It is early Thursday morning and I need to catch this up. Tuesday we had a productive day. Leveled the floor at a house in Pass Christian so that it would be ready for tile. We then wet over to Gulfport where we are helping Matt close in a back porch. Matt is from Booneville, In and has his own business of flipping houses. He also has an excavator amd dump truck and does septic systems, site prep, and tearing down of buildings. He is down here with his wife Jamie, and their five and a half month old son Rylae. He didn't have work up home so they are down here for three weeks at least. His brother has a full time job, but helps him out with the business too. His brother has been getting lots of calls for work now that Matt is down here! Seems like the devil is trying to play with Matt a little, saying "you don't want to be dowm there, there is work at home to be done". Right now it is not enough work to keep hin busy if he goes back.
Anyway, back to Mississippi, On Wednesday we went back to the house in Pass Christian to lay tile. It was Matt, Samuel, who is down from Denver, Rachel, a 20 year old from James Madison University, and I. We got the job about half done. Samuel does flooring for a living, the rest of us are kind of novices. We will be down there to finish the floor today, and if we get that done, we will go back to the house in Gulfport. Besides closing in the back porch so that they have a dry place to keep their washer and dryer, we are also screening in the front porch.
It is really neat getting to know some of the long termers stories. Like John, one of my roommates. He is here from Grand Haven, Mi. His youngest son died in an industrial accident in 1999, I believe he was 18. Then in 2003 his oldest son fell asleep at the wheel of his truck and ran off the road and was killed. I believe he was 28. John also had some other friends and relatives die in this time frame. It seemed like all he was doing was going to funnerals. He is having struggles processing all of it. He thought if he came down here where people lost everything they had, maybe he could relate to them, and they could relate to him.