One Crash Kills Mother

Shannon Marie Livaudais

Senior, Class of 2011

A recollection on drunk driving

For the Vanessa Wolf Scholarship

October, 2010

“VAN-TYPE TRUCK IN WHICH LOUISIANA WOMAN WAS KILLED…One of Five Children of Vietnam Veteran Injured,” reads an article of a 1973 Laurel, MS newspaper. The Louisiana woman is my grandmother. The one of five children is my mother, the other four being my aunts and uncles. The Vietnam Veteran is my grandfather. On a February morning in 1973, the Portier family was on their way to Virginia Beach for a highly anticipated family vacation, receiving their father only a few days earlier after a yearlong Navy tour. Piling into the “Adventure Van,” a personally customized van adapted for long trips for the comfort of five children ranging in ages from 2 to 11, it seemed like a normal journey for the nomadic Navy family. My mom, Becky at age 9, sat nearest to her mom, my grandmother Mona, in the backseat. Asleep for the majority of the ride, my mom was confused and scared when she woke up, lying on her back in the grass, surrounded by sounds of sirens and crying. All she could remember was the abnormal swerving of the car.

She was taken to the hospital and treated for various things, but above all a crushed spleen and a critically broken right leg. Her brothers, sisters and father only suffered cuts and bruises. She was confused when first arriving at the hospital, but she knew they had been in a car accident. With her family dispersed among accommodating aunts and uncles back in Louisiana, it was a rather lonely 3 weeks for the 9-year-old in the Mississippi hospital. She was, however visited by her father, who tenderly brought her the tragic news of her mother’s death. And so my mother lied in a hospital bed, virtually immobile, typically alone and stewing over the death of her mother. When her time in the hospital was done, she had a bittersweet homecoming. She was happy to go home and see her family again, but crestfallen at her new cast, which covered her waist, the entirety of her right leg, and half of her left thigh. Despite this additional calamity, my

mother was at least, for a while, able to be around someone who loved her, her godmother back in Louisiana.

However, the Portier family was still dispersed. Desperate for help and to achieve some normalcy for his family, my grandfather remarried not 6 months after the car wreck and his wife’s death. With another parental figure to watch over the children, he was able to proceed with his Naval duties, leaving for more extended periods of time. During his absence, the new addition to the family, who my mother aptly nicknamed Stepmonster, “cared” for the children. With her habits of verbal abuse, slight physical abuse and food hording (a lock and chain was routinely placed on the refrigerator), it was a very tough 9 years for the Portier children. My grandfather had one child with her, my uncle Eric. When my grandfather eventually wised up to the Stepmonster’s insanities, he divorced her to the delight of his children. He remarried some time later to a woman, my grandmother who I call Coco, who finished raising the two youngest of my mom’s siblings, and was a sigh of relief for the family.

Now for some closure. How did my grandfather get into a car accident in the first place? Driving down Interstate 59, he began to pass a slow moving truck in front of them. Speeding up beside the slow truck, he found himself facing a pickup truck directly in front of him, traveling in the wrong direction. He tried to swerve out of the way, but he was boxed between trucks. The pickup truck hit the driver’s side of the van, the doors flew open and my mother and her mother were thrown out. The pickup truck driver was drunk. He survived the accident with some injuries.

You might be thinking, “Okay, this is your mother’s story. What does it have to do with you?” I think this car accident, this defining moment in my mother’s life, has more of an impact

on me than many people may think. Life runs a course of chain reactions. Some we can control and some we have no control over at all. My biological grandmother’s death was something that no one could control. However, that truck driver’s decision to drink alcohol and proceed to drive was a decision he could have and should have changed. But it was because of that accident that my life is how it is today. Whenever the story of the accident is mentioned, a million questions run through my head. How would my life be different? Would my mom be different if she never had a Stepmonster telling her that she was worthless and dumb? Would I be different because my mom would be different? Since the money from the accident paid for my mom’s college tuition, would my mom have ever met my dad like they did in college? Would I even be here?

And then there are the things that I know would be different. My uncle Eric, who is really cool and I love, would not be here. I would not have my step grandmother, Coco, who has been a positive influence in my life since I was a baby. In fact, it is strange for me to think of her as a step grandmother. When I talk about her, I never say “step grandmother,” I just always say “grandmother.” To me, she is no different than a biological or a “real” grandmother. She does all of the jobs that grandmothers do, and does them well. Despite the positive effects that the tragedy from so long ago has had in my life, I still cannot help but wonder sadly what she is like – Mona, my mother’s mother, my grandmother. She was married to my grandfather and raised my mother, so I bet she was a wonderful and captivating woman. My grandfather says that I inherited a lot of her traits, even though I never knew her. This gives me more reason to believe that if we really do all have guardian angels, I think she would be mine. I have felt this since I was little because of this strange, sad and inspiring connection I feel I have with her.

