A Year In Cornwall

A Year In Mill Valley

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:01:55 +0000

Frank has started a new blog entitled A Year In Mill Valley. Sebastian say check it out. Or Spider-Boy is gonna get you!

A Year In Cornwall: Blog On Extended Leave

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 22:02:55 +0000

If you’ve come here looking for our blog A Year In Cornwall, you’ve come to right place. While we’re no longer in Cornwall, the blog is still here, with photos and stories of the almost two years we spent there. It was a time that was both wonderful and difficult, and like many thing in life, if we were to do it again we would do it quite differently…but that will have to wait for a future posting.

In the meantime we’re back in Northern California. Nathaniel is in 2nd grade. Sebastian is in pre-school. Rosie (the dog) flew back in February, after we bought a new house. I am currently working as Director of Engineering at a startup in Silicon Valley, and Rachel is starting a new career as a life coach. In other words we’re smack dab back into the life we left behind.

I don’t know when we’ll have a chance to live overseas again, but I’m sure we will. I think I’d like to live for a year in the Alps – somewhere where we can put the kids in school, ski for a season, and meet some interesting people. I’ve heard that Canazei, Italy might be a good place – if you think that’s true, or if you know other places we should be looking at in France, Switzerland or Italy, please let us know.

Until then, I have a couple of more Cornwall stories to tell…look for them soon.

With kindest regards,
– Frank and Rachel

My Favorite Stories

Daddy, Are We Going To Move Again?

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 07:04:24 +0000

Yes, Nathaniel, I’m sorry to tell you, but we’re moving again. (But then again maybe I’m not so sorry, because we’re doing it for you!)

Where do I begin this story? It’s long, and a bit convoluted, so maybe the best place to start is at some random beginning, say, exactly one year ago today.

A year ago we were still living outside of London. And on that second day of 2005, Rachel and I were drinking a glass of wine, trying to decide whether to stay in Leatherhead (outside of London), or move back down to Cornwall. For a variety of reasons…house, schools, peace and quiet (ahhhh)…we chose Cornwall.

Fast forward to July, 2005. The Cornwall house we were staying in was built in the 1860’s, purchased by Rachel’s father in the 1960’s, and given to his children – Rachel, her sister Kate, and brother Jonathan – upon his death seven years ago. They rent it during the summer to pay for the upkeep and the taxes, and so we had to be out for most of July and all of August. We considered renting a caravan and living in the bottom garden, but Rachel really wanted to spend some time in the U.S., and so we decided to move back to San Francisco for the summer.

We’d taken what had turned out to be an extended two year sabbatical, and while we hadn’t run out of money, there’d been a lot more coming out of the bank account than going in, and so I decided to look for a job, preferably one that would let me work remotely, i.e. in Cornwall. During an early 2005 trip back to San Francisco for some meetings related to Web Photos Pro I met with a company who was interested in having me do a photo product for them, and so I returned in mid-April to help design the product. They seemed pleased with the design document, and we started negotiations on a long term contract, one that would, I hoped, allow us to return to Cornwall.

While I was back in the U.S. on that April trip, I stopped by a friend who lived on a houseboat, and went to an open house on the next dock over. To make a long story just a little bit shorter, we decided to put some money back in the US housing market, and bought that houseboat. We figured we’d use it for the summer, fix it up a bit, and then rent it when we left. (The best part about buying the houseboat is that we did it all via phone and the internet. Yep, the whole thing. Our agent, Paul Bergeron, sent us PDFs via email, we printed them, signed them, and faxed them back. The only thing we had to do in person was show up for the close of escrow, which we did the day after we landed. A fantastically easy process, thanks to Paul, the lender, and our escrow officer.)

And that’s when the first bump in the road appeared. Just after we closed on the houseboat, the company I’d been consulting with decided to lose a cool $100 million in their 2nd quarter, and they cancelled the project. “Wow” I thought, “that sure puts a damper on on things doesn’t it?” After getting ourselves unpacked, I got in touch with old friends, and found that two had new startups. After a couple of interviews I took a job at one of the startups, in San Mateo, and while it doesn’t have anything to do with photos (unfortunately), it’s interesting work, with nice people, including some old friends from Apple.

So, we’re back in the U.S. We live on a houseboat. I have a job at a startup. And then September rolls around, and it’s time to put Nathaniel in school. And here’s where the part of the story entitled “why we’re moving” really begins.

