Frank, Mr. Sheetrock Mudman.
Lunch break at sheetrock house (above).
John gets high inNew Orleans. Bonnie paints walls, but not her nails.
Hmmmm, why aren't there any pictures of Art working here????
Mary, maybe not so large, but sometimes in charge. She is our beloved Queen of Crabcakes.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
This is going to sound monotonous, but we all worked hard again today. I believe that Frank and Marcia finished the day wearing about 20% of the drywall mud that we purchased on their shirts and heads. Whereas at the other house, Art Howell says he worked real hard, but he finished the day as clean as when he started. Is Art a neater worker? Well, that’s one possible explanation. Sue McNicol is becoming quite an acrobat, standing high up on a ladder and smearing mud over her head. She says that
she feels good up there, as it’s almost up to sea level. You’ll just have to take my word for it – everybody is working very hard. It’s dirty, arduous, and difficult work – and we love doing it. This has been a labor of love without doubt. And there’s still so very much yet to be done around here.
Debbie had to tape and mud two of these deep, 13-inch wide closets.
Comic and acerbic wit are becoming increasingly prevalent. Morie said that he thought we should run our generator to replenish the battery packs for our power drills during our lunch break. Marcia told him that it’s good we don’t pay him to think. Dave Brown went to put the metal corners on a little linen closet that Don Skillman had sheet-rocked, and found that two little strips of sheetrock were still needing placement. Dave suggested that Don be punished by making him stay back and finish the closet while everybody else went to supper. Because Don is so adored by the rest of the team, they outvoted Dave.
The continuing saga of our eating tour of New Orleans:
Supper was special tonight. W
e gathered at Fat Harry’s Restaurant directly after work. All of us were filthy and sweaty and grimy (except for Art, he was clean as a whistle, rested, and possibly tan). Fat Harry’s didn’t mind a bit. We ate Jazz Burgers, Cajun Burgers, huge red crawfish, and drank several gallons of fluid (except Art, he curiously didn’t seem thirsty). The waitress gave us a crash course in eating crawfish, and we learned to break off the tail and suck the head, because that’s where all the spices are. Maybe we should try that trick on a rainbow trout or walleye. Maybe not.
The work is coming to an end. The sheetrock is 99.9% hung and 75% of the taping and mud application is finished. The humidity makes the mud-drying slow, so we may even have to knock off early tomorrow. Until the mud dries, the next step can’t begin.
At the end of the day, Chad drove Morie and me off to find the Lower 9th Ward. That’s the part of town that was damaged the worst of all. It is still a disaster area. In the neighborhood where we’ve been working, perhaps one in twenty homes are abandoned and overgrown with weeds and rot. In the Lower 9th Ward, the ratio seemed just the opposite. In many blocks there might have been a single home that was restored, but all the others around it were abandoned, with windows boarded up, walls caved-in, roofs open, vines and weeds growing over everything. It was very sad, and on a grand scale.
Now it’s time to find an internet connection and begin the tedious process of uploading the photos. I know you enjoy them more than reading these words. So – good night and God bless!
Here's Chad, getting to know his food before he devours it.
she feels good up there, as it’s almost up to sea level. You’ll just have to take my word for it – everybody is working very hard. It’s dirty, arduous, and difficult work – and we love doing it. This has been a labor of love without doubt. And there’s still so very much yet to be done around here. 
e gathered at Fat Harry’s Restaurant directly after work. All of us were filthy and sweaty and grimy (except for Art, he was clean as a whistle, rested, and possibly tan). Fat Harry’s didn’t mind a bit. We ate Jazz Burgers, Cajun Burgers, huge red crawfish, and drank several gallons of fluid (except Art, he curiously didn’t seem thirsty). The waitress gave us a crash course in eating crawfish, and we learned to break off the tail and suck the head, because that’s where all the spices are. Maybe we should try that trick on a rainbow trout or walleye. Maybe not.
ization called “YA,YA”. He then showed us hundreds of photos from the days after Katrina, including some first-looks at their house. They weren’t allowed to visit their home for two months after Katrina hit. The destruction was 100%, with mold growing thick on the walls and everything else inside. I may be able to post some of his pictures.
