My plan for my last day in Gulfport with PDA is to leave my keys, credit cards and client information in Gulfport with Leslie very early Saturday morning so I can get to Chattanooga before too late in the evening. It is a six hour forty minute drive, so with the one hour loss in time I need to leave by 9AM or so to get there by 3:30PM, early enough to plan for the evening. The drive is familiar enough by now that II know within ten minutes or so when I’ll get to my house.
Fortunately I started packing up the trailer on Tuesday, not Thursday. I am amazed at what I managed to drag down here to Gulfport over the last year. Quite early I realize there is almost more than a full truckload to bring back.
Since the only thing going on in Gulfport is taking down the village, most of my time has been spent in Pearlington this week, making every effort to get a few things settled with Mrs. Alice, Mr. Terry and Mary.
These are three cases have a special interest to me. I followed them, and made sure the critical things get completed. Mrs. Alice and her husband may face a mid-June eviction from their MEMA trailer, we have just completed redoing her porch, I managed to convince the Mennonites to do that, plus re-roof the house, bless them.
My good friends from Fountain City came down and almost completed the drywall; they have no idea how grateful I am for that. Crews in Pearlington, from Canada and California have been finishing the drywall, painting and laying flooring. I think Jessi will get the crews to complete that in time. A lot after the last week in May depends on the focus of the temporary work site manager – they are not going to replace me. Will he form the connections to the people?
I have managed to pull together enough donated funds to get the re-wiring started on Mary’s home. Now we depend on the Arkansas Presbytery to finish that home by next fall.
Mr. Terry is a problem, he has very serious structural problems, problems too big for me to tackle, I know more or less how to fix it but the risk is pretty great. Jacking a house up that already is on 13 foot piers and replacing girders is a big job. Terry is obsessed with moving in ahead before fixing them. He feels the pressure from MEMA.
It is one of my more painful decisions, do I go ahead and get the interior items with the donated funds before the structural problem is corrected ?– knowing I’m leaving in a few days and probably no one there will be as forceful with him as I am. I fear for him when the next big blow comes from the Gulf.
My good office mates want to have a ”going away” get-together, but I have been sleeping in Pearlington, working on these homes and have not yet to really taken the time to just suit back and enjoy Jimmy Lamey’s company. Time runs through my hands like grains of sand.
I call Jimmy on Tuesday.
“Jimmy, you said if I wanted to have a party at your place to just say the word. Is that offer still on for this weekend?”
“Henry, sure it is, but this is Mother’s Day weekend, you know. I have plans for Sunday.”
“That should work ok, Jimmy, I was kind of hoping we could have a little get together with my friends and yours Friday evening. I was thinking that I could pick up some shrimp over in Waveland and we could have a shrimp boil and just enjoy some time together.”
“How many do you think would come?”
“Well, I‘d call Larry, and guess there might be maybe eight or nine plus you and your family. I’ll pick up the shrimp and beverages.”
“Henry, there isn’t any need to do that, I drive by the shrimp stand coming home from work every day, I’ll pick it up. Robin can pick up the other stuff.”
“I do not want you spending your money on it, you keep the receipts and I’m paying you for it. How much shrimp do you think we need, ten pounds or so?”
“Yeah, that ought to be about right. Like I said, I’ll ask Robin to pick up the rest of the stuff and get it going when I get home from work.”
“What time?”
“About 3:3PM or 4:0PM.”
“OK, I’ll get my stuff done and get over about them to help.”
Then I start thinking about how I‘m going to do all this. Mr. Terry has enough donated funds to get his kitchen cabinets and bath sinks. I had planned to buy all this stuff with him on Wednesday but he went to the doctor and is feeling pretty bad.
“Henry, I am so sore I can’t leave the house. Can we meet at Lowe’s Thursday and pick up the cabinets? “
“Terry, let’s do I early, OK?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll call you when leave Gulfport Thursday morning, that gives you time to drive over to Waveland to meet me.”
We meet a Lowe’s and sort through all he needs. We find everything until we get to the double sink for the bath vanity and find out they are out of stock and there is no plan to reorder. Crud.
I ask the floor clerk, “Do you think one of the other stores might have one in stock?”
He gets on the computer and finds out there is one left in Gulfport.
If I drive back early Friday, I can pick it up and then deliver it to his house Friday afternoon. I have to be in Gulfport Friday noon anyway. My office buddies have planned a lunch for me. They are already a little hurt I planned my own going away party Friday evening, even though I invited them all.
Time is getting really tight. In the midst of all this I finally reach Larry who is working on some property near Hattiesburg and invite him.
I also have to make another run to Lowe’s to pick up gutters and some other materials for Mrs. Alice. It looks like I’ll be spending Thursday evening in Pearlington. How am going to get back to Gulfport, go to the luncheon, drop by Lowe’s and pick up the sink, get ready for the party and also pack and leave on schedule Saturday morning? I’m going to take care of Mrs. Alice, Mary and Terry; everything else is going to wait.
