The Biloxi Beacon

[kiska]

One more............I'll play nice now..............................mebbe.  ::)

http://upload.pbase.com/image/84753677

[Mhayes]

Looks like nobody is safe!  :funny:

[Lorraine]

You people are so cruel. 

But your work is outstanding.   :wow:  I'm in awe of  the talent here.

Lorraine

[cmpentecost]

I should NEVER have opened my mouth that night that I found wine missing from my fridge!

You are quite creative, and imaginative Kiska!!

Chris

[cmpentecost]

p.s.  I better get those Biloxi photos uploaded soon.  You all have WAY too much time on your hands!

Chris

[Tess (Tassie D)]

 ;D Kiska and the caption to that pic could read

'Now which screen am I looking at? (hic)'

I thought I'd do a montage of some screenshots from the tv interview and some from the other photos of everyone.

Click

[glennab]

Hi volunteers

While you're having the time of your lives lampooning the Biloxi crew (and all of it is hilarious, I hate to admit!) I have to take an evening off.  I have a newsletter to prepare for Save Our Strays, and I want to finish it tonight.  I still have more notes – if you're not on information overload – and will post more as soon as I can.

Bless!

Glenna

[Hannie]

=^..^=

[glennab]

Hi Volunteers,

I'm going to give you some of my journal entries from our last day at the library, Saturday, August 25th.

"It's our last day. Not sure what to expect. We're anticipating a large turnout.  The consensus is that we'd be happy to stay longer and do more (for the overtime pay, of course).

"The photo historians are already at work.

"Dave brought in cookies that Angela had made for us.  They'll be much appreciate at "break" time.

"He also shared a couple of gorgeous photos of his son, Jack.  One behind a camera -- how appropriate!

"We had breakfast together at the hotel.  Such a cordial group -- people don't come any better than this.

"We're all going to go home with an overload of experiences, emotions, impressions, new friendships.  And who knows what we'll gain today?

"Dave is handing out stipends.  It somehow seems uncomfortable to take money from OPR when what we're doing to help these wonderful people is such a gift to us.  Dave's response to my expressing my feelings was that I should think of it as a way to defray some of our costs for getting and staying there.  I know that there were volunteers who donated toward the trip, which increased our expected stipend and is so appreciated!

"A young woman came in with 12 photos.  She said her house had been bulldozed.  During the storm the water was up to her ceiling, yet the framed portraits on the wall had minimal damage.  She kept crying and told me that she 'has weak tear ducts.'  She had me near tears.

"Stoked up this morning on potato doughnuts, doughnut holes and Angela's famous (addictive) chocolate chip cookies.

"Val was helping a woman remove her large photo from a frame when she spotted a bug (quite tiny) between the sheets of backing.  There was a plethora of strange cries and huge intakes of breath – and pounding on the back of the photo with a paper towel until the 'monster' was subdued and dispatched.

"Things are quieting down. We have a couple of people going through their photo collections to choose 20 for us to restore.  We've had to limit the photos to that number so we're able to accommodate everyone by 5.

"Was prying corner braces from a large frame and one took flight.  Val was inspired to comment on "flying shards of metal."  The "flying shard" nearly hit Lauren, who was working on Camera B.

"We're still having a few people wander in, but only a few.

"5:30 – tables and chairs are mostly back in place, most gear is organized and the last few photos are being shot while their owners wait. Everyone's quite subdued, tired, emotionally wrenched.

"People have brought in food, donations... the profuse 'thank yous' and 'bless yous' and 'are you coming back?' inquiries have made every minute of this trip worth it.

"A child was crying loudly in the hallway by the library door, and Rusty said, 'That would be Dave,' to which Dave exclaimed after the laughter died down, 'I hate each and every one of you!'

"I shall always love my compadres in this adventure.  They are forever part of my heart.

"The 'Last Supper' wasn't quite as planned, but outside the library and the mostly regimented and organized process of the photo collection, the stay has been, to say the least, pleasantly serendipitous.

"The plan once we cleaned and packed in preparation for leaving the library was to drive to Pass Christian and have dinner together at a little seafood place that Rusty had recommended.

"Between Biloxi and Pass Christian was a land of such devastation and shabbiness from storm damage that it became an overload of sorrow realizing what the area had suffered.  FEMA trailers were everywhere, gutted homes both grand and modest, bare slabs, piles of concrete and halved trees or entire ones stripped of foliage and presumed dead.  As it got dark and we drove through small towns, most of the houses were dark – almost ghostly.

