Katrina
Nobody’s a Face Without A Name
- Time line: 9/01/2005
Temperatures were 99 degree’s plus.
Having a basic but “near 3rd” degree sunburn, it’s all I'd do til at least 3:30 or 4 o'clock when possible, I'd then walk back into “radiation of the shore lined Gulf-of-Mexico ultra-violet furnace" on this 2005 July cloudless and sunny day. I sat thinking awhile about pulling out my blue underwater Kodak there in the open-air shade under one pier beach house for taking a last shot of the Gulf through the deck halls, highlighting its beautiful wooden planks, showers, shelters and sugar sand extending far out into the Mississippi sea. I thought "this could be the last time I'll ever get an opportunity to shoot my favorite beach where you can wade out an eighth of a mile waist deep," or maybe just that "I'd never come back to this beach again so it'd be better to get the picture."
One morning another day later I did get my camera down, a friend gifted Me, from my living room mantle back in Somerset and took the picture at a peculiar angle if just that I had a new underwater camera that I was sort of next hurrying about to use so to discover the quality of first photos after developing them next door at CVS. A closer and more scenic view of the northern Gulf of Mexico I had postured myself the day in Gulfport while shading or if lessor by importance, I was only "filling up my thoughts in a public place with a practical idea" as to get the picture which was purely a most memorable scene always and forever.
I didn't.
Watching Katrina blow up from a category one to a five by early this August morning now back in the north I'd decided to snap one of her radar satellite screen that The Weather Channel was posting and did so right in through pixtals of my TV the hour when she roared near to 120 miles form shore, looking more as a killer beast with a birds eye staring you up and down and through as if to say "I am going to destroy e v e r y t h i n g I can and there's nothing anybody can do. She appeared perfectly capable to me of that recalling those 90 degree bath-water temps that could potentially produce the biggest storm of record.
The USS Camille (actual ship on Highway 90) has stood memorial and landmark for tourists since 1969 as ground zero of Camille the worst hurricane in US history, and simply put, it now by comparison is become puny considering that now “ground zero” for Katrina , as quoted by the State Department this afternoon is 90,000 square miles of hurricane destruction, death and debris surrounding.
Thousands are believed dead says Louisiana Governor Blanco and in Mississippi the Governor states he’s been told hundreds have been found dead, but marked and left laying for critical relief staging.
For years I have unpacked my backpack on the beach and surfed or fished for long and or short vacation-time but only have vivid memories left of the beach-house, casino, a payphone and motel lot, AND MY favorite sandwich and fuel shop across US highway 90.
Domino's Pizza, the Beach House Motel, Waffle House, I-Hop and even "USS Camille (the Red and White Iron Ship memorializing hurricane Camille) Souvenir Shop” as the new ground zero of hurricane Camille are nothing more than fuzzed over, but real victims of Katrina, hereon I will refer to as Cat!
Beaches, Interstates and city settings became home to me after years traveling the USA with having insufficient funds to ever seriously settle down in one and connect with formidable employment. Met up with the best and probably the worst. Eighteen wheelers are always a welcome routine. Not being mechanical it’s as though I’m in school again when truckin along over-the-road.
Most big trucks have two bunks so conveniences aren’t all bad. Travel is nearly cost free and usually is!
University towns to me are adaptable as students with book bags take naturally to me walking through with my backpack. I built this 220+ website network at computer labs and libraries on and near campuses with no objection. Staff have even assisted with technical hurdles a time or two. KU brought out some shoulder mounted camera’s one day and rather than suppose they were spotlighting history that I was designing and documenting I rather decided to abandon their hospitality as I could possibly have pushed a good thing too far. I always stood down - backed off - when and where students needed a computer.
Abandoning a mountainside spread in July over in central PA., which I really thought was me, in July I now am inside a quaint furnished suite in Somerset and hold on for a couple weeks paid rent, and as great an opportunity as it gets to reduce my anxieties as for the transit lifestyle, if you call it, while work levels do continue to disappear. PA is boxed off as a federal playground and only if you’re a lawyer, a fed employee or a recipient of one program or other do you have an autonomous future and I am as contrasted entrepreneurial. Grew up contracting as opposed to 9-5 punch-clocks.
The money is better and often is under the table. In 2003 the IRS even sent mail directing me “not to file if I don’t have income exceeding some embarrassing amount.” I am not humiliated. People go through tough times.
I have had some substantial contribution to sustain my publication ideas since, and how all that supports my effort as being Libra, in addition with surrounding chaos and not to mention one immediate goal to keep the wolf off the door, scheduling is solely anymore all I can accomplish of task next hoping my donor develops into a general or silent partner. I have always looked forward to scaling up my own corporation but I simply go and unpack wherever and when I get the breeze moving moderately.
People inquire often my personal choices and transitional experiences but no longer have done so daily. Day by day in archaic communities across south central PA people neatly fit beside one another having similar predicaments and none if few are interested in networking. One acquaintance
even remarked one morning “he worked eight hours yesterday and can’t stand on his feet that long so quit the (second day) today.” I coached him with his drug habit so he wouldn’t go to jail and shortly after he began stealing from me to support his lifestyle so I don’t contact him as to my new apartment location or announcing my newer website creations for his information anymore.
