Yesterday, I remembered a holiday party in Hattiesburg on a Saturday night three years ago where Father Tommy offered a blessing and shared in the good cheer of the occasion. There were new faces and good friends present and I felt at home and welcome. There was talk of Golden Eagle football and children were eying gifts under the Xmas tree.

I remembered the Saturdays and Sundays that semester when colleagues showed up in Ocean Springs and saved our home. After almost everything had been thrown away, there was still wall board and insulation to be ripped out and carried to the street. There were tedious tasks including tearing up soaked flooring and I had forgotten about insulation underneath the house where the waters from the Back Bay first encroached once they rose above the level of Camille.

Katrina and Camille, apparently, were sisters and so it must have been time for sibling rivalry to be invoked and for the one to try to out do the other by reaching for the next level. I cannot forget the realization that this insulation too had to go and that, while I stood stunned and before I could do anything, the anthropology department emissary was dirtier than a nineteenth century coal miner performing this necessary triage. If this had not been done, what the storm left behind would have had to have been demolished.

I dont think that it really dawned on me that a new page had turned until the department of social work unveiled real world skills that I sorely lacked. The old steel bathtub had to go. Flooring underneath it was wet. This was the last remaining constant inside the walls of the house. Surely, the house must have been built around it since it was so solid, sturdy and still there. But, out it went with the application of a plumbers skills (there is always more to the story of becoming an academician than the rite of passage that is the doctoral dissertation). The combined muscle and ingenuity of an interdisciplinary team maneuvered this artifact through and around support beams and doorways on the path to the curb with all the rest. I think that some of this account was reported in the Oak Grove High School Gazette. The author of that piece by now is likely off to college or waiting on admission decisions. I hope that the news is all good on this front.

There is also the wardrobe that still serves me well which appeared on my second day back at work after running from the storm. It was gifted to me by a departmental angel and almost all of it fit. The running joke still among those who know me well enough to offer comment to my face is that this makeover was an overdue improvement. Sheepishly (and gratefully) I concur with their analysis.

I am looking forward to the holidays and have been thinking about these friends and, paradoxically, those good times. I am hopeful that good things continue to be in store for us all in the New Year.

Seasons Greetings,

Eric Luce