of humor. I just can't properly describe how easy it was to work hard for this guy. He'd sit in the shade and always have a kind word when we'd take a break and visit with him. It just felt to me like I was helping out a neighbor I'd known for years. When he asked Hands On New Orleans for help, he told our guy that he knew lots of people needed our help, and since he was 82 years old, we should save money on his job by choosing materials that didn't need to last more than 5 years or so. You gotta love this guy.

On Friday, Ann returned to Olympia to be with Mom, and Jim Murray (a great new pal and very hard-working teammate) and his wife Lindsey and son Alex returned to their home in Livermore, CA. Damn, do we miss them all. Ann's expertise on the job-site is sorely missed by her crew, and her presence in the bunkhouse is missed by everyone. Jim, Lindsey, and Alex all have that gravitational pull that attracts everyone to them. It's pretty amazing to me how bonded you can get with people in a week's time. You four really lit up the room. I miss you all and wish you were here.

Sign That Normalcy is Returning to New Orleans: I visited with a police officer in the area on Thursday night. I asked him if he thought things were beginning to get back to normal. Yep, he replied--"Crime is up." Everyone has their own barometer.

Cultural Exchange of the Day: One of my two South African pals here told me the other night that "It's easier to raise boys than girls." I said to her that's because she's a woman, and women have an easier time with sons than with daughters. She responded with greater specificity: "When you are raising a boy, you only have one penis to worry about. With a girl, you have to worry about an entire neighborhood's penises." Ah, clarity.

In The News:

We had 12 shots fired across our church property on Wednesday right before dinner. Someone emptied a clip at someone else down the street. No injuries, but a bit of excitement.

We went into the French Quarter last night after finishing our work for the week. I had so much fun watching my 20-something partners dance and enjoy themselves. Their energy is very therapeutic. It was neat for me to see them just being kids after spending so much effort and energy all week to help others. They've seen a lot of heartache down here.

Next Email: Meet Miss Rose. I won't extend this email with her story, but let me just say that if y'all send more than $850, I know where we can spend it. This lady currently lives in a FEMA trailer in her driveway, and has nothing but her ramshackle home that became a hell-hole crack house occupied by squatters after she was rescued by a helicopter. Watch for this story. Parental discretion is advised.

Love to all. I miss Olympia, even if the rain is coming.


Dave/Dad

Day Zero

Well, we're here. It's 8:45pm and 85 degrees outside. We've got wireless broadband here at our living quarters, so I'll be in touch from time to time. We start work tomorrow morning at 8am. I'm on a demolition team, and Ann is working on a community beautification project. She's helping to paint a mural.

Interesting neighborhood we're living in. Our church is two blocks from an area where there are fairly regular shootings among drug dealers. Two blocks in another direction is St. Charles Street, one of the nicest in New Orleans. We've already conditioned ourselves to turn left instead of right when we leave the building.

As I suspected, the volunteers are primarily young, full of spirit and energy, and really fun to be around. It feels a lot like working with Habitat already.

Love you all. More later.

Dave/Dad