My last few weeks have been... interesting, but in a good way.
Last summer I enjoyed working freelance but I am not disciplined enough at the business side of freelance (i.e.: billing and drumming up new jobs) to keep at it, so I also interviewed a number of places for a permanent Graphic Design position. Midway through the summer I interviewed at Gatehouse, a former employer for what I thought would be a design position, but what turned out to be an ad trafficker position. No creativity, just simple changes, outsourcing ads to a design studio, checking them and fixing their mistakes. I got the job but was not given a start date. In the mean time, I also interviewed with the American Nuclear Society for a Graphic Design position in the meeting department. Right off the bat I was excited for this opportunity because it got me out of advertising. I always enjoyed the creative side of Graphic Design, but felt that my creative designs were always comprimised by the need to sell. Here was a chance to work on the publication and promotion side. The interview went fine, About a month later, I got a second interview with them and an interview with a print house near the city. The print house job was designing circulars and signage for Tsome national companies. Then I got a start date and a salary offer from Gatehouse finally for October. It wasn't my dream job, but I did want to get back into steady work with benefits, and it was more than the print house offered,.I delayed a few days hoping to hear back from the Nuclear society, but when I didn't I took the Gatehouse job. Finally during my first week at Gatehouse, I heard that the Nuclear society chose someone else. I was disapointed, but I had a lot of friends at Gatehouse and I got along with them, so I deturmined to make the most of it.
Ad Trafficking was mind-numbing, and the hours were evening and I missed my wife, so when the print shop contacted me around christmas, I said I was still interested, so I interviewed with them again. It was still not as good an offer as Gatehouse was making, but for some reason, I wanted to take it. I was even more surprised when, my wife and parents actually also seemed in favor of me taking the job, if they upped the benefits package a little. I made my demands and met with the print house again. They did not quite meet them, but it was close, so I took the job.
Two and a half weeks ago, I gave Gatehouse my two weeks notice. My manager was nice about it and my coworkers were all supportive and excited that I got a new opportunity. I was nervous because I have not actually quit a job in 16 years, although I did not love the work at Gatehouse, it was stable, and I was leaving that for some uncertainty. It got down to my last week there, and I got a message from the Nuclear Society that the person they had hired instead of me did not work out, so they wanted to hire me as the graphic designer for the meetings department. They offered me much more than Gatehouse or the print house so I said yes. I was sad to have to tell the print house of my decision, but they were understanding and said to keep them in mind if this doesn't work out. My start date got pushed back a week beacause of the job switch, so now I have the week off and I am eagerly awaiting starting at the job that I wanted all along.
The lesson I take from all of this is one that I first read on a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree branch. "Hang in there." It's trite, and annoying when you are going through bad times, but eventually you get through them, and when you least expect it, your perseverance pays off and something good comes your way.
Just wanted to share my good fortune in a time when things are looking bleak. Hang in there, America.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Flood Relief
Some people do great deeds for personal gain, some do them for glory, a few even do them out of the good of their heart for the sake of others. The best thing I have ever done, I did because I had nothing better to do. I have been in a fantasy football league with friends for around 16 years. Amidst the flurry of texts we were all sending out coordinating our yearly draft party, Mike sends out a text: "So I'm thinking about heading down to Louisiana to help with a bit of reconstruction... Anyone able to take a week off and join me is welcome." Of course, most responses were that's great, but I can't I have responsibilities here, which with only a week's worth of notice is to be expected.
When I read that, what ran through my mind was, "Crap, I don't have any reason not to do this." My day job was outsourced recently and I did not have any freelance projects lined up for the week yet. I have no kids, and although I do whatever I can to help my wife, we can function independently for a week if need be. So I talked to Nicole and we read up on the flood damage in Baton Rouge. She gave me the ok and I said yes. Up until the day we left though, a part of me did not believe that it was going to happen. Something would come up, or someone would come to their senses and we would be rescued from ourselves.
