leopards - pt. 3 (if i'm lion i'm dyin'...)

so, another portion of my life begins as another one closes the door. or should i say slams? according to certain individuals, we can all be friends and pals again. aw, shit. i don't want to go out on another tangent. forget that. i have to go there. it contributes.

post Katrina, i lived at my parents home. Johnny came back from exile in Florida with his mother to stay with us and work locally. the community began to return to SOME sense of normalcy. one of those things was the re-opening of the local IHOP. this is where i met Karen. Karen has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. i'll talk more of her later in a separate post.

Pierce eventually returned from Florida, too. in typical Pierce fashion, he changed his plans and cost me almost $200 in air fare from non-refundable tickets that I gladly gave up. i didn't care. i just wanted to see him. when he did get home, things were like they never had changed... non-storm wise, that is. Katrina had done her damage to many, many lives; the lion's share of those lives would never return to the way they were before the storm of the century.

The boys' mother's home in the Lakeview area of New Orleans had been devastated by the brackish water surge. They were only a few miles away from the breach in the 17th Street Canal levee that sent millions of gallons of water from Lake Pontchartrain across one of the most beautiful sections of the city. what remained for them was only what they managed to take with them in their escape to Florida. years and years of countless memories were ruined by the encroachment of the filthy, disease ridden water.

Johnny worked with my brother, Matt, in the area, cleaning up and repairing damaged homes. he was able to get to the house and view the destruction. taking a camera with him on most days, he took lots of photos of the damage; both of his house and of the entire area. nothing can prepare you for the terrible destruction and heartbreak that followed Katrina.

i browsed through the photos of his home and yard and was moved to tears, as i saw the memories that had been collected over the years. i saw furniture that i had assembled and painted many years earlier with my own hands, twisted and warped in a pile of debris. mold and a telltale waterline inside the rental house displayed the extent of the water's smoldering fury.

i felt an intense deal of sorrow for their entire family. these were the things that the boys grew up with. these items were their life and their world. the landlord had been so kind as to shovel everything outside into a big pile where it remained vulnerable to further attacks of weather and those sneaky enough to get into the area and loot without being caught. no one should have to endure the hardships and emotional turmoil wrought by a natural disaster such as a hurricane.

West End Boulevard "Neutral Ground" from Veterans Blvd to the Lake looked as this did.

in the back of my mind were the friends and people I knew that lived in the area. my grandmother lived in two separate homes on Canal Boulevard; one between I-10 & Harrison and one at the corner of Louque and Canal near Navarre and Homedale. Wife A and I had lived, pre-wedding, on Catina Street for a while and Mom L had purchased a home almost across the street from there. "little" Lirette came to mind again, as I had not been in contact with Mom L. i silently thought to myself the hope that they came through it ok. i still could not picture her as old as Pierce. in my memory, she was still the kindergartner that I remembered from the grocery.

then, unfortunately, I was forced to turn to bigger fish...

MORE IN FOUR!