We are back. H.o.p. did not want to go to the Memorial and we didn’t press–the hundreds at the service would have been too much for him. And the two hour receiving line afterward. So I stayed at the house with him and helped friends of the family prepare, as they arrived from the service, for the luncheon. There were around 30 people at the luncheon. Maybe more.
H.o.p. was the only child present.
“It’s just like a movie,” he said several times.
I met more Mobile and New Orleans members of the family, cousins of my husband’s on his father’s side, mostly Roman Catholic. Nice people. My husband’s father’s father was straight-up Irish (though born and raised in Mobile) and Roman Catholic (in the South via the potato famine) and when my husband’s father’s parents divorced some went RC and some went Baptist, which is what my husband’s father’s mother had been.
I didn’t know relatives were flooded out of New Orleans (family of the cousins). Some of the members of the family had elected to stay, but one of them is a professional meteorologist and called and said, “Get out of there, this is nothing like you’ve ever experienced.” He is an associate research professor at the Stennis Space Center office in Hancock County of the university’s GeoResources Institute and is publishing a reference book on hurricanes which closes with Katrina, to which they lost their home.
They talked about family living with family while waiting and waiting to dry out and rebuild. Talked about those who don’t know yet if they will be rebuilding. Talked about cleaning out the houses. Talked about the mountains of debris. Talked about mountains of debris six stories tall. Talked about how sad it was to go back and drive past the houses with the X’s and the number of people found dead within.
There was a lot of talk about the Mississippi coast. A lot of anger over how it’s felt Mississippi has simply been abandoned and the news has not shown just how flattened it is, how the news and photos are still not coming out that would show the devastation that is now southern Mississippi. A fair amount of anger over hearing it repeatedly said that god socked it to New Orleans because it’s sin city. A lot of anger at people who talk about not rebuilding New Orleans. A lot of anger at Trent Lott and Bush. I don’t know what their politics were beforehand but there was even discussion of the evils of Wal Mart and boycotting it.
They talked about how my husband’s father’s mother, when in her 90’s, could recall every detail of just about any meal she’d had in her life. And that she kept the tame books on top of her sofa and the “spicy” books. “Harlequin spicy?” someone asked. “No, very spicy,” was the reply.
Marty says it was a very nice memorial. But the two hour receiving line was exhausting.
On the other side of my husband’s family, I met my mother-in-law’s brother for the first time that I can recollect, though Marty says I’ve met him very briefly before. An Assemblies of God minister. He looks a lot like her. Was very easy-going, smooth conversational and though I liked him right off I couldn’t tell if it was the family in him talking or the preacher in him but Marty says he really likes him, that he’s a nice guy. I kept staring at his shiny black patent leather shoes. I haven’t seen shoes like that in a long time and they looked pretty natty. Spotless. He wore a black shirt and black slacks and black patent shoes the first night and somehow he looked very Louisiana to me (they’re also from Louisiana). He reminded me some of his uncle, Estus, who was a spiffy dresser, at least in some photos. A kind of look that runs in the family the way Estus and he and Marty all have a similar way of standing, when in a suit, very casual but spiffed up in what I will always think of as a Louisiana look, hands in pants’ pockets, suit jacket tucked back behind hands. They have broad shoulders that are magnified by suits.
“Look like we’re either going to cheat you at cards or sell you a used car,” Marty said. “Ma’am, wanna buy a bible? Sure is hot out here. I could use some iced tea…”
Indeed, a Sunday-would-have-gone-to-church-but-on-my-way-there-I-got-waylaid-by-a-flashy-piano-on-Saturyday-night look. Except for Marty’s mother’s brother.
Marty’s mother’s brother had the story of how their Uncle Jodi was captured in WWII; he had told him a little about it and a little about Stalag IIB. They’d parachuted in and most of the men had been killed right off. Jodi was in a fox hole with another individual who kept sticking his head out to look and see what was going on. He kept telling him don’t do that, don’t do that. The man was finally shot. Three grenades were lobbed in the fox hole. Jodi managed to get two out but the third went off, which was how he was injured. He said the men who couldn’t walk to the POW camp were killed, and he passed out but for some reason was carried there. He spoke of laboring in the work camps and the diet being rutabaga soup, always rutabaga soup.
They had a Harper’s picture of the magazine being blown up in Mobile during the Civil War. They talked about the magazine being blown up and the “Federals” and “some said it was sabotage” like it was yesterday.
And I kept thinking how very different Southerners are from Northerners.
I was the only Northerner.
Papers were purchased for copies of the obituary and funeral notice.
There was lots of food. A lot of desert. It was all good. Except the macaroni and cheese and asparagus casserole that arrived late and was set out for dinner, I have a sneaking suspicion it’s what got my stomach gurgling and cramping. I don’t know why I ate it. It seemed a not very good idea at the time.
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