“One Crash Kills Mother” was the name of the article that documented the car wreck. I think this title carries more weight than the journalist who wrote it could have ever imagined.

One crash changes the life of a family. One crash sends a little girl to the hospital. One crash causes 5 children to be put under the care of an abusive food hoarder. One crash affects the life of a daughter 37 years later.

Love is a cement chicken.

Greg and I have been married almost 24 years. Riding in the car recently, heading to a wedding, he and I were reveling in the fact that we’ve been together longer than we were single. As with any good pairing, our relationship has matured to a point that we know each other almost as well as we know ourselves. This is a good thing, as it helps us to communicate in a constructive manner when big issues come up such as financial decisions, and issues involving the well being of our children. But knowing each other so well also means that we do things for each other that may seem odd, or downright crazy if in the context of another relationship.

Years ago we worked out a two mile walking course in our neighborhood. Greg and I try to walk after dinner every day. The key word there is “try”. Sometimes we walk everyday for weeks in a row; sometimes we may walk once in a week, and sometimes weeks go by with no walking at all. As with any activity, it all depends on kid’s schedules, work schedules and just life letting us do it.

A little over a year and a half ago, the planets were aligned and we were on a good run (no pun intended), walking every day for a few weeks straight. At about a quarter mile on our route we take a left turn at a corner by a red brick ranch style house. During these particular weeks this house was being renovated, and I noticed something. I had always secretly admired a particular garden ornament that for the previous 14 years or so resided in the overgrown front garden of this house. It was one of those things that appeals to you for reasons only your right brain can understand, and for that reason, it can’t be put into words. This garden ornament, a two foot high cement rooster, had been moved from the garden to the front walk. The renovators had pulled up the entire front garden, except a few mature bushes, in order to fill the yard and around the house with dirt. Every day we walked I would take note of the rooster’s position. Sometimes in the dirt, sometimes on walk close to the porch, other times on the front porch. Then they tore up the front walk and the chicken found a more permanent spot behind the wrought-iron gate, on the walkway in the back yard, still in view from the street.

One day when Greg and I had turned the corner near the house, I was checking out the rooster, thinking how lonely he looked in the back yard, far from where he once reigned over his jungle of bushes and overgrown vines. Greg noticed me staring, and asked me what I was looking at. I told him how I had always admired the cement rooster, and how nice I thought it would look in the new herb garden that I was working on in our back yard. But alas, although the cement rooster was obviously not getting the respect he deserved sitting there in the back yard, what could I do about it.

Greg immediately told me I should go knock on the door and offer to buy it. What? I thought. Oh no, not me. I’m too shy to knock on a stranger’s door and offer to buy their cement rooster. I could never do that. Of course, Greg is not shy, and told me that I will never know unless I ask. But, I just couldn’t do it.

A few days pass, with little discussion about the cement rooster. Then, coming home from work one evening, walking up our driveway, I see a cement rooster perched on our front porch. I was confused, surprised, and excited all at the same time. I went up on the front porch so I could get a better look. It was defiantly the same cement rooster that I had coveted from our neighbor’s yard down the street. Examining the rooster close up, I saw details that I hadn’t seen from the street. It seemed bigger than I thought it was. There were flecks of white and green paint revealing that it had once been painted. The details in the feathers and in the head were fading a bit, for some reason, to me, it was even better than I thought.

So, I went inside to find out how the rooster found its way to our front porch. My middle son, 17 years old at that time, was home. I questioned him about the cement rooster. He told me, to his great chagrin, that his father had instructed him to go down the block, pay $10 for the rooster, and bring it home. My son made sure that I knew how heavy that darn lawn ornament was, and especially how very embracing it was to walk the two blocks back to the house with a heavy cement rooster in his arms. I thanked him very much for his sacrifice, hugged him, and told him how much I loved the rooster. This seemed to make it almost O.K.

Later that evening, when Greg got home, he explained to me what he had done. A few days earlier, he saw a lady leaving the house. He did something that I could never do; he went up to this total stranger and introduced himself. She turned out to be the real-estate agent selling the house. Greg explained to her that he wanted to buy the cement rooster for his wife, and she promised to let the owners know, and she gave him her card. Eventually Greg was able to talk directly to the owner. She seemed happy to sell the rooster, but didn’t know how much to ask for it. Greg suggested $10, and she was fine with that, but didn’t know why anyone would want to buy a 50-year-old worn out lawn ornament for $10. When Greg told me the rooster was 50-years-old I almost flipped…that just made me like it even more. Greg agreed, and said he really had to keep his cool when she told him how old the rooster was.

