So, I headed up to Washington this weekend to help the fam with moving back into their house after the flooding of last December. It was a pretty awesome sight to behold, and not in the "Dude, that's totally RAD!" sort of way. Trees were where they shouldn't have been... roads, dirt, etc. etc. etc. I don't know what was more striking, the multitude of bridges swept away from their foundations or the large bits of road that picked up and moved by the force of the water. Its a bit of an understatement to say that chunks of road hanging out in a field presents an incongruous scene. Additionally, you can't not think about New Orleans after seeing it. I mean, this was a big flood and it had, and continues to have, a HUGE impact on the people living there. But in many ways they're so much better off than the people impacted by Katrina. And its not like the class breakdown is necessarily that different, in terms of strict monetary earnings. But the ability of loggers or dairy farmers (anyone with an arguably viable trade, if not their own land) to recover and stay in the same place is vastly better than an unskilled laborer or someone dependent upon the service sector. That's not to say that everyone is staying. I saw a ton of "For Sale" signs... I have my doubts about their success to sell to anyone other than big money people who won't continue to live in the house, run a dairy, etc. And who knows how many renters were shoved out with the landowner choosing to sell rather than restore or rebuild. Anyway, that was my weekend. It was much easier than that being my life for the past two months or two years.
1 comment:
I couldn't help but notice a lack of comments on this piece. Maybe it is because it is a bit sad. That's OK. Like other events of this nature it gives the rest of us a reason to count our blessings. But it also gives a chance celebrate the human spirit when you see how many are bouncing back. We tend to forget it is just 'stuff' even if it carries priceless memories sometimes. The important thing is most folks survived this event, and they will move on and deal with the adversities as best they can. So here's to the human spirit and all that implies. Nuff said.
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