Been busy so I never got around to posting.
First off I would like to say I hope everyone fared ok through the floods and that their loved ones ended up safe.
Secondly I would like to say, fuck... Nay, FUUUUCCCCKKK!
Took me 44 years of living in Louisiana but it finally happened. I got flooded. Not as bad as many did around me (I live in Denham), but damn this shit sucks. I had the two most helpless feelings in my life happen on Saturday the 13th... First, I watched the water come in from 2 different directions and slowly swallow the bottom floor of my house. Second, I had to sit flooded in while I knew my mother, father, and 95 year old grandmother were getting flooded in a neighborhood that to my knowledge in 44 years of growing up in Baton Rouge, had never flooded. My wife's mother lost everything as well. My dad went missing for almost 2 days before we found him by pure luck.
Still, there was something good to come out of all of it. I saw people who had never met before come together and help get people from the water. We had 12 people in my house the night it flooded because we told friends to come to us because we were dry at the time. We went and picked up 4 people from a boat they had to ride up range from the Interstate to Florida Blvd at the Albertson's. They rescued two little old ladies who were up to their necks in water on Range avenue and had lost everything so we took them in too. Another couple and their child and dog came to us that was flooded out of their neighborhood in a matter of minutes when they went to the store for last minute supplies.... I mean what are you supposed to do, tell them no? That there's no room? Hell no... I did what I would like to think any Louisianian would do, I told them to come in and get dry, and to make themselves at home. I dragged the grill out and cooked for them until the water came into my house... Then we started drinking.. Alot.
Finally around 3am everything got quiet, everyone crashed, and my wife and I stood in about 2 feet of water in our living room and just stared at our house. We had our moment at that point... Not even realizing that my job was 4 feet under, and both of her jobs were flooded and not likely re-opening. We stood there and started planning, thinking, and coming up with a way to get through it.
I'm more tired now than I've ever been, I haven't slept right for weeks, I've felt it all by now.. overwhelmed by depression, anger, denial, rage, self pitty, acceptance.. you name it. But every day it's getting a little better. It's going to before it's ok again, but like Louisianians do, we will get through it. On a brighter note, in my darkest hour of this all going on, my brother scored another great autograph for me to add to the collection. Jerry Stovall. He told my brother that he was honored than anyone still wanted the autograph of a washed up old has-been like him... Was the perfect gift at the perfect time.
I will say this... Saturday's game for me, like many others I'm sure, will likely be the best motherfucking LSU game I have ever watched in my life regardless of the outcome.
Those of you who were flooded or have been in the past, my heart goes out to you. I now understand.
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