August 29, 2005
Kile, Duck and I wrote here of our impressions and lessons from Hurrican Katrina in the weeks that followed her battery.
When Katrina rolled over our house on a Monday afternoon, she still was a category 1 hurricane, 300 miles inland, and she killed one of our elderly neighbors. We had an eight month old baby, and before we crawled north to our familes, we slept for a surreal night in the stifling heat in the middle of a dark, silent city. The next day, beneath fallen trees and powerlines, we rolled our gas grills into the street and cooked all of the neighborhood's steaks, ribs, burgers, chicken and chops, to avoid the smell of their rotting and to feed the folks for a few days. Of all the block parties I've ever attended, that cook-out with our neighbors in the immediate aftermath, cut off from the world, sitting in a street and feeding the passers-by, was the most sublime and loving.
When Katrina rolled over our house on a Monday afternoon, she still was a category 1 hurricane, 300 miles inland, and she killed one of our elderly neighbors. We had an eight month old baby, and before we crawled north to our familes, we slept for a surreal night in the stifling heat in the middle of a dark, silent city. The next day, beneath fallen trees and powerlines, we rolled our gas grills into the street and cooked all of the neighborhood's steaks, ribs, burgers, chicken and chops, to avoid the smell of their rotting and to feed the folks for a few days. Of all the block parties I've ever attended, that cook-out with our neighbors in the immediate aftermath, cut off from the world, sitting in a street and feeding the passers-by, was the most sublime and loving.
posted by JRB at 10:08 AM
4 Comments:
That sounds to me like a beautiful, proleptic experience of the eschatological feast, when all people will gather together regardless of their differences of status, race, gender, and share together after the final beachhead of Sin has been destroyed.
Alright, I just reread what I wrote. I'm a geek.
At least you didn't use "jettison."
HA HA HA!
yeah, I mean, who uses the word "proleptic" in common conversation? (We have a proleptic tank out in the yard that has to be emptied every couple of years. That's the only time I've ever used that word.)
Seriously, about this post, JRB, ain't is amazing what leaves an impression on you? I remember an unplanned event with my family that is one of my very favorite weekends in my life. This may not fit into that category for you, but it's how we react in such situations that determines or at least demonstrates who we really are. The life lessons and similar demonstrations by people since the storm, both good AND bad, will also be with us all for a long time.
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