Pictures (profound, I know)

Last week while we were working outside of Ashville, Alabama, helping to cleanup one of the tornado sites, we had the privilege of meeting Governor Bentley. I had left with a couple friends to truck some stuff to somebody's barn to stay out of the rain, and when I pulled back into the yard of the house we were working on, there were St. Clair count sheriff cars and deputies everywhere, along with two massive black SUVs, a guy with one of those communication wires hanging out of his ear and a host of other people (including those camera guys).
We got out and just started wandering around, trying to figure out what was going on and why there were so many people with guns standing around when Dad beeped me on my radio.
"Where are you?"
"I just got back."
"You know who's here?"
"Who?"
"Govenor Bentley."
It was about then that I saw the Governor down by another house; the Lee place where Mr. Tom Lee died Wednesday night before last, protecting his son and praying for his family while the twister smashed the house around him. A couple of Red Cross people had come by a few days before and been the first outsiders to get the Lee story. ABC News showed up the next day, I think it was, and so I guess the Governor chose to come here of all places because of the unique and heartbreaking Lee story, and maybe because of his own faith.
Anyway, we got to meet him, he wears a size 13 shoe, he's a nice guy, and he was very kind. One of those camera guys was kind enough to snap our picture along with a few other guys, and then later sent it to us. The Governor talked about National Prayer Day, and how important it was. He also told me that he had talked to the President just the other day, and told him that Alabama needed the Federal government's help, but that Alabama was going to get through it one way or the other.

Anyway. He was a nice guy, and I liked him.

On the left is Noah. The next guy is a new friend of ours who had gone with me to truck that stuff (so I wouldn't get lost...he's a local), and so he was with us. Then the Governor, and me, Isaac, Dad, and some other guys that I had no idea who they were, so I cut them out.
In the background, btw, is the house we were primarily working on.


We also had the opportunity to meet the West ladies, who were working and staying at the Boyd's house, other friends of ours who lived near the Lee place. Dad took this picture to send to them since they only met four of us, and I thought I'd post it as well.

From left to right...
Noah (12) Dad, Mom, Benjamin (5), Isaac (15), Hannah (3), Samuel (7), Me (17) and Micah (10).
The only person missing is out older brother Adam, who's 25 and is...somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Red Stick, LA

Last week, starting at 4:30AM on Wednesday, dad, Isaac and I left town to go to Baton Rouge Louisiana. Dad had an interview there for a potential job that was set for 12:30 that afternoon, and he wanted to take Isaac and I along to travel with him and spend time in Baton Rouge, which could be our next home city.
We left our home in Tyler, Alabama, and took a few county roads to Greenville, where we jumped on the interstate. On the way we talked about politics, Lincoln, the war in Iraq, America in global wars, and other very entertaining subjects. Then I fell asleep, so I can't speak for what happened from that point until the outskirts of Mobile, some time later. Outside of Mobile, Alabama, there are these really large, really cool bridges spanning the Mobile river. I awoke to Isaac saying behind me "are those the bridges?"

From that point on, almost everything was new to Isaac and I. We had seen Mobile before, but when we turned west and crossed into Mississippi, everything was different. For one thing, the instant you cross the border, you are bombarded by something like twenty billboards screaming the evil pleasures of gambling in your faces. Needless to say, this was no incentive for me to want to move to Mississippi (I never had wanted to anyway, but I guess you could say that this was putting the nails in the coffin, as they say). I was pretty irritated, actually. But that irritation was calmed as Dad began to tell stories.


Dad grew up in coastal Mississippi for about ten years of his life, between '75 to '86, including high school. As we crossed bridges and rivers, he told us stories about how he'd gone swimming in that river, attached a rope to that bridge and swung into this river, nearly busted his boat in that river, ecetera. It was incredible. We'd never seen this side of Dad before, the more Tom Sawyerish side of boyhood adventure under the thundering bridges of I-10 west and east. He was calling out the names of rivers we couldn't pronounce to save our lives (Tchoutacabouffa; try that one for size) and remembering things he and friends had done years ago before any of us were even thoughts.

