Bringing the Drama

one year ago tonight i was sleeping because the power was out and there was no use in staying up in the darkness. couldn’t read, couldn’t call anyone (the cell phones were down), couldn’t watch tv, couldn’t do anything. during the day, my grandfather and i sat in the living room exchanging stories. he told me his experiences from the flood of 1927. i loved hearing his stories. i ventured out during the day and listened to wwl radio in my car. such desparation filled the airwaves from the djs. i couldn’t listen to it for long, it just sounded so defeated. i’m not sure if we knew of the levee breaks until the next day, but the djs, just kept talking about new orleans, and i wanted to hear about slidell. no word coming from my home parish. nobody had any idea. my friend len called the night of the 29th. he’s in the guard, and he lives near my house, so he was able to get off at our exit and check some houses. he told me he saw the tree on my house, wasn’t sure how bad it was. his house also had a tree poking a hole, but nothing near mine. i took it in stride somehow, because i kind of expected when the storm didn’t turn, for my house to be blown apart by a tornado or something. so a tree falling, i figured it could have been worse (this would become a theme almost). i went to sleep early that night, comforted that my house was still there and not in splinters, but anxious because i couldn’t see anything. all i had to go on was my friend’s description.

today was a very odd day. remembering all the confusion i had one year ago today. i didn’t know if all of my family was safe, i didn’t know what was up with my house, i had no idea about work, i didn’t know how bad the damage was, i didn’t know a lot. i woke up early this morning to get ready and almost felt like not even going to work, just to watch the anniversary stuff on tv. i may buy the dvd or something of some of the coverage. anyway, it was just a really strange feeling all day.

if you feel like reading a variety of harrowing tales of survival, check this article out. it was very powerful to read earlier today.

so tonight i took a trip to purchase some new music, like the smoldering mimbo’s latest, the new roots, and then some tv on dvd sets (i got the VM set for much less!). i took one of my late evening shopping trips, and it was almost just like old times. no traffic or anything, now if walmart could get back to being 24 hours, that’d be awesome.

one year ago tonight i was relaxing on the sofa at my grandfather’s watching the news. all the traffic cameras were showing all the contraflow trying to go west on I-10. it was crazy. i was thankful i had gotten to BR the day before. i had a couple of long phone conversations that night. one with my friend hunter (who incidentally i have not talked to since i need to call him.) and i think my friend bill. i talked to hunter for almost two hours, sharing stories about what was going on in our lives, things like that. i talked to him till about 1 am, then i went to bed. i didn’t know what would happen the next morning, other than we’d get some wind and rain. i figured i’d still be going home the day after and getting back to normal.

back up to the night of the 26th, and my sister’s birthday dinner at semolina’s. i remember sitting there and my mom and uncle were checking out the tv weather and the hurricane. the track shifted from florida to new orleans almost overnight. it crept farther west during the day, so the hurricane i thought would be bypassing us turned right for us. but still, that night and into the next day, i figured they’d issue another advisory with a different track. crazy how they were so wrong up until the end. but hey, i guess its hard to predict nature like that.

one year ago tonight was when i left for baton rouge. i actually went into work that morning figuring katrina would turn or something. then about an hour after being at work, heard it was not turning and we were actually going to protect what we could of the computers and then get home to evacuate. i still had no clue about the severity of what would happen, no one did really. we covered the computers and i thought, “if the roof blows off, a trash bag is not going to be enough.” i actually took all my cool stuff from my desk home, like an eisley poster, thinking work may not be there when all is said and done, i really didn’t think anything would happen, but i wanted to be prepared. so i got home, and cut the grass. my mom called as i was relaxing in my garage with a cup of water, “scott! when are you leaving?” i figured i could leave later, i wasn’t really in a rush. they came by on their way to lafayette to see if i’d go with them, but i had the idea to go to my grandfather’s in BR, so i was going to leave later that afternoon/evening.

i watched the news conferences on tv talking about how important it was to leave…the quote “if you plan to stay, make sure to take an axe into the attic with you, because you may have to cut your way through the roof” became branded in my head. i packed some clothes and some other stuff figuring i’d be back in a couple of days. i called my grandfather to ask if he was taking any hurricane refugees and would he mind one more. he did not, so i left for BR. i tried taking the same route i had taken in ‘04, but other people had the same idea i had, so it was slower. travelling along hwy 190 (since I-12 was off limits due to contraflow) was slow going, esp through hammond. i was listening to wwl radio on the way, listening to people call up and give a traffic assessment of where they were in the evacuation, what roads they were taking, that sort of thing. it was interesting to listen to, because everyone was on the same page, we were all doing the same thing for the same reason. it felt good actually. so after i get past hammond, this lady calls up and says “i just want to say i took hwy 43 in albany, and i’m on I-12 and flying!” the dj wondered whether or not that was legal, and the lady said “no one was stopping us at the exit, so we got on.” a few minutes later, a guy calls up and says the same thing, but then the dj asked a state police guy, who said “the traffic in BR isn’t as bad as we thought, so we’re not going to stop anyone tonight.” i was excited, and two minutes later i came to the intersection for hwy 43 in albany that connected to I-12. i got into the turn lane along with 4 or 5 other cars, probably listening to the same radio station, and we all got to I-12 and were able to get on. i booked it the rest of the way to BR, calling my grandfather to tell him the good news. it was awesome, and i thought as it was happening that i would blog about it. and now i am.

also tonight, i went and saw family force 5 in baton rouge and it was awesome. my sister and i even got a picture with phatty and soul glow activator. what up.

