Other notes.

I believe taking vacations as a family is important. It seems to me to be important whatever the cost. The times we have spent in the car together, though certainly sometimes tiresome and frustrating, are invaluable. We talk. We ask questions. We read Bible stories and the Bible together. We talk of life lessons often without our three children knowing that we are talking about life lessons.

Outside of Cafe Du Monde late one evening with the family in bed and after I had walked down there I saw a gentleman lug a large case in front of the cafe and begin emptying it's contents. He stopped and unloaded his wares next to a homeless-looking man playing guitar amazingly well, in the classical style. So well, that I wished I had asked him his story. There certainly was a time in his past when he was taught and taught well. He captured the attention of many of the patrons. Anyway, the man next to the guitar man unloaded a large telescope, a stool, and a sign displaying his desire to sell you a look through the telescope into the night sky and him point out to you, the looker, certain heavenly bodies. He had a website scrawled on the side of his wooden case, and I left repeating it to myself because I did not want to forget it, but I forgot it. So, if you are there and see the telescope man write down the website and send it to me, please.

I don't know if New Orleans will recover, should recover, any of that. I do know from what I saw while there that it will be beyond all comprehesion if it does because the city has gone through what is beyond all comprehension for me. We drove along a levee, one that broke, I think it was the London Street levee. We drove during in the dusk of the evening and there was not a soul in sight, in sound. We drove deserted streets with deserted shops and stores, deserted and destroyed homes, many seemingly not touched by their owners since the storm. On most of them there were the scribbles and codes of the rescue crews as they searched from house to house. What they wrote I could not decipher for sure except when they wrote in mostly complete sentences. "Found one cat and one dog." They almost always put the date. I think the storm was the 29th, maybe the 27th of August. Most of these houses next to the levee were not searched until September. One had 9/29 written on the door.

I am painting the high school and middle school buildings. Some of you might know that I painted some in high school. Not art painting, house painting. Caleb helped me today. It was nice to take breaks with him, go pick up a hot dog and coke at the store with him, examine our work together. It was a great memory for me.