"Very little signage remains, hence most of our sojourns were via 'the scenic route,' the 'business route,' the 'where the heck are we?' route or the 'head toward the beach; we'll get there eventually' route.

"When we arrived at Pass Christian, we found the restaurant closed – another gastronomical disaster that had Dave nearly over the edge. 
We split up and headed in different directions to scour up some food, most of us ending up back at the hotel dining room.  Dave, Mike and Rusty work together, so their banter and teasing each other was comical, to say the least.  Dave and Ed had grabbed a bite at "T. Bell" and the discussion degenerated to the taco crops in the midwest and how much damage they'd take from the storms.  It was a wonderfully companionable and laugh-filled 'last supper.'

"After dinner we headed (staggered – exhaustion was setting in) for our rooms.  It was a quick clean-up, don 'jammies', read for 3 minutes and CRASH!"

Okay, enough blathering for one post.  I have another few pages about the 26th, saying goodbye and the trip to New Orleans.  Will fill that in soon, and the saga of the Biloxi trip will then be HISTORY!

All I can add is that if any of you has the chance to go on a copy run, grab it.  It's the experience of a lifetime.

Bless,

Glenna

P.S. Hannie, I love the cat "emoticon."  It's priceless.

[cmpentecost]

Very nice Glenna.  Thanks for sharing!

Chris

[Mhayes]

Glenna,

I hope you have more stories to tell from your journal as I hate to see them end. For some reason I thought of a quote that I haven't thought of in a long time. I tried to find the author by doing a search on the Web but I came up empty handed. I heard it at a network marketing meeting pitching for new members and it was the only thing that stuck with me. Hope you like it: "You are who you are today by the people you meet and the books you read." (Author Unknown)

Margie

[Hannie]

Glenna, thank you for the report!  I enjoyed reading it very much, you are a great writer!  Your stories help me polish up on my English, some words I have to look up in the English/Dutch dictionary.  (like:serendipitous, great word!)

Hannie

[sanbie]

Glenna thank you so much for keeping the journal so we who had to stay behind could feel as if we were a part of it all...I have enjoyed every moment of reading!!

Sanbie

[glennab]

Hi Volunteers

Thanks so much for your positive response to my ramblings.

Margie, I love the quote and I totally agree.  I'm not only grateful for and feel enriched by spending quality time with the Biloxi team, but also by the rest of OPR who have been so supportive and interested in our adventure.  I feel as if I know all of you, too, and you're part of my heart!  (Needless to say, sometimes that heart feels about to burst between my feelings for my OPR pals and the wonderful people we met in Biloxi).

Hannie, I'm glad to be helping you with your English, although if you hadn't told us English isn't your first language, I'd not have known.  You manage quite welI.

I drive my co-workers crazy with my verbiage, because half the time I have to explain what I mean to them.  I love the language, and discovering and using new and interesting words is one of my passions.  Actually, I was meant to be a journalist, and my path somehow curved and took me into graphic design instead.  I still get to be the resident expert on usage and spelling wherever I work (I've been called "the walking dictionary," and have even had the gall to challenge not only our company president but also an English usage expert on the web a while back).  Whatever makes life interesting!

You'd be totally stumped by my husband, because he loves to slaughter the language just to see if anyone catches it.  He'll tell people that since he's getting older he's gotten rather "sedimentary," when the word is actually sedentary.  Amazing how many people doen't get it.  Fun with words!

Anyway, once I get my newsletter completed (today, hopefully), I'll post the Sunday entries to the journal.  And if anything comes back to me in the meantime that's of interest, I'll write it in the journal and post it as well.  The good thing about the journal is not only being able to share what happened with you, but since I'm getting older I tend to forget things.  I want to have a remembrance of Biloxi to go back to.  I've gotten to where I can read a book, and re-read it in a year and it's as if I'm reading it for the first time.  Scary!  But I don't have to buy as many books!  (I try to see the positive side of this being old syndrome!)

Hugs to all of you,

Glenna

[Ratz]

Thanks Glenna,your journal is very entertaining for those of us who couldn't be there.
You don't do a bad job for an old girl :loveit:
This is actually the first time I have wanted to live in the US so I could go along.I felt so left out!
Can't wait to get into some of these photos and put smiles back on the faces of people who have lost so much.
Looking forward to the next installment.