So now, my 50-year-old cement rooster resides in our back yard among cast-iron plants near the deck. My beautiful herb garden is just a fond memory now, as it was a victim of Katrina flood waters. My cement rooster will stand century over the herbs once again, as soon as we can get our back yard into shape this fall.



I recently found a cement hen at the flea-market, for which I paid considerably more than $10. Although the cement hen is very cool, and looks great next to the cement rooster – she will never be as special as the cement rooster. Every time I go in the back yard, I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to have a thoughtful husband who knows me so well.

Like it was Yesterday…

It was barely light outside as we loaded up our blue and white VW van. Walking through the damp grass from our white clapboard shotgun house to the van, arms full with pillows, blankets and essential stuffed animals, we piled into the open side-door. On this cool February morning in 1973, our family of seven, Mom, Dad, Robert (11), Becky (me, 9), Cheryl (7), Peggy (4) and John (2), was setting off on our long anticipated trip from our home in Chauvin Louisiana to Virginia Beach.

Dad had returned a few days earlier from a yearlong Navy tour. We were all so happy to have him back home, and excited about our trip. This family vacation of sorts had more than one purpose. Besides spending some much-needed family time together, we were going to look for a place to live. Dad was being transferred to Virginia Beach.

Just like all Navy families, we did a lot of traveling. Because Mom and Dad liked to make traveling an “adventure” for us, Dad had converted our VW van from the standard, run-of-the-mill “kid transporter”, into the special highly utilitarian, beloved family “Adventure Van”. Fully equipped with cabinets, filled with all things necessary to feed and entertain 5 children under the age of 11 and countertops with a fully functioning sink, and hot plate. The passenger bench seat was remodeled and repositioned. The back of the bench seat was removed; this allowed for the seat to be positioned snugly, long-ways, under the long window behind the driver’s seat. Dad fashioned a new back for the bench, which he upholstered with groovy green and orange vinyl. The whole middle of the van from the behind the cab to the back door was open space. The floor was covered with lovely ocean blue indoor-outdoor carpet so that all of us kids could spread out to sleep or play. I was very proud of our adventure van – it was one-of-a-kind.

As we worked our way back and forth from the house to the van, our bundles and we were being inspected, licked, and sniffed by a very large, very friendly mutt. This was my sister Cheryl’s latest adopted stray animal. Solid white, with coal black eyes and nose, he had the head and personality of a Labrador and the body of a pit bull; and he could smile, which he did all the time, so Cheryl called him Happy. Happy’s tail wagged 110 miles a minute as he weaved between us, and we dutifully tried to ignore him. You see, Happy was not legally adopted. He showed up one day about two weeks before Dad came home. Against Mom’s instructions not to play with or feed stray dogs, Cheryl did. But, we were all guilty of encouraging Happy to stick around, Mom included. And now we were leaving, and Happy needed to find somewhere else to go, so we had specific instructions to ignore him.

Dad never was a “dog person”, or any kind of pet-person. So when he returned home to find this very large, strangely cheerful mutt living under the front porch, he was not too pleased. He shooed Happy away several times since he had been home. Sometimes Happy stayed away for a few hours, other times he just hid under the house. I was glad to see Happy show up this morning, because I knew it was probably the last time we would see him.

Dad took a few giant steps in Happy’s direction, clapped his hands loudly, and yelled, “Haaah! Haaah!” Happy ran straight under the house. About 30 seconds later he poked his big head out from under the front porch and watched us as we finished packing the van.

We climbed into the van, and everyone settled into their spots. Dad was driving, and Robert was sitting in the front passenger seat. Mom sat directly behind Dad, on the bench seat. It was determined beforehand the bench seat was going to be shared between the kids, because it was the only place in the back that had a good view out the window. I thought I was so lucky to get it first. I sat next to Mom with my pillow and a stuffed yellow and white rabbit that I had gotten for Easter a year earlier. Cheryl, Peggy and John were spread out with pillows and blankets on the floor of the van, each claiming their own space. As we backed out into the street, I saw Happy stick his whole head out from under the porch. Cheryl climbed on to the bench with me, we stuck our noses on the window and waved good-by, and yelling “Bye Haaaappyyyy!”

