Goose...Dinner with Cajuns...Friday Night Alone in a FEMA Trailer
Yesterday I performed what may be my most manly act ever. I cut out half of the breast of a goose that had been shot a few hours earlier. It was still warm to the touch. Luckily all the blood had congealed otherwise I don't think I would have handled it quite as well. As it was it wasn't too different from cutting up a turkey for thanksgiving dinner, except you had to pull aside feathers and the goose's head rolled around a bit on the table in a somewhat accusing manner.
But I didn't even have to cut the entire breast out, the man who shot them did most of the work and, as I was watching, it was my honorary priveledge to cut out the last one breast. After the meat was washed under the hose the man put the goose carcasses in a plastic bag and put them back in his car. We then went inside and I spent most of the evening eating the goose wrapped in bacon and talking to a 90 year old man who had worked 30 years as the clerk at the Cameron courthouse.
He had lost his house in the storm. It was completely gone. He hasn't even started to look for it. Probably he doesn't see much of a point in it. His insurance company is giving him the run around. They say that it was the flood water that took his house (he has wind insurance, but no flood). This makes no sense as his tractor is still on the land and hadn't been washed away. Insurance companies are turning out to be the most evil entitities imaginable for the Cameron residents.
Anyway, me and this man sat on the couch and talked, not just of the hurricane, but about the area in general and how he had been a magnetic compass adjuster during WWII and how he loved hunting and fishing. He has a 16 foot fishing boat that was lifted up and set down 15 miles away by the hurricane, but its still seaworthy and he'll probably be going out in it again soon.
After dinner Wayne dropped me back off at the FEMA trailer. We'd sat up a little watching Star Gate: Galatica. Wayne this big pastor with an enormous beard sat in his chair and explained to me about the cyborgs and the humans being mostly destroyed and needing to find a new homeland. He smiled and told me he liked the show because it took him off this planet.
When I was back at the trailer I thought about my time here for awhile. I was tired. A few days straight of seeing miles and miles of destruction is exhausting and so I layed in bed under the blankets with the little heater pointed at me and wondered what it would be like to have no other choice but to live in a trailer like this. It wasn't bad overall really and I have no doubt that people would make do. If there is one thing that is true it is that human beings will make do. But a family would also be impossibly cramped in the trailer. Its velcro on curtains and plastic walls would begin to fall apart in the first month and the smell of people living cramped head to head together would concrete itself into the trailer within the first two weeks. These FEMA trailers are meant to be temporary living spaces provided free of charge by the Fedral Goverment for its citizens and they do fullfill their purpose. The problem is that with everything in the area so destroyed, insurance companies not paying, and no jobs these 20 by 8 trailers (approx) might become permanent homes for some people. And as I layed on the plastic mattress last night looking at the ceiling, that is something I could not even imagine.
But I didn't even have to cut the entire breast out, the man who shot them did most of the work and, as I was watching, it was my honorary priveledge to cut out the last one breast. After the meat was washed under the hose the man put the goose carcasses in a plastic bag and put them back in his car. We then went inside and I spent most of the evening eating the goose wrapped in bacon and talking to a 90 year old man who had worked 30 years as the clerk at the Cameron courthouse.
He had lost his house in the storm. It was completely gone. He hasn't even started to look for it. Probably he doesn't see much of a point in it. His insurance company is giving him the run around. They say that it was the flood water that took his house (he has wind insurance, but no flood). This makes no sense as his tractor is still on the land and hadn't been washed away. Insurance companies are turning out to be the most evil entitities imaginable for the Cameron residents.
Anyway, me and this man sat on the couch and talked, not just of the hurricane, but about the area in general and how he had been a magnetic compass adjuster during WWII and how he loved hunting and fishing. He has a 16 foot fishing boat that was lifted up and set down 15 miles away by the hurricane, but its still seaworthy and he'll probably be going out in it again soon.
After dinner Wayne dropped me back off at the FEMA trailer. We'd sat up a little watching Star Gate: Galatica. Wayne this big pastor with an enormous beard sat in his chair and explained to me about the cyborgs and the humans being mostly destroyed and needing to find a new homeland. He smiled and told me he liked the show because it took him off this planet.
When I was back at the trailer I thought about my time here for awhile. I was tired. A few days straight of seeing miles and miles of destruction is exhausting and so I layed in bed under the blankets with the little heater pointed at me and wondered what it would be like to have no other choice but to live in a trailer like this. It wasn't bad overall really and I have no doubt that people would make do. If there is one thing that is true it is that human beings will make do. But a family would also be impossibly cramped in the trailer. Its velcro on curtains and plastic walls would begin to fall apart in the first month and the smell of people living cramped head to head together would concrete itself into the trailer within the first two weeks. These FEMA trailers are meant to be temporary living spaces provided free of charge by the Fedral Goverment for its citizens and they do fullfill their purpose. The problem is that with everything in the area so destroyed, insurance companies not paying, and no jobs these 20 by 8 trailers (approx) might become permanent homes for some people. And as I layed on the plastic mattress last night looking at the ceiling, that is something I could not even imagine.
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