TheBanyanTree: Cold Moon

[Dale M. Parish]

I've been away from the tree too long-- lurking when I have time, but
too often having to wonder what was served up at the bar.  I made a
committment this afternoon that I'd drop in tonight.  I had thought
we'd be back home early, but I didn't realize how badly Cindy had
wanted to see Memoirs Of A Geheisa.  So we 'dropped in' to the
surviving movie house on the way back-- wall-to-wall people and
crowds.  It will be nice when they get the movie house by the mall
repaired and reopened.

Hurricane Rita had ripped up the carport under which my van was
stored, doing a number on the paint, but the aluminum was too light to
do any real sheet metal damage.  The section that hit the door window,
however, was heavy enough to shatter it, and it's been sitting out in
the weather with a broken window glass since September.  I ordered a
glass this week and intended to have it replaced this morning, but
when I got to Orange, the battery in the van was dead and jumping it
off worked, but as soon as the cables were removed, it died.  Not
good.  Had to remove the battery and take it into town for a
replacement, but by the time I got back, Southern Glass was closing,
so maybe next weekend.  But I managed to get the truck cleaned out for
the first time in months.  

This afternoon was the company Hurricane Rita Survival Celebration.
Never had one of those before-- all the employees and families of all
the chemicals plants and the refinery were invited to the county civic
center for barbecue, games and contests for the kids, caricature
artists, caps, T-shirts and the like.  Cindy and I were both surprised
at who among the spouses we knew, but had not known that their spouses
worked for the company.  Small world at times, but there were probably
a thousand people there during the calling hours.

The area is slowly recovering from Hurricane Rita.  At times, one
forgets and thinks things are back to normal, but almost every
business has NOW HIRING signs at the door, and when one looks in the
back yards, you still see trees and tops down and blue tarpaulins
covering many roofs off the beaten path.  Every time I pull in for
gas, I notice all the roofing and tree contactor vehicles with distant
area codes on the door.  At the picnic, I saw my cousin, who's still
in the construction business and asked how business was.  His reply
was that it was good, but it would be a lot better if there were
people to hire-- he has more work than he can find employees.  

One of our renters left in the evacuation, returned to get her stuff a
few weeks later, and vowed never to return.  Two trees fell on the
house- the damage wasn't major, but it was major enough that we may
not get it repaired--the three rent houses have been grouped together
as commercial frontage property and we expect all to be torndown when
it sells.  There are travel trailers in back yards in every
neighborhood.  One gets used to waiting in lines and people in lines
talk about their experiences evacuating and damages they found in
returning home.  I experienced that waiting in line to get my battery
this morning.  

It's bringing people together, though.  I brought the dozer over to
Beaumont to get the tree stumps out of the back yard and out to the
street before FEMA quit picking them up-- there were three of them too
large to handle with the front-end loader.  A neighbor noticed the
equipment in the back yard and dropped by today to ask for help in
getting his stumps out.  Turns out his father-in-law is one of the
fence contractors we've been trying to get to come out and give us a
price on repairing our fence.   So they're working with us to get the
fence in return for help with the stumps.  Hear lots of stories like
that lately-- craftsmen trading out repairs with each other because
there just aren't enough people returned to the area to handle all the
extra work in cleaning up.  Not enough places for them all to stay. 

Hugs,
Dale
--
Dale M. Parish
5585 Ada
Beaumont TX 77708
(409) 898-8373    
http://hal.lamar.edu/~dmp8910