Our House, In The Middle Of The Street...

Our House, In The Middle Of The Street...
Originally uploaded by Gna42.

An update on Parents, siblings, and my state of mind.

My middle sister returned to our old house in Arabi LA two days ago. She hasn't internet access and so was stunned by the degree of destruction to the neighborhood where she grew up. As she drove under downed power lines she noted houses that looked liked they had been hit by a tornado. She noticed places where others had simply disappeared.

"It's destroyed, it looks like a war zone," she said, and "The whole place will have to be bulldozed under."

I can't describe the sound in her voice.

Denise actually entered the little blue house that day. Ignoring warnings about dress, she simply wore jeans and tennis shoes and carried a small camera. She snapped pictures.

The front door was cracked in half, and the windows were blown out. She found the few things she was looking for, but only because she knew exactly where to look... the interior of the house being a single mass of muck and debris. The smell was overpowering but worse was the heat.

As she exited the house she left inside her shoes, jeans and top, and continued in her underwear to take pictures of the house and the surrounding area. She said she was the only person within miles and the silence was unnerving. She left the area for home and a much needed bath.

I know this because I called her on her cellphone as she was leaving Arabi and she filled me in on her adventure. The sound in her voice and the use of the word DESTROYED pretty well summed it up for me. To never again walk up the street to visit my Aunt... to never be able to revisit that place where the neighbors got along so well. New Year's Eve parties and playing behind the levee... gone, all gone... forever.

The area will never be the same and, truthfully, it never was. The "Parish" of the seventies faded long ago, but that will not take away that feeling to walk that familiar street just one more time.

My parents still want to move down south from Wisconsin, funny isn't it? You can take the people out of The Parish (by an act of God) but...

So long Arabi.

Big Easy come, Big Easy go.