Soar-Dream-France: My Ms. Williams of "More"!

One of the things that made my Chatette life possible was that I had a friend in New Orleans who would take care of Dali and Sam while I came to France. My "Ms. Williams of More"-Gaynell Williams-was always happy to come to Columbus Street and stay with the critters even though she had 3 of her own at home to worry about. She only lived a few blocks away in the same double with her parents, so it worked out nicely for both of us. We became friends when she and her Mom, Lucille, volunteered at the New Orleans Police Department's Crisis Transportation Service that I staffed. I was shocked when she agreed to stay with Dali and Sam for those four months during 2005, but it wouldn't have happened without her! Since I did a lot of calling between France and the states, I had a phone program so she could call me from Columbus Street whenever she needed me or had a question. It worked out great and we could stay in touch well during most of those 4 months. She called that August on my birthday, to tell me about the hurricane that was heading to New Orleans. My brother Tom and his girlfriend Adrianne were on their way to get Dali and Sammie Cat was going to stay with Gaynell. We problem-solved as much as we could. I had known that I'd be gone during hurricane season-so after Ivan of the year before-I did everything I could before I left just to make sure we were as ready as possible. I had left from St. Louis so my purple Ford Ranger Splash (who I had dubbed Willie Nelson) was with Mom and Dad along with all of my important papers and because I was going to be in France for all that time I had set up on-line banking to pay all my bills. Did I have an angel on my shoulder or what?

I told Gaynell to just close up the house, turn off the electricity and go. She told me that she wasn't going to evacuate-she would make sure that Sam was fine, and that it was just too difficult to leave with her 3-Stone, Bernard and Trixie. I kept up with what was happening with the hurricane over the internet and through neighbors. On the morning of August 30, in France I was feeling very grateful. It appeared that it wasn't good but that New Orleans was spared once more and it could have been so much worse. But by that evening, the levees had broken and our lives would never be the same again. My New Orleans phone number hasn't functioned since. Gaynell reached me from friends on September 1. I asked her: "How bad is it?" She said: "It's bad.", so many times that I couldn't count and then: "Come back when they say you can come back." I heard from her again on Sunday. The first thing I asked her was if she was in Baton Rouge, and she just said: "I wish". She was in the French Quarter where she was getting ready to evacuate for real this time. She took Sammie to Columbus Street and left her with enough food and water for a month and said that the water had receded and the house was drying out in the sunshine. By that time I knew that Dali wasn't happy in St. Louis so I made arrangements to return to St. Louis on September 19. The day before I heard from Gaynell-Stone, Bernard, Trixie and my Sam were all safe and staying at the LSU Vet School's Shelter in Baton Rouge. Staying in touch and taking care of business from St. Louis was a challenge. My parents phone was constantly busy with our calls in, calls out, using internet dial up, and trying to just figure out what was going on for us in this whole new world. In addition to lots of other business, I found Sam and Kelly agreed she could come to stay with him and his other 2-legged evacuees in Baton Rouge. Kelly and Gaynell coordinated and I knew that everyone was safe once more. On Wednesday, October 5, I packed up Willie and Dali and I headed in the direction of New Orleans with many stops along the way. And for my Ms. Williams of More-there is more to this story!

Tom and Adrianne were able to return before me because their uptown neighborhood hadn't flooded. Here we all were the morning of their departure from Mom and Dad's on Elizabeth. Dali and I are kneeling, then Adrianne, Tom, Kathleen, our nephew Jesse, brother Jim, and sister-in-law Joan.