The next event in our travels was a stop in the little town of Covington, Louisiana. Crossing the border into Louisianan was much better than the last border crossing, with no sign of any of that offensive gambling propaganda. Louisianan is without a doubt the most unusual state in the southeast, however. Unlike the other 49 states in the union, Louisianan does not have counties. Instead, they have "parishes", which are basically the same thing, except they are based off the Catholic church's system of division in Church government, as well as the basis of law in the state. Louisiana is the only state in the union who's laws are not based off of the English Common Law (based on Protestantisms). Instead, they're laws are founded on the Napoleonic Code (based on Catholicism).  Because of the French heritage, the Catholic influence is pretty heavy (New Orleans Saints), and there are also these little flower symbol things ALL OVER town that have something to do with Catholicism and the New Orleans Saints also.


Other than this, the atmosphere was pretty much the same, except for the driving habits. I don't know whether I like this or not, but it seems that the good citizens of Louisianan as well as Mississippi actually follow the speed limits. Crazy, I know. I mean, in Alabama, you're not speeding until you're at least ten over the legal limit. Driving 65 in a 65 means that you're being blown past like you're driving in reverse. Not so in Louisiana. Here the people actually obey the limits, which is a bit of a culture shock, to say the least.

Back to our stop. The town of Covington has a population of only 8,483 (according to Wikipedia). With that information in mind, I think we were all expecting a decidedly unpleasant bump in the road, but nothing more. A gas station or two, a few dirty inns and a McDonald's. Major shock again. As it turns out, this little place sports some of the most varied shopping you could ask for. There's a Target, a Lowes, all kinds of inns, a Best Buy, several grocery stores, a Wal-Mart (and we thought the place was perfect, there for a second...) and several other selections. Honestly, we could execute an average shopping trip for the family groceries with no trouble in such a place. And there's only 8k actual city dwellers to dodge while doing it.  Apparently, there's quite a large population outside of the city that come to town to shop. I don't see how else they could support such a selection.


Next on our route was Baton Rouge itself. Baton Rouge is a French name, which comes from the heavy French populous of the state in years gone past. In English, the name means "Red Stick", and I have absolutely no idea why they named it that. One way or the other, if you ask me, Baton Rouge is a pretty awesome name, and really fun to say. Once we got into town, the only peculiar thing we noticed about this place is that many of the on-ramps entering the freeway out of the city have traffic lights on them. You have to stop on the ramp and wait for a green light before it will let you enter the highway, and it will only let two cars enter at a time. It makes sense, I suppose, but it's very odd. I'm used to using an on-ramp for major acceleration and then figuring out whether or not there's room for me on the actual freeway when I get there.


The rest of the town was pretty ordinary, as towns go in the south. The people were extra friendly, as a general rule, however. There are 13 libraries (one of those things that I had to find out pronto with the consideration that I might be moving here one day) and the one we visited was very nice and clean. It was a little odd to have to walk through metal detectors to enter the building, and both Isaac and I had second thoughts about our knives, but apparently the systems are designed to detect guns, of which we obviously were clean.

We had a few hours to explore the city and enjoy lunch together at a local restaurant called Burger King before it was time for Dad's interview, and he left us as the Mall of Louisiana for a few hours.
This mall is larger than any mall in Alabama, with the only possible exception of the Galleria in Birmingham. It has two floors, three major department stores, numerous specialty shops, and all the other strange places that malls usually host. Like all malls, however, it is full of selfish people and dominated by females (not to draw a connection between the two, of course). It wasn't long before Isaac and I had had our fill of the atmosphere, and found ourselves bored in a place most people love to spend hours in. We spent a while in a regular bookstore, and then another walk to a Christian bookstore a half mile or so away. Ironically enough, the rudest people in town were the employees in this place, and they weren't even rude. They were actually quite pleasant, but compared to the rest of the people we met (aside from those good citizens who shoved past us in the mall, of course) they almost seemed curt and short. Still nice people, though.

After a while dad got out of the interview and we headed out of town. On our way to some friends of ours with whom we planned to stay the night, we took a wrong turn and ended up on the freeway that swung through New Orleans on the way to Bush, where our friends lived. We didn't really get into the real city. We just crossed through the outskirts, and let me tell you, that was enough for then. The place is simply scary. They've already had over 100 murders this year, and had over 350 last year. It's dark and oppressive and really dirty, and we weren't even in the actual city. As scary as it was, however, I couldn't resist wanting to see more, to get into the city and see what the people were like. I was once accused by a friend of always asking people who have traveled to places I haven't been "what are the people like?" The accusation is true. I always want to know what the people are like, what they like to eat, how they talk, what they do for entertainment, livelihood and government. People really fascinate me, and I wanted to see what the people and their town here in extreme southern Louisiana was like. Of course, a great deal of this is the novelist in me. As a writer, I took hefty advantage of the trip to gauge what kind of place Baton Rouge and New Orleans might be to set a novel. New Orleans, I decided, must be an marvelous place to set a novel, particularly a murder mystery, what with it being so dangerous (yes, I'm strange. Tell me something I don't know). Just think of all the deadly places and situations I could toss my hero into, in a city as big and dangerous as New Orleans!


Okay, so you're bored now. Back on subject.


After we got out of there (alive and well, surprise surprise) we took the highway over lake Pontchartrain to Bush. The lake bridge is something like 26 miles long, and the lake is just huge. The skies were moderately clear, but in the middle you can't see any sign of either bank. The water is brackish, an average of 12 to 14 feet deep, and at first the waves were only about 2'. Later, though, the swells rose to what Dad estimated to be 6', with plenty of whitecaps. Really awesome.

There are crossovers on this bridge every few miles to connect them, and we saw at least two tow trucks sitting on these crossovers, waiting for disaster, as it were. Makes sense. A major wreck on either side during rush hour would really mean trouble if it weren't cleaned up promptly.


We stayed the night with our friends outside of Bush, and had a great time visiting, laughing and enjoying some of Mrs. Moralaes' superb Cajun cooking. Let me tell you, that lady can cook up some amazing food. The family is more or less a local one. The mother is a Cajun, and Mr. Moralaes is Hispanic, but the family has lived in the area for a while. I love the way Mrs. Moralaes says "New Orleans". It's kinda like "New Orluns" or something like that. I told Dad that if we ever ended up living there, I'd want to learn to say it like the locals do. We slept hard that night before we were up again and on our way back to Alabama.

Thanks to our open schedule, we had more time in Mississippi that we had before, and Dad took us into Boloxi, a average sized city on the coast, home of Keesler Air Force Base and the place where he grew up those ten years. There we were able to see the house our grandparents built years ago while Papa was still in the Air Force, and visit the beach and other local locations for a few minutes. Sadly, several things that Dad remembered from when he was a boy were no longer there, compliments of hurricane Katrina, but there was still a lot of cool things (minus the huge casinos that arrived to poison the city after Dad moved away) to drive by, and more interesting stories to hear. We stopped by Beauvior for a few minutes, boyhood home of Jefferson Davis, which was also heavily damaged by Katrina, but has since been repaired.

Before leaving we had a taste of local seafood selection in the form of an delicious sandwich that the the locals call a "Po Boy". No idea where that name came from, but the food was really good. On the whole, Boloxi has a heavy feel of the sea and fishing, which are major industries and have been for years. The water is very dirty because the barrier reefs block the surf from cleaning it out, but the ocean is still pretty from a distance and people still do a lot of fishing there.

After we left Boloxi we headed back through Mobile and on home, armed with a load of my personal photography (which isn't much to look at, but I love snapping pictures by the dozens) and some really heavy eyelids. It was a great time spent with Dad on the road, and I guess the best part of it was hearing his stories and seeing the places he had told us about for so many years. To actually look at a spot where he could point and say "we used to play soccer there" or "I used to park my truck there, and Aunt Tinya used to accuse me of 'circling for a landing', because I would go around here and..." or "there's Buddy's barbershop!"...that was really cool.



I'll stop there and post a few pictures. We were really tired when we got back, and we since have been out of town some more, so this post is rather late. But We is always late, remember?


Eli for the Kings.

These are those bridges in Mobile. Horrid picture, I know. But the windshield was all splattered with bugs and I could hardly get out on the interstate.

 SEE? See that gold symbol on the sign? THAT is the flower thing that is all over Louisiana.

 Gas station we stopped at in Covington.

 Covington from the gas station.

 

This is the New Orleans newspaper. At the gas station again.

In Baton Rouge, now; The Mall of Louisiana. Looks a lot like the old Montgomery Mall, what with the domes and everything. In MUCH better shape, though.

Pretty obvious.

They had palm trees all over the place in Baton Rouge. Funny thing. The palm trees at the mall were almost always propped up like this with 2x4s. Quite laughable, really.

This was taken as proof for mom that our bank has at least one branch in Baton Rouge.

Isaac at lunch.

 Now I don't know about you, but if you ask me, that's a pretty handsome looking guy! :)

Bookstore next to the mall that Isaac and I hung out at. It's pretty much just like Books-a-Million, except, in my opinion, it's nicer.

Here's this really annoying guy that was following me around all over the mall. No idea what he wanted.

 If I were to ride a motorcycle (which I ain't...Dad's made that one really clear) I'd ride one like that. Is it cool or what?

Even had palm trees INSIDE the mall.

On the outskirts of New Orleans.

The same.

Leaving the outskirts...heading north over lake Pontchartrain. 

 

Boloxi, the next day. This is the house that our grandparents built in 1979. Bad picture, I know, but we didn't get out of the car, so it was tricky.

 This is the field that dad played in as a boy, to the right of the house facing it, across the road.

Boloxi, with the beach beyond.

 Isaac, with the (dirty) water beyond.

 Here's that handsome guy again!

This sand is not natural. They import it to boost tourism (which seems to be in vain to me, considering how dirty the water is). Papa was telling us that every time a storm comes in the sand gets washed away, and they have to import it again.

Some building north of the beach a few hundred yards.

 See that wall of brown sticks to the left? That's pure trash and sticks. Really nasty.

 Like I said. From a distance, it's really pretty. You can still kinda tell that it's dirty water, though.

 What would a beach be without seagulls? PEACEFUL.

 Here's they guy again. He left Baton Rouge, but apparently he followed me here.

The ENTIRE trip, mom's camera didn't want to open. When I hit the "on" button, the shutter would open up just a slit, and then stop, and I had to flick it with my fingernail to get it to open on up. Took this picture without flicking it just for fun.

 There he is again!

The funny thing about the parts of the sand that were wet is that if you pressed on them with your foot, they changed shimmer, and went from shiny to dull (or maybe it was the other way around...). Must have been a layer of oil on it or something.

There was this local guy fishing here, and he took our picture. Really funny guy, smoking a cigar that had to be six inches long. Behind us there used to be a major marina where all the big shots docked their boats. Dad used to come and play with his friends on a grassy spot to the left, and there was a restaurant beyond the marina bay. All that got wiped out in Katrina.

 Still here. This time in my own seat.

Here's the little shack place where we ate lunch on Thursday. It was a combination of a seafood market and a restaurant, and stunk horribly of seafood. But the food was great.

 There's the seafood market part.

 I don't think he liked having his picture made.

 What do you know? There he is once more. :)

A really strange place some where in Boloxi.

This was a funny looking house. Kinda cool, too though. Aside from the pink paint.

Fishing...or catching, if you're Micah.

We is back. We is late, but We is always late. The good news is that We is, in most of We's life, anyway, consistently late. This means that We is usually late by the same margin of time, or that We is always on time, just not everyone else's time. In other words, We is not late, just out of sync with the rest of society. At least, this is what We likes to tell people when We is late, but the truth is that We is not telling the truth. We is simply late. 

Anyway. 

Today We went fishing. Not all of us, but just Dad, Micah, Samuel, Benjamin and I, while Mom and Hannah watched and commented. Benjamin had been wanting to fish for a while, and had just gotten a bamboo fishing poll that he was dying to try out. So, to pacify him and Samuel, we went down to our little pond to wet some line. It's not a big pond...maybe fifty feet long and twenty wide. 3' deep or so, at the most. We didn't really think there was anything in this pond besides mud and water, and we really just went down there to satisfy the craze of  a zealous 5 year old and a little less zealous (but still enthusiastic) seven year old.

As it turns out, there are fish in We's mud hol--excuse me, pond. Lot's of fish. I went down there just to try out a new bass rod and to practice with a few new lures, but by the time I got there, Micah had already caught a fish. I proceeded with my lures, and before long he had caught at least one and maybe two more with the age-old float and worm-on-a-hook rig (this really embarrasses those people who insist you have to have expensive and man-made lures to catch fish, but I maintain my lure position by reminding you that I was only practicing for bass, of which I knew there were none in this pond).

That said, the temptation to join in the fun was just too great. I deposited my lures in my tackle box, got out one of those tacky little orange and white foam floats along with a crappie hook, and went for a worm. Meanwhile, Micah was still hauling in bream at a consistent rate, with a few bites and losses in-between each successful catch.

Benjamin and Samuel weren't catching anything and were losing interest. But that was because they weren't casting into the right spot. Micah had the spot down, which was located right beside the mostly-submerged metal pan of a long-ditched wheelbarrow, which in turn was the sunken remains of one of our many (and never successful) raft building projects.

I cast my line, and soon enough I was getting nibbles. More casting, and more nibbles. Even got a few serious bites. Then I got a real bite. A big bite. This bite was agressive. I had one.

I started reeling in, completely thrilled despite the fact that I was reducing my nice bass rod to the status of a bream catcher rigged with a method that was so archaic as to date back who-knows how many hundreds (if not thousands) of years minus the foam float.

I...didn't have a fish. When I first caught glimpse of the character in question, he appeared to be a catfish with a head the size of mine. Yes, that was scary. Then I hauled him on out. It wasn't a catfish. Nor was it a bream. But yes, it was alive. Very much so. And very large, too. Heavy also. It was a turtle  Big, nasty little guy. I hauled him out and then ran up to the barn to get a bucket. I wanted to take him to the house and take a picture for this long-abandoned blog.

We left for the house not long afterwards. Micah had reeled in five bream, by this time, but had returned all but one on account of their size. Aside from my very angry turtle (who had the nerve to make us destroy my crappie hook when we tried to do him a kind turn and remove it from his disgusting little maw) there were no other catches, and we returned to the house.

At the house dad took the time to show Micah how to clean his fish, which I believe was then donated to two of the family cats for a Sunday afternoon treat.

Here's some pictures. 

Until next time (when We hopes he will not be late, but doubts he will be on time)...

Eli for the Kings

Mr. Turtle (obvious, I know).

 For a creature with a house on his back and really small legs, this guy could move. He tried to get away by climbing under the deck rail. Guess he missed the little yellow clearance sign...

 Mr. Fish Catcher with his only keeper.

 Hehe...this scene reminds me of the French Revolution. I'll leave you to construe the rest yourself.

 Observant observers.

 Dad wears this shirt all the time. I doubt he even thought about it when he put it on today. 

The primary beneficiaries of the event.

Hello! My name is We

So we are here. We are here. But who is We? Well, obviously, this "We" refers to Us, a specific group of people. But who is "Us"? Well, one thing we know, is that whoever "Us" is, it isn't you, or them, or those people, or ya'll. No, it's definitely only Us.

So, now that we have decided officially that We is not you, we can proceed to the details of who We--and not you--are, exactly.

So who is this We that we--and not you--have been talking about?