It’s funny, but when we started our trip, and this “A Year In Cornwall” blog, Nathaniel had just turned four, and Sebastian was a babe in arms at three months, and schools weren’t even in the equation of what we were going to do, and where we going to live. But then we put Nathaniel in the little local Cornwall school – St. Minver – so that he (and we) would have some friends. And then we moved up to London and he attended two different schools: first, New Lodge, a private school in Dorking ("public school” to those reading this in the UK) where he wore a tie a jacket to reception (kindergarden to those reading this in the US) – cute beyond belief – and then to the sweet local church school, St. Michael’s in Mickleham, which was just as delightful.

Now it may seem that I’ve gotten off the track here, onto schools, but one of the things we learned from those three schools, is that a school is most definitely defined by the headmaster/headmistress (principal for those of you in the US). How the head meets you that very first time. Whether they take time to show you around, or are “too busy” to give you more than a couple of minutes. How proud they are to introduce you to everyone you walk by. All of these things are a good indicator of how well they run the school, and treat those within it – teachers and students alike. Nick Lane at St. Minver is a great case in point…he spent 45 minutes with us that first time, showed us every classroom, introduced us to everyone who walked by, asked anyone who wanted to talk with him if he couldn’t meet with them later, and showed a level of enthusiasm and excitement for his job that we found later bubbled over onto the teachers and children in equal measure.

But back to Sausalito and schools. It’s common knowledge that Sausalito has some of the lowest scores in the state. This is primarily because most of the kids are from Marin City, snuggled against the hillside between Sausalito and Mill Valley, home to a lot of poor folks who live in the projects ("Council estates” to those of you reading this in the UK). And this is where I cringe a bit because it’s also common knowledge that there’s a lot of “white flight” going on in Sausalito, and all the rich folks either move out of Sausalito when it comes time to send their kids to school, or they send them to private school. Unfortunate, but true.

So with that in mind, and the fact that I grew up going to public schoolsl (US public, not UK public), we looked around. We looked at the local public schools. We looked at private schools. We weighed the cost of sending one, and then two (once Sebastian comes of age), to private school. And then I did the math. Let’s see…$12,000 a year…that’s a $250,000 mortage. $24,000 a year…that’s a $500,000 mortgage. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to look a little closer at the local schools.

So after a lot of discussion and a couple of teary sessions, we decided to send Nathaniel to the local charter school. Turns out it’s a very nice school. They have a nice new building, a new playground, and the class sizes are small – just 18 in first grade (though with 4 boys and 14 girls it’s a little bit lopsided). So we took the plunge and placed Nathaniel there. And I’m happy to report that he’s done very well. He has a fantastic first grade teacher in Ms. Lurie. The children are mostly well behaved by US standards (which are, unfortunately, a bit lower than UK standards). He’s learning to read and do math by leaps and bounds. And they have some fun extras in his classroom, like naturalists from the nearby conservation center, yoga twice a month, and music once a week. But that’s where it seems to stop. There’s no sense of where the school is going next, how it’s going to improve, how it’s going to find more room as it grows, and most importantly how it’s going to attract the Sausalito children who currently go to private school.

I called my aunt Cayo the other day. She’s lives on Cape Cod, is in her 70’s, and spent 35 years teaching high school in Newton, Massachusetts. I told her about our problem, and mentioned that we weren’t sure whether we should get involved, or simply move. Maybe one of us should run for school board I said. Maybe we should be meeting with the headmistress regularly. Maybe we should be, well, I don’t know what. Cayo’s unexpected response was “If good leadership isn’t in place already, you’ll spend the rest of his elementary school time trying to make that happen, when you could be spending time making a good situation better. You should move.”

Sound advice we decided. And so with some of that unspent private school fees burning a hole in our pocket we found ourselves a very nice house above Tam High school in Mill Valley. It’s not our forever house, but it’s got good bones, has been nicely finished, and best of all – given my penchant for projects – has a couple of things that can be upgraded in the future, but don’t need to be right away.

We’re both excited and nervous about the move. Nervous that it’s a big step up financially. Excited that we’ll have room for the kids to run around, for Rosie to join us (she’s still in Cornwall…but that’s another story), enough extra room for friends and families to come stay with us (please do!), and best of all we’ll be able to send Nathaniel to Mill Valley schools, which are purported to be some of the best in the state.

Well, gotta go now, because I’ve got a couple of bathrooms to redo before we put this houseboat on the market. And if you know anyone who wants a really nice two-bedroom houseboat, let us know.

Happy New Year all!

Love from Frank and Rachel

Things I Like About England - II

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:25:19 +0000

I love the fact that England has people who can, and do, write like this.

Just one great quote amongst many:

For one thing, the whole trope about a grateful nation looking to our political class to serve as our models of moral excellence is clearly a complete dead-end. We know this, because the last Tory administration gave it a try, and it ended up with us all having to read about the sex-life of David Mellor over breakfast. No party which contributes to such gastronomical stresses can possibly have popular appeal.

