Readings and Greetings: Rising from Katrina by Kathleen Koch

Broadwater Beach Hotel-Motel  a Camille survivor.

How can I describe my heartache when we first drove along Mississippi Hwy 90 from Biloxi to Gulfport, looking for my childhood landmarks.  Even the word "gone" doesn't describe the desolation that still remains along the beachfront property, more than seven years after Hurricane Katina.  It took me two days to finally find this location, and it was the slabs of concrete that I stood on looking out across the broken cement piers and piles of broken concrete and rubble that finally opened my eyes to where it all had been.  My family had visited the gulf coast at Christmas time throughout my childhood, so we could enjoy warm moist weather to play golf, romp on the beach, and pretend for awhile the real world was far away. Mother Nature has a way of humbling us and making us look inward for those memories.

This fall Kathleen Koch was a Dillon Lecture Series Guest Speaker sharing her experience at reporting for CNN on the pain and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, as it sat for hours on end over the Mississippi gulf coast swirling it's 200 mile an hour winds and pounding punishing walls of water over the homes and landscapes of the coastal highway.  Kathleen Koch's childhood home, Bay St. Louis, is just West of my landmarks, Gulfport to Biloxi, so I sat with great interest as she spoke of her experiences.  I bought her book, and we spoke briefly about our shared memories.

Her descriptions of the how the people were plunged into the hurricane gripped my soul to the bones.  (p.33)" A mile or so inland...the water had begun to rise around their clapboard house.  With each guest, the wind rocked the structure, every joint creaking and groaning as though it was about to go. As they huddled together on her bed, Shannon watched a crack start in the wall by the window.  It grew as the storm raged, snaking like a living thing across the room to the roof."

Kathleen and her CNN team waited out the winds in a hotel in Mobile, when at last the storm's destructive Northeast quadrant had passed they loaded their vehicle and headed west on I-10. (p.59) "Hoping to find a route west, we drove south to the beach road but got no farther.  An enormous wall of more than fifty crumpled truck trailers from the adjoining port blocked all four lanes of Highway 90, the road I used to drive to work every day."    Pictures before and after are sprinkled throughout her painful personal descriptions.  I felt the lose of each life, as if I'd known the people.  

What makes her book the BEST I've read on recovery and personal passion is simply the resolute stalwart caring people of Bay St. Louis.  They did not wait on the government to help; they did not stand in long lines signing up for government help; they did not complain; they went to work and helped themselves pick up the pieces.  

An Acclaimed Movie Story: Complete with Problem and Solution

On the 7^th day of snow and two weeks without a Dr. Pepper (lent reasons), my mind was afflecked and strayed from my usual writing activities.  Of the fourteen top Oscar movie nominations for 2013, how many can you find in the story below.   The list of the fourteen movies appears at the bottom.

            The other night Jack’s friend, Judge Argo, called us to tell us he bought four tickets to the Masters this spring, and asked us if we’d like to attend two of the sessions with him.  It was a skyfall moment for the two of us.  Of course, we’d like to attend, but we’d rather he not bring Ted or Oscar.  Hopefully, a flight out of Wichita to Atlanta won’t be the impossible tasks that it can be with spring time weather in the plains.

            Golf has been the amour of my life, so an opportunity to this event was monumental.  In the past when other friends attended the Masters leaving me behind to teach, I was left with a sinking feeling like the miserables.  Being depressed is not uncommon for me.  Ever since I was young and attended Lincoln school, mother used to say, “There’s always a silver lining to a dark cloud.  Read the silver linings playbook and learn about life.”  Sometimes I just chose to worry rather than act.

            When I worry about my “what if’s” in life, I often experience nightmares that run like raging beasts of the southern wild, which is just what I did amidst the blizzard the other night.   I woke up screaming like a django unchained,  with a dog licking my ear and whining, and my husband shaking my shoulder at zero dark thirty in the morning.  When we all calmed down from the fright, my husband  suggested we get up for a glass of milk and piece of pie.  By the numbers Jack enjoys dark molasses pecan pie, and I like tart cherry pie. 

            “Let’s talk about what worries you, “ Jack suggested.

            “Money, time, retirement life, what will we do, health, children,” I acclaimed.

 He smiled, “Tell you what, I’ve been thinking about these things , too.  We both like pie and other sweets, so let’s open a bakery.  We’ll call it Life of Pi and Sweets. We’ll make it our retirement gift, then if the kids ever need a job they can buy us out.  What do you say?”

“That sounds delicious, but for now, can we either go back to sleep or wake up from this dream?” I mumbled. 

Movies:  Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Flight, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln,  Silver Linings Playbook,  Skyfall, The Impossible, the Master, The Sessions, Zero Dark Thirty