It was still very early; the sun was just coming up as we started down the street. My excitement about being the first to sit on the bench seat quickly faded and the boredom of the long ride set in. My sisters and brother had all settled down on the floor and seemed quite comfortable as they snoozed. I stared out the window for a while, watching the familiar scenery of Chauvin speed by. After a short while, I decided sleeping was a good idea. Although seatbelt safety was obviously not a big concern in the creation of the “Adventure-Van” – Dad did attach seatbelts to the bench seat. There was a set of three lap-belts. Mom had strapped herself into the one closest to the front of the van. Having two seatbelts at my disposal, I sat in the middle with the seatbelt loosely around my waist. I laid down with my head close to Mom, and decided it would be a good idea to slide my legs into the other seatbelt.

I laid there for a while, wide awake, wishing I could fall asleep, which I knew would make the boring part of the ride seem shorter. The seatbelt around my waist began to twist and pinch, and the seatbelt around my legs was getting tangled. It didn’t take long for me to free myself from the seatbelts in order to get comfortable. It worked. I fell asleep.

I felt the van swerve. With my eyes still closed, I thought, “ Gee Dad, you need to drive more carefully”. Then another big swerve – still in a dream state, and my eyes closed, I reached my hand up to grab the back of the seat so I wouldn’t fall off. When I grabbed it, it came lose. Never opening my eyes, I braced myself, expecting to hit the floor any second. I didn’t. I felt like I was drifting in the air for a moment, and decided that it all must be a dream – and I think I fell back to sleep still drifting.

When I opened my eyes, I was laying on my back in the damp grass. The sun seemed extra bright, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I didn’t try to get up. My body felt like lead. I looked to the side and saw Peggy sitting next to me crying hysterically. I didn’t know what was going on. I remembered the swerving, and thought we must have been in a wreck, but I didn’t remember a wreck. I noticed two strange ladies with dark hair standing to my right, looking at me and whispering to each other.

Next, I was on a stretcher being loaded into the back of an ambulance, feet first. I didn’t notice at first that Mom was loaded in next to me. They put her in headfirst. I looked over and recognized her vertically stripped orange and brown slacks that I thought were sooo cool. I couldn’t understand why I was backwards. I wanted to ask Mom what had happened; surly she would be able to tell me. I called to her, but she didn’t answer. I guessed she couldn’t hear me above all the action going on inside the ambulance. I closed my eyes.

“Open your eyes honey,” I heard a very sweet voice say. I opened my eyes and saw a nurse with a puffy black hairdo looking right at me. I remember how blue her eyes were, and that she had thick eyeliner and red lips, I thought she was very pretty, but she wasn’t smiling. She put a mask on my face. The cool air blowing into my nose and mouth felt good, and made it so easy to breathe. I closed my eyes again.

“Stay awake honey, talk to me, what’s your name,” said the pretty nurse. She took my mask off.

“Becky,” I said, my voice sounded strange to me, and it was difficult to talk.

“Keep your eyes open Becky, Okay honey,” she said.

I asked the nurse to please put the mask on me. I tried to explain to her how it made it easy to breathe and it was so cool, and felt so good. But the words didn’t come, just a strange broken sentence. But she understood, and put the mask back on my face, and I closed my eyes again.

Floating…floating. It was dark, I was lying on my back, but I was floating in the air. I was wearing a long white dress. I could feel the breeze blowing as I floated, turning here and there. No control over where I was going, floating in the dark.

I woke and felt the weight of my body, as if I had landed on the hospital bed, no more floating. I lay there in a dimly lit room. I could see a light above the nurse’s station that was not far from the foot of my bed. There was a window to the right of me. It was dark outside. I couldn’t understand how it could be nighttime already. I felt like we just left the house an hour ago.

I was hungry. I saw Cheryl sitting the floor next to my bed. I asked her to share the peanuts she was eating. But she didn’t answer me. The nurse at the desk heard me talking to Cheryl, and came over. She came and stood on the side of my bed. She stood where I knew Cheryl was sitting eating peanuts that she wasn’t sharing with me.

“Hi,” she said, “What were you saying? Do you want something?”

“I’m hungry,” I said, still sounding strange to myself, and wondering where Cheryl went.

“I think we have some Jell-O, or ice-cream,” she said in a kind voice. “Would you like that?”

“No,” I said. “My sister has some peanuts; I’ll just have some of those.”

The nurse looked at me for a moment with a sad smile, then walked away.

Then I realized that Cheryl was never there. I had imagined or dreamed that I was floating and that Cheryl was with me. And it was then that I saw the predicament I was in.

I lay there on my back – naked. I thin sheet covered me. My left leg was wrapped in white gauze and hung from a sling that had a web of strings weaving in and out of the sling and attaching it to a metal contraption that supported it. I was uncomfortable, my back ached, I wanted to turn onto my side, but couldn’t. But worst of all, I was alone.

