St. Bernard Parish : The Idiot’s Guide to Disaster Relief
Rich Weinroth
thrown together. They had internet service and telephones for the residents, the free store biblically named the Mustard Seed gave the necessities and health kits away for free, on-site laundry was nice and solar-heated showers somewhat reminiscent of the Professor’s genius on Gilligan’s Island that were often even hot, and they served nearly 2000 meals a day out of a tent in a parking lot.
photo by Jennie Clutterbuck
I had one of three RVs on site and Jason guided me into a perfect spot near the nightly bonfire and the main intersection of the now entrenched wooden pallet walkway where the gravel parking lot turned into the field of volunteer tent housing. My dog scared Jason and he was rethinking my placement and almost put me out in the North Forty but he got over it. Bob is a good dog, and even better once you get to know him.
I followed the sounds of Bob Dylan and stench of patchouli wafting through the dusty parking lot next to the bubbling toxic canal and I washed dishes with a hardworking and gregarious AmeriCorp team that I’d soon come to love. Some of us still keep in touch with the important good news and the bad.
After an hour elbow deep in pots and pans we finally finished and were already friends, my anal retentive restaurant training kicked in when I told them that the last dish is always the sink. I’m the New Guy and I should just shut up. I was instantly embarrassed I said something, but it does make sense sanitarily. Especially in this place, where nothing can really be described as clean until the brief moment right after you’ve just cleaned it.
I would come to love AmeriCorp and I truly think the draft should be reinstated, but it should be into AmeriCorp not the Army. Those guys are great and are well worth the $12.50 they get for a day’s work. We’re getting a bargain. We smoked hand rolled cigarettes and drank cheap beer and I went happily to sleep in what seemed like a mansion in comparison to all the tarp covered tents. As the diesel generators droned through that first night, I was too tired to notice and slept like a very tired log.
I woke to the diesel generator alarm clock on that first morning, took Bob for a walk in the field and let him take his morning dump where I think the Battle of New Orleans actually took place. Sacrilege. I remembered my tour as I passed between the Dish Pit and the Smoke Pit, and turned at the 20 gallons of cowboy coffee boiling away as I payed the first of many more visits to the kitchen.
news
stories by author