Texas
Well, I’m finally home, where I belong. It was a great experience for me like it always is. The place that we were was not so much damaged except for roof damage. Down south along the beach and Galveston got hit pretty hard. So one Saturday after we took the volunteers to the airport, we went down to Galveston to look at the damage. We went to the wrong place on Galveston because the southern part was not as much damaged, but it was the nothern part was. We didn’t have enough time so we went back up to the same airport and pick up George, a volunteer from Aroda, Va, who stayed for 2 weeks. Uh, let’s see, what else would be of interest. Oh yes, there was a dance at the Catholic church that is right by us. You should have heard the music coming from that building. It was very loud and deep so it sorta shook the inside of you with each beat. A couple of the volunteers and I went over to see what it was about. I’m telling you it was packed in there. I don’t think you could put another person in there. It wasn’t quite that bad, but it was close. We went to bed with this beation going on, and my mom woke up when it quit, and it was 1:00p.m. before they quit. The week of the volunteers from Pa was a trying week for work. The first day, the wind tried to stop them but they persevered. The next day, it was even worse, it rained about all day, but they kept on working on the roofs even though tey got sopping wet. That evening the rain turned into sleet and a very unusual thing happened. There was SNOW!!!!!!! And this is in Texas just to make that clear. It snowed most of the night, and by the next morning, there was 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. I can tell you this much, it was hard to do school work. Finally, I took a cuople hours’ break having a snowball fight with the children and heoping make a snowman. That was fun. I guarentee that there was more pictures taken in that county than anywhere else. you know, it was 28 years since therewas such a big snowfall. Anyway, by mid-afternoon, it was all melted. And then the last day of work for that week, it was a perfect day to work. The last wek the volunteers came from 5 different states, whic is unusual. Seven were from MI, 4 from Tx, 2 from Pa, 1 from Va, and 1 from Mt. We had a wonderful week. By Saturday evening, it was only the secretary, George and us that were left at the base. All the rest went home for Christmas. We sure had to get used to only 5 of us instead of 14. We got up early Monday morning and started getting ready to head on out. We unhooked the kitchen trailer from the dining room and hitched to the truck. By the time everything was ready, it was 10:00. So George and I started off with the truck pulling the kitchen trailer to the base at Picuyune, Ms. It took about 6 hours to get there. My parents left later about 12:00 and didn’t get there until after dark. It was cold, and the landowners were very kind and let us in their house and gave us supper of pizza and hot wings, which was very good. We found one camper that was unlocked and made our bed on there. The next morning, they served us some good pancakes. After we were all ready, we decided we’re going to visit some people that we worked for last year. By the time that was done it was 1:30p.m., and we were finally on our way home. Since George lives only about 40 minutes from us, he went along with us. At about 10:00 Eastern time, we stopped to eat at O’ Charley’s with George’s brother who lives in Atlanta. And then we headed on home. A friend picked up George in Charlottesville, and we got home about 6:30 in the morning. It sure is good to be home again. Anyway, shall I make this thing any longer? You’re probably tired of reading this by now, so I’ll quit now.
