Declining Main Street

I stopped in to the Friendship Hardware Store on Main Street today. Suzie Simmons, who owns the store, tells me that she'll be closing the store in a couple months. It's a timely reminder of how bad things are on Main streets around the country. Things are bad.

The hardware store kept running, perhaps long after its time, by supplying some of the special needs of the lobstermen in Friendship. Reels of rope, all weather rubber jackets and pants, rollers, and a great supply of stainless steel hardware, hard to find even in the big box stores. Fall is usually the high demand season for the hardware store, because it's the big season for the fishermen. But not this year.

Friendship's last B&B

This year, the lobster buyers, mostly from Canada, have met all the demand and have stopped buying. The fishermen have stopped fishing. The price for lobster is incredibly low, $2 to $3 a pound wholesale, or less. At that price, you can't afford to fill the boat with fuel, or buy bait to bait the traps. So the fishermen are staying home, living on their savings, if they have any. And if the boats aren't running, they don't need any hardware.

There are other problems visible on Main Street in Friendship. One house is being gutted, a result of tear gas damage that occurred when the resident had some nasty hallucinations and stood off the police for several hours. Another house is being boarded up, after being destroyed by fire last weekend. There aren't that many houses on Maine Street to begin with. Losing two is a significant percentage.

Wallace's Store

At Wallace's store, gas is only $2.99 per gallon, far less than it was earlier this summer when the pump price had to be doubled because the pumps couldn't be set for over $4.00 per gallon. And the owner was found working both ends of the store, making sandwiches in the back then running to the front to ring them up on the cash register. His customers are patient, but he won't last long at this rate.

This is the latest in the year that we've stayed in town. The other summer folks are all gone, they left by Columbus Day. I expected that Friendship would be somewhat bleak during the off season. But this year, it seems downright depressing. Makes me wonder what will be left to come back to when we finally come back.

Reflecting on fall

Maple reflections

I am often amazed and amused by reactions of people, or the lack of them, in response to major events. There are some seriously historic events affecting us right now: Major financial upheaval, a presidential election with a black candidate, two major hurricanes battering the gulf coast, the Red Sox losing game 2 of the ALCS, trees in Maine changing color. OK, the last two are only historic for the moment, if there can be such a thing. But the rest are really, really important, yet we live on without much change or effort.

We were surprised that after hurricane Gustav passed through Louisiana, the major media dropped the story immediately. Electricity was out through major portions of the state for weeks, yet we had volunteers arriving during weeks 3 and 4 wondering what they were coming down there for.

The financial crisis that faces us certainly affects nearly everyone. But there are few actions that we can take locally to alter the situation. Even if we should go out and buy a new car right now to support the ailing auto industry, it's likely that the banks wouldn't give us a car loan. Plus, buying a new car would be 'more of the same' action that got us into this problem, overspending into debt.

Filling the hive

The diligent residents of New England are doing what they have always done, despite the news. Like the bee at the left, they are loading up the wood bin, sealing up the windows, canning the produce, and generally preparing for 6 months of cold, snowy weather. They talk, complain, and fret about the news, and some of it affects them directly, like the lobster men having to shut down for a few days because their major customer in Canada cannot buy any more lobster right now.

Hatchet Cove in October

But time marches on, and fall colors are a signal that it's time to put away the boat and fly rods. Fall is a beautiful time in New England. Our stop at LL Bean last week informed us that Columbus Day is the busiest day of the year in Freeport, a tribute to both the colorful countryside and the need for sturdy winter clothes.

So here's historic news for the weekend. The woods here are alive with color. I'm going to take my camera and capture some of it in a bottle to share with my friends during the long, leafless winter months down south. Call CNN. Let 'em know.

Flying Home

ERVs ready to go home

By the end of September, things are winding down on DR159 in Baton Rouge. Only a handful of ERVs are still binging food to the damaged neighborhoods, so the rest are gathered at headquarters in Baton Rouge and washed, repaired, checked, and replenished with supplies. Many of the original crew members have already returned home, so new drivers are found, and in some cases flown in to return them to their custodial chapters throughout the USA.