Driving back from Gulfport Thursday evening, I realize the moon is almost full. It I eerie, I’m driving down MS604 with the almost full moon shining the way. I immediately think about driving in from Picayune in November, 2006 on my first trip when the moon was near the same phase. Friday night, it will be the day before the full moon,
I check the calendar. Just like my first arrival in November 2006, my trip to Pearlington for the going away will be the day before the full moon. I’m inclined to fall back on my college days and say “Far out!”
On Friday I do nothing but work all day, trying my best to get every last detail tied up so can get to Jimmy’s on time. We had a great luncheon in Gulfport at noon. Afterwards I pick up the sink and drop by the package store to pick up some beverages.
I hurry to get back to Pearlington, but I’m late. I get to Jimmy’s about 5:15PM. Jimmy has these humongous shrimp, 10-12 count per pound. They are absolutely beautiful. Plus Robin has picked out garlic, potatoes, brussel sprouts, corn and all the rest. I’m a little worried no one will show. No one is there yet but Jimmy and Robin and their two daughters. I call Jessi to see what is going on. She tells me they will be there about 7.
About 6:45 Jimmy, his daughter Julia and I are talking about the bayou.
“We ought to go to on bayou down towards the Gulf. I can’t keep Dr. Bob from Fountain City satisfied. He wants to go out every time watching the birds.”
“You know Jimmy, I’ve never been out on the bayou with you in all this time.”
So Jimmy, Julia and I get into Jimmy’s nice aluminum bateau and head down the bayou.
Jimmy’s place is at the head of an arm of the bayou. As we motor down we have to run through some shallows, some thick grass and dodge a few snags before we get out into the bayou proper. I took my camera, I’ll post some pictures.
The sun hasn’t set yet but it is so low I the sky it bothers the eyes. We pass several houses; Jimmy tells me their history from Karina. We are passing trough all the marshes, I see a little side trail that runs up to a partly rebuilt dock, but mostly it is miles of swamp grass, birds, and the wind blowing in my face, sitting there shoulder to shoulder with Julia. I just miss seeing a couple of alligators. I turn to look in the direction of Julia’s pointing just as a fairly big one makes a quick roll and dives under the surface at the sound and presence of our boat.
We go down past the new bridge on US90 in White’s Bayou and go on to within about a quarter mile of the mouth of the Pearl River. Jimmy says we ought to come back late with a floodlight and look for gators. It is getting late and we figure by the time we get back to the house it will be past time to put the shrimp on. The almost full moon is rising off to the east giving us plenty of light.
Sure enough by the time we pull up to the dock, I see Frank and Mark standing by the cooler, and Jessi and Neal sitting at the table talking to Robin. Larry has shown up and even Jimmy’s friend Tommy Joe and his wife.
We get the shrimp going and soon there is pile of it poured out on the table and we are all eating to our hearts’ content. I sit there nursing a beverage listening to the conversation and watching people. The though strikes me, we need Lizzie, where is the karaoke?
About nine o’clock the talk turns to the bayou again.
“Do you want to go back and look for alligators?”
“Sure!” I say.
So Jessi, Mark, Jimmy and I climb back in the boat. The water I about a foot lower, the tide is running out. With a good bit more effort we negotiate the shallows and get out on the bayou. Jessi has the spotlight and she is finding a lot of frogs but no gators.
“The white spot are frogs. Look for little bright red spots, that is the gators. The light blinds them and they freeze.”
We go down just about as far as before but don’t see anything big. Jessi finally tires holding the spotlight and hands it to me as we turn back. I scan well out from of the boat along the marsh edge and we start to pick up the little red eyes. When we pass a little inlet off the main bayou I shine the light up the edge ohe marsh and the eyes look like a Christmas tree in the water. We motor up and find many small gators, fledglings, maybe 6-12 inches long. There is a big gator around her somewhere but all we see are the fry. We almost run over a three foot one, probably cruising for a dinner of his cousins.
We finally turn back towards home. The almost full moon lights our way as we cover the last few hundred yards, only this time it isn’t MD604.
A thought passes my mind, I think about the new fire hydrants on 604. Who would have thought we ever see it. As we near the dock I hear conversation and see people on the deck sitting around the fireplace. The party has started in full. Someone is showing one of our PDA staff the watermark on Jimmy’s barn. They didn’t realize this place was under about ten feet or more of water, or that the folks from Fountain City rebuilt the house (without a liability release), or that I spent a Memorial Day in the sweltering, buggy heat with them re-roofing Jimmy’s house. As I said, Jimmy and Robin are family.
So much has happened in a year, I’ve learned an awful lot about many things and suffered some real disappointment with the decisions and choices of the person in PDA who made it possible. I’m grateful but saddened by his pride.
Even so, my ties here are strong. There are good people here who have unwittingly opened the eyes of hundreds of Presbyterians. They have made us a greater people than we were.
It still sure seems like home to me.
Thinking about the moonrise, earlier in the evening, I wonder, when will I get back again?
Peace and Grace
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