If you have comments or suggestions, email me at paul@stroke4.com

09-18-05

Compressed

 

Day 2 was a half day on Sunday.

 

We went looking for somebody who needed help with removing their dry wall. The street signs were blown down so we had to stop and get directions. That’s a hard thing for a man to do.

 

We found the house and determined that there wasn’t enough work for our crew. This was a combined crew from the day before. Crazy Joe and his crew went back to Jacksonville. We were paired up with a new crew. We went to a house across the street as a few people worked on the dry wall. We cut down a few trees for a woman and her husband. He was not able to do that type of work. She was fortunate. Her house was a split level house and the garage was the only thing that was flooded.

 

Once we were through with that house we went to another one next door and tackled that tree. The neighbor behind that house needed some help so we went over there as well.

 

Finally, there wasn’t much to do so, the majority of the group went on looking for other places to work. Ian and I stayed with Steve and two other guys to continue working on the dry wall. This was more satisfying work because we could talk with the home owner more than when we were cutting down trees.

 

This person was a single mom with two daughters in college, I believe. She’d been divorced since they were about 5 years old. She had a terrier that she kept in locked up in a room. It barked most of the time. It turns out that she has 3 brothers as well. After the hurricane she discussed what they should do to take care of each other. Her father and brothers didn’t like her suggestion so, that got ‘attitude’. Her father hadn’t spoken to her since the hurricane. He showed up when we were there. She said it didn’t go well. But, I pointed out it was a start.

 

She was recommended to the church by a state trooper, I believe. They had a birthday party for her at one of the local restaurants and sang happy birthday to her… it kinda made up for her family not being there… but, of course, it was not the same.

 

As we drove away I was impressed to stop and say something to her. But, I didn’t. As we drove down the street that stuck in my head… but, I still didn’t. We went back to the church and found Rob and Brandon in their ‘beds’ nice and clean and refreshed. Turkeys. They’d gotten left behind and didn’t have any work to do. Aside from Crazy Joe’s crew Ian and I were on the crews that stayed out working the longest. We were beat. My brain hurts. I can’t remember if we ate lunch there or not. I think we did. Either way, after our shower we laid in bed for a few minutes and then said… “Let’s get outta here. Let’s go home!!!”

 

Rob wanted to go somewhere to see an area reported on the news as being hit hardest. I drove around for awhile and actually found it without a map and without asking for directions. Hah!!! As we were checking out that location I got a voice mail from one of the guys on the crew. We’d left his tools behind at … guess who’s house. I took that as a sign. We went back to get them.

 

Ian wanted to get out of the car and go with me. I wanted to be alone to talk with her. Things worked out to where Ian found what we were looking for and went back to the car.

 

The thing that impressed me that I had to say to her was simply this… Dr. Vines mentioned something a while back that just stuck with me because I found it was so true. I told her that she can continue doing what she’s doing. But, she’s going to get to the point where she’s going to find that she can’t do ‘it’ anymore. I told her that when she get’s to that point she needs to get down on her knees and tell God that… and, then let him start doing things. That seemed to touch her heart. I had to give her an example… so, I told her about having prostate cancer last year, about having the surgery, about mother dieing and my grandmother dieing. It’s just simply… if you try to face things that you can’t really handle… then, you have to go to God. That was it.