Fantastic!

Why Is The Status Quo OK?

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 05:20:44 +0000

Tonight I was reading an interview with Randall Robinson , and something resonated in it for me. Randall Robinson is an African American, raised in Richmond, Virginia, who has moved to St. Kitts, where his wife is from. He’s written a book called Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land.

I’m not black, I’m not underprivileged, and I’ve never been the target of racism, or even taunts any worse than kids in grade school yodelling my last name, but there was something in what he said in the interview that made me nod “yes, yes, yes".

While I agreed with his assessment of Bush, Powell, Rice, and their ilk, it was two things that happened today with Nathaniel that triggered a deeper resonance.

The first happened at Trader Joe’s this morning. Rachel took Sebastian to Berkeley, and Nathaniel and I went to Trader Joe’s. We had our usual early morning shop (early morning is the only time to go to Trader Joe’s around here, trust me) – he climbs on the front of the cart, I push him around, he asks for everything sugary and shiny, and I let him have one thing that he really really wants (today it was a pint of chocolate milk). But what was different about today was that half a dozen times I heard him say “what the…", quite loudly, and in a tone of voice that made me sure he was about to say “what the f-ck?!". Where did he get that from I wondered?

The second thing that’s been happening is “like". “Daddy, can I like get a chocolate milk?". Grrrrrrr. I stopped to explain (yet again) that “like” can be used to say things such as “I like you", or “something is like something else", but we will not be having valley girl talk in our house thank you very much.

What was it about these two things that caused me to resonate with Randall Robinson’s interview? I think it’s knowing that neither of these would be happening if we were still in Cornwall (never mind the fact that he would still have his English accent…which he has been forced to give up for self preservation, i.e. to stop the other kids asking why he talks funny).

Here’s Randall Robinson:

We also have a daughter who was eleven at the time. We wanted her to have a normal, fun adolescence, and it was just undoable. When we lived here [the US] and went to a shopping center or someplace, we�d tell our daughter, do not get out of our line of sight. Now she�s in a place [St. Kitt’s] where she can walk around at night and we don�t even have to think about that sort of thing.

That’s right. It’s not really about Nathaniel saying “what the f-ck?!” or “like", it’s about the larger issue of growing up in America. Growing up where we have to drive him the 1/2 mile to school. Growing up where we can’t let him play down the end of the dock because of the bums who hang out at the liquor store. Growing up where the divide between the haves in Sausalito and the have-nots in Marin City has created a school district where most (90%?) of the white parents in Sausalito with children Nathaniel’s age send their kids to private school.

But it’s bigger than that even. Here’s Randall Robinson again:

I got a chance to be in a society [St. Kitt’s] where the barriers between classes�social and economic�are not insuperable, where money is not everything all the time. Americans have been manipulated into a space by those who profit from the arrangements of that system. People feel a conscious disease�a dis-ease or an unease�but I don�t think they know what causes it. We�ve been taught in America that big is best. That�s why people have to believe that they must live in the greatest country in the world, which is absolutely idiotic.

If this were the 70’s, I would be yelling “right on Randall".

How is it, I sometimes ask Rachel, that we [Americans] have been so manipulated that the majority believe that the status quo is ok? Why is it ok that we do not provide basic health care for all of our citizens? Why is it ok that we have the largest prison population in the world? Why is it ok that politics has become a matter of style over substance?

I’m not sure what the answers are, or what I can do about it, but I do know that if things do not start moving the other direction in my lifetime, I wonder what kind of America my children and their children will live in.

(Note: ok, maybe I’m being too pessimistic, maybe all is not lost)

Daddy, I Love Really Biking With You

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 07:39:15 +0000

We’ve been back for about two months now, and far from settling down, the number of things on my todo list seems to not only be increasing, but also accelerating. New job. Old job. New friends. Old friends. Rachel. The boys.

I’ve found it particularly hard to get much exercise lately. I know I should be getting up at 6am and running or biking, but I’ve never been much of a morning person. And with the 2 hour round-trip commute to San Mateo, I’m finding it hard to get any exercise at the back end of the day either. Of course having the boys yell “Daddy, Daddy, you’re home!” doesn’t make it any easier to turn right around and say “bye, see you in half an hour” right after I’ve walked through the door. So I’ve been looking for a way to kill two birds with one stone…get some exercise, and hang out with the kids at the same time.

I’ve recently hit on two different ways to do it, both of which involve Nathaniel and a bicycle. (Unfortunately Sebastian is a little young to do either of these, though he is absolutely sure that I am wrong, letting me know at the top of his lungs!)