I took an opportunity to speak with the Public Affairs group, to see if my skills and intuition were suitable to work as a volunteer taking photographs and writing stories on an operation such as this. Sharing the work we are doing is important to reveal our contributions to the general public, and to our donors as well. I gave them a link to this blog as a reference, and they said I would be welcome to come work for them, after I had taken the appropriate training. So I may do that in the future.

The triplets

Working at headquarters is not without a little fun and an occasional hi-jinx to lighten the mood. Early in the operation, the job director brought in a Bayou Bengal, a stuffed tiger named after the LSU mascot. The tiger would be handed off every day as an acknowledgement of a job well done by a group or department. At first, it was simply handed off, but when it was my turn to give it away, I made up a story about how the tiger was actually a Red Cross volunteer, that it was assigned to do mental health, and I had filled out an official transfer form to give it away to the next department. Over the next few days, the tiger story grew and grew, one day having had triplets who were abandoned in a staff shelter and fleeing to Texas under the "safe haven law". The triplets got name tags, Faye, Gustav and Ike, after the 3 hurricanes that had ravaged Louisiana this year. The mother returned, blamed Tony the Tiger as the father, and was put up in a hotel. And on, and on.and on.

On September 29th, Consuelo departed Baton Rouge and flew back to Maine. She had spent 4 weeks on the job with Red Cross, working 3 weeks in staffing and the last week in In-Kind donations. In-Kind is part of the Material Supply System that organized donations made to the Red Cross. These could be corporate donations such as pallets of canned water from Anheuser-Busch to a 10 minute a capella concert by the Phi Mu Alpha Symphtones, which we had in headquarters one day. Working in In-Kind gave her a different view of the operation, but I think she still likes working with people more than stuff.

On Tuesday, October 7th, I flew home from Baton Rouge, having spent 5 weeks on the job, with 2 days off. I felt a sens of accomplishment for the job I did, and my performance evaluation reflected that.

By noon on Monday, I began finishing up the tasks I had left on my desk, made a few final changes to the personnel database, and turned in my cell phone. I checked out my rental car, which would be returned to the airport on the next day. I showed Martha Fortenberry how to generate the data for the daily report using a spreadsheet I designed, that reduced a 2 hour job to about 10 minutes. It was faster and easier, but a little tricky, and non-programmers might easily make stumbles along the way.

Decorations at Boutin's

On Monday night, 8 of the remaining staff got together at Boutin's, an authentic bayou restaurant that served alligator and frogs legs, mudbugs, and catfish. It was a goodbye dinner for all, since the numbers in headquarters had dwindled significantly, with under 200 visiting volunteers like us on the job in Louisiana.

After dinner, I went to the hotel, packed my bag, and requested a 5:00 AM wake up call. I got to the airport OK, but initially parked my Hertz rental car in the Avis return spot. This because when we arrived, we got a car from Avis. But I quickly realized my mistake, and move on to the Hertz spots.

Air travel into Atlanta was predictably delayed, and I was about 10 minutes late making my connection for a flight at 10:50 to Boston. Fortunately there was another 12:05 flight to Boston, and it had room for me. And as I write this, I gliding over Long Island Sound as the plane begins its descent.

I'm tired. It has been a long 5 weeks, coming out of retirement to work 10-11 hour days, witnessing 2 hurricanes, and out of touch with my normal routines of life. The food has been OK, but difficult to manage in a healthy way, and I expect I have gained another 6-7 pounds, as I did in Indiana and had not worked off. I miss cooking, I miss my puppy, and for the last week, I ,missed Consuelo.

But the work is rewarding. I was literally moved to tears several times by the commitment of all the volunteers that showed up, taking chunks of time out of their lives, many far more precious than mine, to help other out in times of disaster. It is heartwarming to be part of a group whose principles include minimizing human suffering, and whose mission is to bridge the gap between the initial response and the long term recovery. As my health and finances permit, I will continue to offer my services in this cause.