do you ever get a really weird feeling that everything you’re doing has happened before? not just one thing, but a series of events? last year this weekend, was the weekend of the big katrina evacuation, everyone freaking out, the whole nine yards. let me give you a quick run down on what happened last year

2005: thursday night hanging out at jacob’s
2006: thursday night hanging out at jacob’s

2005: i had to cut my grass on that saturday
2006: i have to cut my grass, and hopefully i’ll be able to cut it on saturday

2005: jacob’s wife went to corpus christi with her parents to see other family
2006: jacob’s wife has gone to corpus christi with her parents to see other family

2005: my sister wanted to eat for her birthday at semolina’s, and my aunt and uncle came too
2006: my sister wants to eat for her birthday at semolina’s and my aunt and uncle are coming too

in order to hopefully break this chain of events, i’m going to order something different for dinner when we go on saturday. jacob and i are going to go see a movie tonight also. so hopefully the tropical depression currently in the caribbean will not turn into a hurricane and slam into the gulf coast. read about the new TD here.

also, since the 1 year anniversary is coming up, i’m going to post stories that did not make it last year because of everything else that happened. so look for those in the next few days.

i was talking to chad last night as we were out for a bike ride around the neighborhoods. i told him if we don’t have to evacuate for a hurricane this year, i’ll kind of miss it. i’ll miss the drama, i’ll miss the strange sense of togetherness of everyone working towards the same thing. i’ll miss the night drive along crowded highways to baton rouge. i’ll miss the radio station taking calls from people in the midst of evacuation.

there are also things i won’t miss…..i won’t miss the packing, i won’t miss the worrying, and i won’t miss the uncertainty if my house will be there when i get back.

two straight years of having to evacuate for a hurricane….and still two months to go to find out if it’ll be a hat trick.

the blog window is staring at me like a blank canvas. damn you blank canvas! i will slay thee with words!

so this past week, i got an email about my 10 year HS reunion. too bad it was 10 years in may, so i’m not really sure what they’re going for….and we’re supposed to have a partnered type deal with the class of ‘95. i haven’t talked to anyone from my class in pretty much 10 years except my friend kris who lives up in ohio. well, i did see a handful of people 9 years ago, but still. if you can’t tell, i’m not really enthused about the reunion. i may send my regards however….like an email.

went up to baton rouge yesterday to see my uncle and grandfather. we drank beer, ate salad, then we watched the saints game. during the evening conversation about my uncle’s western road trip, i was able to draw him to the beauty that is ryan adams.

at work this summer we had a pretty creepy intern who liked to sneak up on you and say hello. then if he wasn’t talking to you, he’d position himself talking to the neighboring cube so that he could see what you had on your computer screen. unfortunately for me my neighbor keeps candy in his desk that he has offered to everyone, so of course creepy intern would pop over at random times during the day to sample said candy. he has now gone back to school, much to the delight of myself and others.

i spent the first half of today at walmart where initially i left having the lugnuts loose on one of my tires. i went back and had them properly tightened. one of the things i noticed was the proliferation of cell phones has nearly reached insanity. i saw a mother with her three kids….two of the kids had cell phones, and the mother was asking each of them who they were talking to. wtf? then another instance in the ‘what were they thinking?’ category was on thursday chad and i were on our way home when we pulled along side a tv repair shop where they had workers repainting the trim outside in a very bright yellow color. the roof on the other hand looked like it had seen better days, several in fact. so when faced with the prospect of having to get a new roof, why not just paint the trim or outside in an ugly color….?

so after going so long with posting a lot, i have gone almost a month without posting. so much so that my buddy chad has bugged me to write. so the last almost month has been ca.ray.z. i don’t even remember all of it right now. wait, maybe i can figure some stuff out. went to a couple of concerts….one was club of the sons where i learned about ‘the journey’, and then took in a stellar ryan adams show in atlanta about a week ago. i got to hang out with old friends in atlanta after an awful travel day in which everything started because i was late to the airport by 15 minutes. in the process and the madness, i lost my entire cd wallet cause i left it in the rental car. wait, i left out a weekend….oh, memphis. i went to memphis and checked out beale street. back to atlanta, had a lot of fun at an ikea. i had to leave everyone early sunday to make it to colorado for a conference for work. i learned how to move up in the company i work for, and its not by staying in new orleans. so its going to be either colorado or virginia for my next job.

during the conference, i met a bunch of people from all over the country who obviously had their ears perk up when i said i worked in new orleans. i had a long conversation with my roommate about why things still sucked (cause people just have sat around doing nothing), how i’ve been proud to be from NOLA, how i’ve been excited to see on the news a guy from the ninth ward rebuild his house (and no, he had no flood insurance), and how it ticks me off to have rock stars come down and play downer shows cause they think we still need to cry.

and now, colorado, it was gorgeous. i obviously have never been there so i’ve never seen anything like it. breathtaking scenery, and there was so much to do. i went fly fishing, but i wish i could have done more.

club of the sons….kicked ass. they are formed from the remnants of macrosick, who i saw last year. i hope they get big….i just loved watching them. ryan adams…awesome. i still keep thinking back to the piano solo version of ’sylvia plath’. wow. and then when i got back to casa holland, i was able to recount the harrowing tale of the ryan adams show at the HOB last summer where he had his ‘diva moment‘ to the enjoyment of my friends.

and finally, jacob and i stumbled upon a new band called the steps. check them out.

(did you see all the pictures?)