The force was with us though, and come Monday night, Mike and I pulled into the church that we would call home for the rest of the week. It was a grueling 14 hour drive, but that was just the start. A Baton Rouge Nazarene church that was unaffected by the flood was hosting groups from around the nation who were willing to come trade room and board for work rebuilding local residents and sister churches that were hit by the flood. We were staying with a group from Mike's parents church. Mike made it clear to the group leader that we were not Nazarene, but he knew Mike since he was a kid and hosted us anyway. He made sure to treat us the same as anyone else that was there, which was very christian of him.
Day 1: The next morning I awoke before the light were turned on at 6:30 in the gym. The cots were the kind that have a metal bar through the middle ensuring you wake up with a sore back. I was nervous and excited and wanted to hit the shower before the crowds. Eventually, when the sane people woke up, I found that the church gym had a small dining room with coffee, fruit, cereal and pop tarts, which I hadn't had in a long time. I grabbed a bag and some coffee and called it the lap of luxury. Then they served real breakfast which was pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage. I continued to be impressed by the quality of food and hospitality that our hosting church gave us. It really started and ended the days on a high note.
The relief workers were divided into 2 groups, one group went to work on people's houses, our group was assigned to work on a church that got hit by the flooding. Mike and I were both a little disappointed, we thought we would be going to people's houses and helping them, but this was important to the community as well, so neither of us said anything. As the site leader was showing us what jobs needed to be done, he got to the end and said "Now this job is going to be nasty. This modular home was a nursery and utility building for the church, 4 people need to crawl under there and cut out the wet insulation, two people need to carry it to the road. You can take shifts." As soon as he started talking, I knew Mike, that SOB, was going to volunteer for this job. Sure enough Mike raised his hand as soon as the guy finished and volunteered. I raised my hand to volunteer as well, but when the under-the-trailer-team was assembled, Mike suggested I start out carrying the debris to the road. I loaded up my wheelbarrow with some old furniture while they donned plastic suits and masks and started hauling. We had to wear jeans and work boots and the temp was in the high nineties plus 1000% humidity (hyperbole), so I'm drenched in sweat immediately. The work under the trailer was as bad as predicted, the insulation was water logged and heavy and it was muddy and hot. periodically work members would take breaks drinking water and I offered to trade jobs with them but they declined. I ran that wheelbarrow back in forth from the trailer to the road in a steady stream, dripping sweat, adding mud from lifting the insulation into the wheelbarrow. I drained water bottles as I went, a couple of times other workers asked me if I had gotten sprayed with a hose, I said "No I guess I don't deal with heat well." We finished removing the insulation by lunch time and everyone had a laugh at how filthy we all were. My companion on the wheelbarrow team was a guy in his 60s named Lathan. He kept telling me how impressed he was with how hard I worked, but I was really just killing myself to keep up with him. We had sandwiches for lunch and finished cleaning out the inside of the trailer that afternoon, removing drywall nails and tile pieces from the floor to get it ready to be rebuilt. I swept up debris with Lathan and continued running the wheelbarrow to the road. By the end of the day we had the site totally prepped for drywalling and we headed back to a turkey dinner at our host church. Mike and I showered before dinner, so a lot of the food was gone, but we still got plenty. Afterwords, I read a little and crashed out on my cot early.
Day 2: Woke up, used restroom, went back to cot to go back to sleep and the lights came on. Had coffee and a breakfast souffle of eggs, ham, and cornflakes. It was good. Afterward I helped load 12 foot drywall sheets onto a trailer to take to the church. Half our team from the day before was sent out to work on a house with other relief workers, Mike and I and a few others went back to do the drywall on the church. We couldn't put the bottom on because it was still too wet. I had no idea what I was doing, but give me a screw gun and a few tries and I am good to go on any project. The trailer was air conditioned, so up until we loaded drywall into the church I was relatively dry, with only minimum drywall dust on me. We knocked out all the drywall we could put up in the morning and broke for lunch. The afternoon we moved onto the church itself. There was a pair of team members spraying everything down with a borax-bleach water formula to kill any mold and prevent any spores from growing. We started putting up insulation and drywall in the church, but again parts were too wet. They had more than enough people helping with the drywall, so I went to help put in insulation. Again I didn't know what I was doing, but got the hang of it quickly. Unfortunately after me and another guy finished a couple of rooms, we found out they had not been sprayed with bleach yet and we had to take out all the insulation we had put up, wait for it to be sprayed and then put it up again. End of the day I was not as sweaty or dirty, but I was itchy, so another afternoon shower was in order.