The first involves a “trail-a-bike” that I got from Frank Flynn, a co-worker from Wired, who coincidentally is at the same startup I’ve recently joined. It’s a third wheel that hangs off the seat post, letting Nathaniel pedal behind me. He loves it, both because he feels like he’s helping, and because he can keep up with me (joined at the seat as we are). It takes a bit of getting used, what with the extra weight and the side-to-side motion hanging out there behind me. And while it isn’t really much of a workout for me, it’s fun having him behind me, pumping his little legs to make us go faster.

The second involves me running, and Nathaniel riding his Spiderman bicycle next to me on the bike path that runs between our house and the dog park in Mill Valley. We’ve done this three times now, and each time he gets a little faster and a little less wiggly-all-over-the-road. So much so that I’m a little worried that it won’t be long before I’m unable to keep up with him. We had a great time chatting away last time…ok, he was doing most of the chatting away and I was doing a lot of grunting in reply. But we stopped at the dog park to have a rest. And then we played on a slide on the way home. We even stopped by the bay to look at the sandbar (more a mudbar really), that we have to watch out for when we take out the Whaler or the Laser.

But what made it all worthwhile, all the lack of exercise, all the frustration of getting him to stay up with me, was when we got back. He looked up at me, helmet slightly askew, and said “Daddy, I really love biking with you.”

Thanks Nathaniel…I really love biking with you too.

Things I Like About England - I

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:28:15 +0000

The press.

I love the newspapers and TV news in England.

There’s a paper for every viewpoint. From the Guardian and Independent on the left, to the Times in the middle, and the Daily Mail on the right,

There’s also real reporting in England. Reporters ask hard questions. They don’t wait for 10 Downing Street announcements before reporting on an issue. And if a politician doesn’t answer a question they ask it again. And again. And again. Imagine that happening in the US.

One day in particular stands out for me. It was the day after the Hutton report had come out (the Hutton inquiry, for those of you who don’t know, looked into the circumstances regarding weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly’s death, and whether the BBC’s claim that the weapons of mass destruction dossier put out by 10 Downing Street had been “sexed up” had been a factor in his death).

And so it was that on the day after the inquiry, January 29, 2004, I went to purchase a paper at our local newstand. What greeted me was the Independent with a blank front page, and the single word “Whitewash?” in the center of the paper.

Imagine the New York Times becoming so indignant about the New Orleans tragedy that it printed a paper with a blank front page with just the word “Resign.” on it.

Imagine.

On Missing England

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:07:58 +0000

A friend of ours from Cornwall, Jo Riley, emailed Rachel this morning, saying that their boys, Alex and Simon, as well as everyone else in Year 2 at St. Minver School, very much missed seeing Nathaniel on this the first day of school.

I’ve been thinking a lot about England lately, comparing it to the US in general, and Sausalito in particular. Most of it is a result of missing the simpler life we had in Cornwall. But lately it’s also been the result of reading the sometimes horrifying reports of what’s been happening in New Orleans, and wondering whether we wouldn’t rather be bringing up the boys some place a little more civilized.

And so I’ve decided to write a seriers of articles entitled “Things I Like About…". These will be little vignettes of our lives in Cornwall and Sausalito, stories to help me remember why we’re here, and why we were there.

The Crux of the Problem

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:54:03 +0000

(From http://feeds.feedburner.com/discourse?m=1492 )

A failure dramatically underlined by a rapier-like anecdote told by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi about Bush’s reaction when she told him that he should fire FEMA Head Michael Brown:

‘He said ‘Why would I do that?”’ Pelosi said.

“‘I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn’t go right last week.’

And he said ‘What didn’t go right?”'’

Pelosi then said what needed to be said: the US government is headed by someone who is, in her words, ‘’Oblivious, in denial, dangerous.”

Oh, if only the US media were more like their UK brethren, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

Beyond The Pale In New Orleans

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 04:35:57 +0000

(I’m copying this here because I’m not sure whether the site it’s on will keep it permanently. From http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml.)

Can This Really Be America?

note: Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradsahw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.[California]

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen’s store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen’s windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen’s gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen’s in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with “hero” images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the “victims” of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, “stealing” boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of

New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the “imminent” arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the “officials” told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City’s primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City’s only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, “If we can’t go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?” The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile “law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah’s on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, “I swear to you that the buses are there.”

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander’s assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O’Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let’s hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. “Taking care of us” had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, “Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of “victims” they saw “mob” or “riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our “we must stay together” was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be “medically screened” to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist.

There was more suffering than need be.

Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

Sep 6, 2005, 11:59
By Parmedics Larry Bradsahw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky