Five Years Ago Today

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Hurricane Harvey hit us August 25, 2017.  This pic was taken by my brother outside a shopping mall that had been gutted.  Those are bales of clothing in the lot, free for those in need.  The grown man clutching a teddy bear seems to have got his cast off pants from Junior Samples.  But - those are 600 dollar boots he's wearing.  I think this derelict is rooting through charity items looking for really cool t-shirts.  I got several cases of emergency food from the army, and God Almighty did it suck.  That stuff made the old C rations look like the morning after Halloween.  I still have most of the free food, no coffee or tea included, the candy was Skittles, bad news all the way.  The difference between a crescent wrench and the emergency food we got was that you could eat a crescent wrench if you had to.  I'm not complaining, I stored up lots of food and liquor and tobacco before the 'cane hit.  Not for me the way of improvident fools.  I stayed because I could not leave my cats, and someone had to be there to throw open an outside door if it came to that.  I put on my best clothes and shaved so that when they found me under all that mud months later people would know I was a gent.  The only radio station to stay on the air for much of the blow was KLUX, a Catholic easy listening channel.  I was running up and down stairs moving the few possessions I care about shrieking with fear to the mellow sounds of Mantovani doing 'The Girl From Ipanema' and Bert Kaempfert rockin' out with Swinging Safari.  I later got good and drunk and fell asleep with the house shaking like a dog shitting pork chop bones.
 

“...and then, in dreaming,
 The clouds methought would open and show riches
 Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
 I cried to dream again.”

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