Well, one thing we know is that We is a weird person. He's so weird that he's written everything above as a filter. We has put all that there to eliminate all those of faint heart. Those who weren't strong enough to battle through his weirdness will have left is disgust by now. Obviously you, or those people, or ya'll, are still here, however. We is now addressing you. Not the faint-hearted ones.

The first thing you need to know about We, is that We is actually more than one person, which makes sense since "we" is a plural pronoun that indicates we-ness. More than one person. So how many persons does this particular We indicate?

Well, this We indicates 10 people, actually. These ten people comprise the Biblical unit of we-ness, known as the family. This family is a close-knit unit of people dedicated to being We--and not you, him, her and that other person.

So, about this family. Who are they? Well, We are a unit of ten, as we said. First of all, We has a father. He's a very godly father who strives to lead his family in the Lord. He's really a neat guy. He enjoys reading and working around the house, and is also an expert in energy management (which is obvious, because he manages to feed We, and with with the size of We, that can be a challenge.)

Then we have a mother. The mother of this unit is an excellent, wonderful mother who leads her children everyday around the house. She's an excellent teacher and mommy, and also, if we dare say, a pretty amazing cook. Again, a major contributor to the energy excellence of the We unit in question

Then there is our dear Adam. He's brother number 1, and he's 25. Adam is older than the rest of us, and now lives on his own. He served our Nation (American, in case you were wondering) for five years as a Marine. Now he travels and is thinking about going to school. We thinks he would make a good engineer--he has a talent for the details in any project.

Then there is Me. Who is Me? Well,  Me would be the person writing this article about We--and not you. Me is brother number 2, and most people, including himself sometimes, call him Eli. He's 16, a writer and a blacksmith and and also a not-so-faithful blog poster (just ask his friends--who would be the you we have been referring to, as no one else would be enduring We's weirdness for this long).

Next, we have Isaac, who is brother number 3 and is 15. Isaac is a guitarist, and if Eli dares to say so, one of the best he knows. Isaac also love animals and guns. He's really pretty good at just about everything mechanical. He's an excellent driver, tractor operator and an avid reader. He devours good novels, when he can get them. He's also a WWII buff, and reads all about that.

After Isaac, we have brother number 4, who is called Noah, most of the time. He's 11. Noah is the only blonde of the family, and also the family comedian. He's into just about everything, now and then, and also loves a good novel. He also likes a good movie (as most of We does), and loves to do anything with his older brothers. Noah is also responsible for We's donkey and calf, and does odd jobs around the house.

Then there is Micah, brother number 5. Micah is the family little guy, and he's 10. He's much smaller than everyone else, actually, and is athletics and smart. He's good at math, and loves to dress up and play. He's great with his little brothers and loves to talk.

Following him, is the great Samodeni, who is more often called Samuel. Our dear Samuel is the family helper. He's seven, and loves to work with everyone. He's doing school now and always has a warm smile and laugh for everyone. He's growing to be a big, tall boy, and has an aggressive appetite after a hard day playing outside.

And now at last, we come to brother number 6. He goes by many names, but mostly, we call him Benjamin, and he's 5. We wouldn't be We without Benjamin. Benjamin is the mastermind of devious plan around the house. He's one of the more brilliant members of We, and has many curious skills. He's friendly and kind, and has a wonderful smile.

The last member of We is Hannah, our dear baby sister. She's just about to turn 3, and is the light of our lives day by day. She's sweet and loves to help her mommy in the kitchen, or go play guns with her brothers--either way. She also loves to talk and spend time with all her family. She's a really great addition to We.

So now you know who We is. We is the Kings, and we're happily living and learning. We live in Alabama on a small farm out in the country, and we have chickens, a donkey, a cow, cats and a couple dogs. Some people might think we also raise mice in our house, but we will neither confirm nor deny such accusations at this time.

We're excited about the new blog, and Me will try to post on it a little more often than the last one. He promises. He knows. He's sure of it. Really. Once a weak. Honest.

(It's We's opinion that Me is really trying to convince himself more than you.)

Until next time, Me for We.