That night the group leaders had planned a sermon, so Mike and I went out to eat and saw a movie. We found a place though Google that said it served southern food and drove there. It was weird how certain streets, some houses were hit by the flooding and others looked untouched. The houses that were hit by flooding had to be gutted. All their furniture, appliances, insulation and drywall were piled along the side of the road, a crew with dump trucks and a crane would come and clear it all up eventually. So you had half a street that looked like the apocalypse had hit, and half with manicured and perfect lawns. The restaurant was phenomenal. we had beer basted mussels for appetizer and shrimp and catfish for dinner. Mike surprised me by picking up the check, his thank you for me coming along on this adventure. The movie we saw was Jason Borne. It was ok.
Day 3: Woke up when they turned on the lights. My intended breakfast was coffee and a banana for easing muscle fatigue. My stomach had been a little upset since I got down there, so I planned on not having anything else, then they revealed cheest grits, biscuits and sausage gravy. You can't go to the south and not have biscuits and sausage gravy so I caved in and it was delicious. Mike and I went with the crew that was working on houses that day. You could take that as a critique of my screw gun work the day before, but I choose to see it as just a random dividing of tasks that fortuitously allowed us to do what we came there for. As I was loading drywall for the other crew I whacked my thumb on the roof of the transport trailer.
Mike and I rode with the other Michiganders to the FEMA relief headquarters set up at an expo center. National guard troops were set up all around it directing people where to go. I looked at the uniforms and could only imagine how hot it would be to not only have on long heavy pants and boots, but army fatigue jackets on top. We were teaming up with a group called Samaritans Purse. To work for them you had to wear an orange T-Shirt with their logo and abide by a pamphlet of rules and ideals while on the work site. The pamphlet starts out saying they are Christians, that's the true god, standard stuff. Suggests you not break peoples stuff while working on their houses, and pray with the homeowner to comfort them if they need you to. Then it got weird. It lists this item "We believe that procreation should only be done as a product of marriage and that marriage may only be between a man and a woman. I finished reading and looked at Mike, He looked at me, we both were wondering if the other one was going to say something. The girl who gave us the pamphlet asked if it was ok or if we could at least abide by their beliefs while we were on-site. I said, I don't believe all of this, but I don't think it will come up. She said good enough and we got our orange shirts and went to the work site. As they played their christian rock in the van on the way to the work site, the people we rode with went on and on about how great it was that people down there were so comfortable talking about Jesus. I wanted to shout "No duh, you are in the south. You are the majority here. Try talking about Mohammad and see where that gets you!" but I didn't. They were nice people doing good for others, so I kept my cynicism to myself.
The site was an older couple's home. Every house on the street looked like it was hit by flood damage, most were already being worked on, this home had barely been started. Samaritan's purse teamed us up with a site chief named Dave who looked to be in his fifties but still very fit and a bunch of teens and college kids from Ohio. There was a minute here they heard we were from Michigan and they moaned, but we did invade them once to try to steal Toledo, so it is understandable. The homeowners wanted to pray with us to begin the day, so we formed a circle and prayed. Then the site chief assigned tasks to people, explaining each in detail. This was not his first rodeo. Mike and I volunteered to take out the kitchen cabinets with another tall old guy named Mike. We got in there and found that the screws holding the cabinets in place were all stripped and had been painted over about a million times (Hyperbole). We would have to break them to get them out. They had no sledgehammers for us, so Mike started pounding out the shelves with a regular hammer. I carried the debris to the street. I was timid about breaking them at first due to that pamphlet that said not to break stuff. Eventually logic won out, we were gutting the house, it all had to be thrown out, it made no sense not to break it to get it out, so we smashed away and eventually got it out. A lot of this time, Dave the site leader started out going around, making sure everyone was doing their jobs right, but partway through the morning, as I was carrying out debris I noticed him lying on the front lawn, praying with one of the kids on the work site. He remained there until all of the tasks he had assigned were done and all the other kids were outside with him. Mike and I noticed that Lathan was the only one working at this point, so we helped him clean out the debris in the master bathroom.
