Morning began at 6:00 a.m. The alarm went off and we were up! Coffee was made, music was played, and people began to rise and shine.
As I was getting ready Sam came out of the bathroom to deliver some interesting news from the night before. And as he told the story I was reminded of a loud clunking and crashing noise I had heard last night while trying to fall asleep. As the story goes, Sam was soaping up his feet in the shower last night when one or both of his feet went out from under him. He reached for whatever was available, which ended up being the shower curtain. Obviously that was not enough to support Sam’s tremendously buff body and down he went taking the shower curtain rod with him. So long story short, we’ll be going to Home Depot soon for a few home repair supplies.
We hit the road for our site at 7:00 after breakfast and lunch packing, then arrived in the Upper Ninth Ward around 7:30. We waited around a bit with other volunteers, signed in, then had an orientation with Bill and Mike. Altogether, we figured there were around 400 volunteers there with us. It was quite a site to see.
Following the orientation, our Minnesota group walked a couple blocks away to the house where we would be working. We were joined by a couple dozen other volunteers including a bunch of local young guys doing community service, groups from Mississippi and Tennessee, and a few people who had come down all by themselves including Cynthia from D.C., Theresa from Philadelphia, and Fran from Detroit. As always, meeting the people you work with is half the fun of these experiences.
The ten of us did various jobs from caulking to painting to trimming out the porch at this house. Kim, Sam, Janet, Carla, and I did the trimming. We were lead by former Jersey shore native Terry. He showed us the ropes – how to run a chop saw and a table saw, and how to do all the right measuring to make sure things fit. It was slow work, but fun. We got to pound nails, and use those macho power tools. Good times!
Kim, and many others as I just found out, were very excited anytime young stallion Eric came around. Eric was the house leader and strutted around in his white tank top, hairy chest exposed, barking out orders. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have a fetching female group leader. That would only be fair.