After we got that done and met up with everyone on the lawn, Dave went over how to remove the drywall. He had a good method for it, one guy pries it off and other line up to hold it and carry it out in full pieces so that no debris falls and mold spores are not spread. Mike got assigned to be a pry offer. He struggled with it at first but got it going eventually. I also struggled with the prescribed carrying method because I could not use my left thumb to carry anything. The nail was purple and it throbbed from where I hit it in the morning. I figured out my own method for carrying that did not break the drywall and kept it off the floor soon though and we were ripping though that drywall quickly. I don't know if Dave assigned a few more drywall pryers or if some of the kids just decided to do it, but a bunch of dofferent groups sprang up throughout the house working. Dave quit prying up drywall shortly before that to tell me a story about how his ex girlfriend cost him his truck and he almost got hit by a car as he walked down the center of the road but God saved him. He said the moral was to listen to God not your Girlfriend. I laughed along with him, ok, maybe more at him, knowing that my wife has 3 black belts in various martial arts, owns and knows how to use many swords, nunchuckas, bow staffs and knives and would most assuredly smite me if I chose to ignore her to listen to what I thought was God, who is not exactly batting a thousand on smiting evil doers now a days. He tends to let the local law enforcement and armed forces handle that stuff now.
A local Elks lodge was grilling free hamburgers for relief workers and displaced home owners, so the group went and got those for lunch. It tasted delicious. We ate in the van in the air-conditioning. I found out later the outside temperature was 104 that day, (no hyperbole) and we were all soaked with sweat and covered in dirt. After everyone ate, we went back to the house lawn. Lathan fell asleep on a kitchen chair in front of a fan in the house. Dave and the kids were all out there, they had a girl in the group sing a song. he asked people, "What's your story? some kids talked a little, After a while Mike got up and went in and started working. I went in to help. As I carried debris out to the road they called out to me to join a prayer circle they formed and I passed "If I stop working now, I won't start again I said." I upset some people but the site chief told them to let me work. Eventually everyone started again and he patted me on the back. He seemed like he was sorry for me, but I can't be sure. We were almost finished with the drywall and somebody had to start removing insulation. It was wet still and nasty so I started doing it. Bill, a nice guy who drove us to the site also joined in and two brave college girls held and carried out the garbage bags we filled with the wet stinking moldy insulation. During the process, we uncovered a full cockroach nest. It is true, cockroaches can survive anything. Bill, the girls and I made short work of the insulation and Dave suggested we start on the kitchen floor. It was fake wood linoleum tiles and came up really easy, but held water and slime under it, creating one of the worst odors I ever experienced. Mike had a great idea to fill a wagon with it to speed up the process and we got through that fast too. After that I helped Lathan remove carpet in another room. The bathroom of the house was done last, a bunch of kids got in there and there was not much I could do to help other than carry out debris. Finally, we had to clean up all of the floors, leaving no dust or drywall behind because the chemical they use to kill the mold would bond it to the floor causing real problems when the house was rebuilt.
After we finished sweeping, there was one kid with a shop vac going through the house. The Michigander crew I came with was outside and pretty much agreed that there wasn't anything else for us to do. and we should go. It was 5:00, we were spent, dinner would be served soon. I went to tell Dave we were leaving and he said to wait, that they were doing a bible presentation. I thought it would be another weird prayer circle thing, but it turned out to be worth staying for. They had a bible people on site signed with encouraging words for the home owners. When Bill presented it to her She called us all her angels and thanked us sincerely. At that point, despite the buckets of sweat that had poured out of me all day, I teared up and almost bawled. A lot of bad stuff has happened to Nicole and I this year. In less than a month, I lost my job, our condo leaked into a neighbors, our dog jumped out of my car on the freeway and died, her truck quit working and then her grandma died. But this lady and her husband had lost almost every earthly thing they possessed and she was thanking us with all her heart for what little we could do for her. What we did made a profound difference in her life at a time that she needed it most. Words can't describe what that felt like. I can only hope that no matter what lies ahead, I can match that strength that these people showed facing this horrible disaster.
That night's dinner was spaghetti and Mexican Chicken, it was weird but delicious. Afterward Mike and I played cards with Lathan till lights out.
Day 4: Woke up with the light already on. Blisters on feet, thumb sore, back aching but ready to take on our last day there. ate eggs and bacon and cinammon rolls. We loaded a bunch more drywall, I was careful not to damage any more digits this time. All of our group was leaving that day, so we cleaned the whole church gymnasium we had stayed in. Then we took the drywall to the church site. Not much was left that we could do there, it was still too damp to finish the walls off so we worked a little in the morning, unloaded the drywall for the next crew that was coming to work that day, I think they were coming from Alabama, but I'm not sure. Then they took us over to see the parsonage and some other houses destroyed by flooding. Everyone else was going out to lunch and heading back up north so Mike and I shook hands and hugged them and took off.
It was a long drive back to Chicago but we made it taking shifts. We had one last small adventure along the way when Mikes GPS told us to exit the highway and take back roads through Illinois to save 20 minutes. We were in the middle of nowhere, it was 2:00 and we were low on gas. Then fog rolled in. Eventually the GPS got us back to the highway and a gas station, right as the "You are almost out of gas, dummy!" light dinged on.
Some people say everyone should have to join the army for a year. I have never agreed because, well, I don't want to. So I won't say everyone should do disaster relief once, but I will say it was the hardest I have ever worked, and the best I have ever felt afterwords.
When I read that, what ran through my mind was, "Crap, I don't have any reason not to do this." My day job was outsourced recently and I did not have any freelance projects lined up for the week yet. I have no kids, and although I do whatever I can to help my wife, we can function independently for a week if need be. So I talked to Nicole and we read up on the flood damage in Baton Rouge. She gave me the ok and I said yes. Up until the day we left though, a part of me did not believe that it was going to happen. Something would come up, or someone would come to their senses and we would be rescued from ourselves.
The force was with us though, and come Monday night, Mike and I pulled into the church that we would call home for the rest of the week. It was a grueling 14 hour drive, but that was just the start. A Baton Rouge Nazarene church that was unaffected by the flood was hosting groups from around the nation who were willing to come trade room and board for work rebuilding local residents and sister churches that were hit by the flood. We were staying with a group from Mike's parents church. Mike made it clear to the group leader that we were not Nazarene, but he knew Mike since he was a kid and hosted us anyway. He made sure to treat us the same as anyone else that was there, which was very christian of him.
Day 1: The next morning I awoke before the light were turned on at 6:30 in the gym. The cots were the kind that have a metal bar through the middle ensuring you wake up with a sore back. I was nervous and excited and wanted to hit the shower before the crowds. Eventually, when the sane people woke up, I found that the church gym had a small dining room with coffee, fruit, cereal and pop tarts, which I hadn't had in a long time. I grabbed a bag and some coffee and called it the lap of luxury. Then they served real breakfast which was pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage. I continued to be impressed by the quality of food and hospitality that our hosting church gave us. It really started and ended the days on a high note.
The relief workers were divided into 2 groups, one group went to work on people's houses, our group was assigned to work on a church that got hit by the flooding. Mike and I were both a little disappointed, we thought we would be going to people's houses and helping them, but this was important to the community as well, so neither of us said anything. As the site leader was showing us what jobs needed to be done, he got to the end and said "Now this job is going to be nasty. This modular home was a nursery and utility building for the church, 4 people need to crawl under there and cut out the wet insulation, two people need to carry it to the road. You can take shifts." As soon as he started talking, I knew Mike, that SOB, was going to volunteer for this job. Sure enough Mike raised his hand as soon as the guy finished and volunteered. I raised my hand to volunteer as well, but when the under-the-trailer-team was assembled, Mike suggested I start out carrying the debris to the road. I loaded up my wheelbarrow with some old furniture while they donned plastic suits and masks and started hauling. We had to wear jeans and work boots and the temp was in the high nineties plus 1000% humidity (hyperbole), so I'm drenched in sweat immediately. The work under the trailer was as bad as predicted, the insulation was water logged and heavy and it was muddy and hot. periodically work members would take breaks drinking water and I offered to trade jobs with them but they declined. I ran that wheelbarrow back in forth from the trailer to the road in a steady stream, dripping sweat, adding mud from lifting the insulation into the wheelbarrow. I drained water bottles as I went, a couple of times other workers asked me if I had gotten sprayed with a hose, I said "No I guess I don't deal with heat well." We finished removing the insulation by lunch time and everyone had a laugh at how filthy we all were. My companion on the wheelbarrow team was a guy in his 60s named Lathan. He kept telling me how impressed he was with how hard I worked, but I was really just killing myself to keep up with him. We had sandwiches for lunch and finished cleaning out the inside of the trailer that afternoon, removing drywall nails and tile pieces from the floor to get it ready to be rebuilt. I swept up debris with Lathan and continued running the wheelbarrow to the road. By the end of the day we had the site totally prepped for drywalling and we headed back to a turkey dinner at our host church. Mike and I showered before dinner, so a lot of the food was gone, but we still got plenty. Afterwords, I read a little and crashed out on my cot early.
Day 2: Woke up, used restroom, went back to cot to go back to sleep and the lights came on. Had coffee and a breakfast souffle of eggs, ham, and cornflakes. It was good. Afterward I helped load 12 foot drywall sheets onto a trailer to take to the church. Half our team from the day before was sent out to work on a house with other relief workers, Mike and I and a few others went back to do the drywall on the church. We couldn't put the bottom on because it was still too wet. I had no idea what I was doing, but give me a screw gun and a few tries and I am good to go on any project. The trailer was air conditioned, so up until we loaded drywall into the church I was relatively dry, with only minimum drywall dust on me. We knocked out all the drywall we could put up in the morning and broke for lunch. The afternoon we moved onto the church itself. There was a pair of team members spraying everything down with a borax-bleach water formula to kill any mold and prevent any spores from growing. We started putting up insulation and drywall in the church, but again parts were too wet. They had more than enough people helping with the drywall, so I went to help put in insulation. Again I didn't know what I was doing, but got the hang of it quickly. Unfortunately after me and another guy finished a couple of rooms, we found out they had not been sprayed with bleach yet and we had to take out all the insulation we had put up, wait for it to be sprayed and then put it up again. End of the day I was not as sweaty or dirty, but I was itchy, so another afternoon shower was in order.
That night the group leaders had planned a sermon, so Mike and I went out to eat and saw a movie. We found a place though Google that said it served southern food and drove there. It was weird how certain streets, some houses were hit by the flooding and others looked untouched. The houses that were hit by flooding had to be gutted. All their furniture, appliances, insulation and drywall were piled along the side of the road, a crew with dump trucks and a crane would come and clear it all up eventually. So you had half a street that looked like the apocalypse had hit, and half with manicured and perfect lawns. The restaurant was phenomenal. we had beer basted mussels for appetizer and shrimp and catfish for dinner. Mike surprised me by picking up the check, his thank you for me coming along on this adventure. The movie we saw was Jason Borne. It was ok.
Day 3: Woke up when they turned on the lights. My intended breakfast was coffee and a banana for easing muscle fatigue. My stomach had been a little upset since I got down there, so I planned on not having anything else, then they revealed cheest grits, biscuits and sausage gravy. You can't go to the south and not have biscuits and sausage gravy so I caved in and it was delicious. Mike and I went with the crew that was working on houses that day. You could take that as a critique of my screw gun work the day before, but I choose to see it as just a random dividing of tasks that fortuitously allowed us to do what we came there for. As I was loading drywall for the other crew I whacked my thumb on the roof of the transport trailer.
Mike and I rode with the other Michiganders to the FEMA relief headquarters set up at an expo center. National guard troops were set up all around it directing people where to go. I looked at the uniforms and could only imagine how hot it would be to not only have on long heavy pants and boots, but army fatigue jackets on top. We were teaming up with a group called Samaritans Purse. To work for them you had to wear an orange T-Shirt with their logo and abide by a pamphlet of rules and ideals while on the work site. The pamphlet starts out saying they are Christians, that's the true god, standard stuff. Suggests you not break peoples stuff while working on their houses, and pray with the homeowner to comfort them if they need you to. Then it got weird. It lists this item "We believe that procreation should only be done as a product of marriage and that marriage may only be between a man and a woman. I finished reading and looked at Mike, He looked at me, we both were wondering if the other one was going to say something. The girl who gave us the pamphlet asked if it was ok or if we could at least abide by their beliefs while we were on-site. I said, I don't believe all of this, but I don't think it will come up. She said good enough and we got our orange shirts and went to the work site. As they played their christian rock in the van on the way to the work site, the people we rode with went on and on about how great it was that people down there were so comfortable talking about Jesus. I wanted to shout "No duh, you are in the south. You are the majority here. Try talking about Mohammad and see where that gets you!" but I didn't. They were nice people doing good for others, so I kept my cynicism to myself.
The site was an older couple's home. Every house on the street looked like it was hit by flood damage, most were already being worked on, this home had barely been started. Samaritan's purse teamed us up with a site chief named Dave who looked to be in his fifties but still very fit and a bunch of teens and college kids from Ohio. There was a minute here they heard we were from Michigan and they moaned, but we did invade them once to try to steal Toledo, so it is understandable. The homeowners wanted to pray with us to begin the day, so we formed a circle and prayed. Then the site chief assigned tasks to people, explaining each in detail. This was not his first rodeo. Mike and I volunteered to take out the kitchen cabinets with another tall old guy named Mike. We got in there and found that the screws holding the cabinets in place were all stripped and had been painted over about a million times (Hyperbole). We would have to break them to get them out. They had no sledgehammers for us, so Mike started pounding out the shelves with a regular hammer. I carried the debris to the street. I was timid about breaking them at first due to that pamphlet that said not to break stuff. Eventually logic won out, we were gutting the house, it all had to be thrown out, it made no sense not to break it to get it out, so we smashed away and eventually got it out. A lot of this time, Dave the site leader started out going around, making sure everyone was doing their jobs right, but partway through the morning, as I was carrying out debris I noticed him lying on the front lawn, praying with one of the kids on the work site. He remained there until all of the tasks he had assigned were done and all the other kids were outside with him. Mike and I noticed that Lathan was the only one working at this point, so we helped him clean out the debris in the master bathroom.
After we got that done and met up with everyone on the lawn, Dave went over how to remove the drywall. He had a good method for it, one guy pries it off and other line up to hold it and carry it out in full pieces so that no debris falls and mold spores are not spread. Mike got assigned to be a pry offer. He struggled with it at first but got it going eventually. I also struggled with the prescribed carrying method because I could not use my left thumb to carry anything. The nail was purple and it throbbed from where I hit it in the morning. I figured out my own method for carrying that did not break the drywall and kept it off the floor soon though and we were ripping though that drywall quickly. I don't know if Dave assigned a few more drywall pryers or if some of the kids just decided to do it, but a bunch of dofferent groups sprang up throughout the house working. Dave quit prying up drywall shortly before that to tell me a story about how his ex girlfriend cost him his truck and he almost got hit by a car as he walked down the center of the road but God saved him. He said the moral was to listen to God not your Girlfriend. I laughed along with him, ok, maybe more at him, knowing that my wife has 3 black belts in various martial arts, owns and knows how to use many swords, nunchuckas, bow staffs and knives and would most assuredly smite me if I chose to ignore her to listen to what I thought was God, who is not exactly batting a thousand on smiting evil doers now a days. He tends to let the local law enforcement and armed forces handle that stuff now.
A local Elks lodge was grilling free hamburgers for relief workers and displaced home owners, so the group went and got those for lunch. It tasted delicious. We ate in the van in the air-conditioning. I found out later the outside temperature was 104 that day, (no hyperbole) and we were all soaked with sweat and covered in dirt. After everyone ate, we went back to the house lawn. Lathan fell asleep on a kitchen chair in front of a fan in the house. Dave and the kids were all out there, they had a girl in the group sing a song. he asked people, "What's your story? some kids talked a little, After a while Mike got up and went in and started working. I went in to help. As I carried debris out to the road they called out to me to join a prayer circle they formed and I passed "If I stop working now, I won't start again I said." I upset some people but the site chief told them to let me work. Eventually everyone started again and he patted me on the back. He seemed like he was sorry for me, but I can't be sure. We were almost finished with the drywall and somebody had to start removing insulation. It was wet still and nasty so I started doing it. Bill, a nice guy who drove us to the site also joined in and two brave college girls held and carried out the garbage bags we filled with the wet stinking moldy insulation. During the process, we uncovered a full cockroach nest. It is true, cockroaches can survive anything. Bill, the girls and I made short work of the insulation and Dave suggested we start on the kitchen floor. It was fake wood linoleum tiles and came up really easy, but held water and slime under it, creating one of the worst odors I ever experienced. Mike had a great idea to fill a wagon with it to speed up the process and we got through that fast too. After that I helped Lathan remove carpet in another room. The bathroom of the house was done last, a bunch of kids got in there and there was not much I could do to help other than carry out debris. Finally, we had to clean up all of the floors, leaving no dust or drywall behind because the chemical they use to kill the mold would bond it to the floor causing real problems when the house was rebuilt.
After we finished sweeping, there was one kid with a shop vac going through the house. The Michigander crew I came with was outside and pretty much agreed that there wasn't anything else for us to do. and we should go. It was 5:00, we were spent, dinner would be served soon. I went to tell Dave we were leaving and he said to wait, that they were doing a bible presentation. I thought it would be another weird prayer circle thing, but it turned out to be worth staying for. They had a bible people on site signed with encouraging words for the home owners. When Bill presented it to her She called us all her angels and thanked us sincerely. At that point, despite the buckets of sweat that had poured out of me all day, I teared up and almost bawled. A lot of bad stuff has happened to Nicole and I this year. In less than a month, I lost my job, our condo leaked into a neighbors, our dog jumped out of my car on the freeway and died, her truck quit working and then her grandma died. But this lady and her husband had lost almost every earthly thing they possessed and she was thanking us with all her heart for what little we could do for her. What we did made a profound difference in her life at a time that she needed it most. Words can't describe what that felt like. I can only hope that no matter what lies ahead, I can match that strength that these people showed facing this horrible disaster.
That night's dinner was spaghetti and Mexican Chicken, it was weird but delicious. Afterward Mike and I played cards with Lathan till lights out.
Day 4: Woke up with the light already on. Blisters on feet, thumb sore, back aching but ready to take on our last day there. ate eggs and bacon and cinammon rolls. We loaded a bunch more drywall, I was careful not to damage any more digits this time. All of our group was leaving that day, so we cleaned the whole church gymnasium we had stayed in. Then we took the drywall to the church site. Not much was left that we could do there, it was still too damp to finish the walls off so we worked a little in the morning, unloaded the drywall for the next crew that was coming to work that day, I think they were coming from Alabama, but I'm not sure. Then they took us over to see the parsonage and some other houses destroyed by flooding. Everyone else was going out to lunch and heading back up north so Mike and I shook hands and hugged them and took off.
It was a long drive back to Chicago but we made it taking shifts. We had one last small adventure along the way when Mikes GPS told us to exit the highway and take back roads through Illinois to save 20 minutes. We were in the middle of nowhere, it was 2:00 and we were low on gas. Then fog rolled in. Eventually the GPS got us back to the highway and a gas station, right as the "You are almost out of gas, dummy!" light dinged on.
Some people say everyone should have to join the army for a year. I have never agreed because, well, I don't want to. So I won't say everyone should do disaster relief once, but I will say it was the hardest I have ever worked, and the best I have ever felt afterwords.
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