The next few days were a blur. I slept a lot. Nurses, doctors, strangers came in and out, poking me, checking this and that, waking me up, giving me shots in my butt. I hated the shots, but loved them at the same time. It didn’t take me long to realize that the shots took the pain away.
Dad came to see me several times during those blurry days. He would stand there and look at me, not saying anything, seeming very tired and sad. I didn’t say much either. Occasionally I would ask a question.

“Where am I?”

“In a hospital in Mississippi.”

“What happened?”

“We had an accident.”

The questions were simple. The answers were simple – no details.

I woke up once to see my Aunt Ilene standing on the left side of my bed. She was crying.

“Hi Aunt Ilene.”

“Oh, how are you feeling babe,” she said through sobs.

“I’m fine,” I said, which felt like a lie, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“Poor, poor baby,” she said over and over, and covered her mouth and cried.

I couldn’t understand her sadness. I knew I was hurt, but I guessed I was ok. I just didn’t understand why she cried when she saw me. She didn’t stay long. She told me she loved me and walked away…still crying.

After a few days, the blurriness began to fade. I became more aware of what was going on around me, and started to think more clearly. I realized that I hadn’t seen Mom. I guessed that she must be in a situation much like my own. She must be in a hospital bed somewhere, unable to get up. I wondered how she was, and hopped she wasn’t hurt too badly.

The next time Dad came to visit, he stood at the foot of my bed and watched me, looking sad and tired, like before.

“Hi Daddy”

“Hi babe, how are you feeling.”

“Fine.” – I lied. “Where is everybody Daddy?”

“Your brothers and sisters are back home with Aunt Connie.”

“Where’s Mommy? Is she hurt too? Is she in the hospital?”

“No baby,” he paused a long time. The edges of his mouth turned down and his chin began to quiver…

“No baby, mama’s gone…mama was killed.”

I couldn’t understand. What!? What!? – Did I really hear that? Did that really come out of your mouth? I felt all the blood and fluids rush to the center of my body. I felt like I was being sucked from my middle into a hole in the bed. I was light headed. Then I made sense of what I heard.
“No! Noo! Noooooooooooooo!” I cried and sobbed.

“Yes baby, mama’s gone,” Dad choked out, as tears filled his eyes.

And he stood there at the end of my bed and cried and I cried.

It was a beautiful spring day, the sky was deep blue and the sun was shining so bright. My brothers and sisters and I were all outside, playing on our swing set. Mom opened the kitchen window and called us in for lunch. I jumped off the swing in mid air, and we ran to the back door. Mom was waiting for us there with hot dogs she made for lunch. We sat around the kitchen table laughing and chatting. The hospital crossed my mind – oh, I thought, thank God that must have been a bad dream. I turned to Mom, thankful it was just a bad dream, and asked for another hotdog.

“I don’t have any hotdogs.” She said in an odd voice.

I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital.

“I don’t have any hotdogs.” I heard again, and I looked to my left. There was a lady standing by my bed with a mop in her hands.

“If you ask the nurse, I’m sure she could bring you something to eat.”

I was crushed. I was dreaming, and I must have been talking in my sleep. I was mad at that lady for waking me from my wonderful, normal dream. I felt like she woke me up into a nightmare.

Days came and went. I lay there in the bed board out of my mind. I cried. I stared at the ceiling. I cried. I looked out of the window. All I could see was blue sky and the branches of a pine tree. I watched as they moved in the wind, and yearned to be outside. I yearned to be somewhere else, to be someone else.

The nurses did what they could to comfort me. One nurse even brought me a book. It was a Disney Encyclopedia, it was my salvation from boredom.

A teacher came to visit me one day. She read a story about our accident in the newspaper. She presented me with a large multicolored stack of “get-well” cards that her fourth grade class made for me. I loved the cards, and read them until my eyes grew tired. One card was made in the shape of a frog. When I opened it, the long green construction paper arms and legs of the frog unfolded and spread out. I laughed when I opened it, and surprised myself. I asked the teacher to hang the frog on the contraption that held my leg in the air.

Finally the day came for me to leave the hospital. Every day I was in the hospital I imagined what it would be like to leave. I thought that they would finally put a cast on my leg, hand me a pair of crutches, and I would be able to walk out of the hospital on my own. I imagined getting on a plane with Dad, and flying home. – That’s not what happened.

A nice man came to my bed and cheerfully asked me if I was ready for my cast. I said “yes,” with great anticipation of being able to sit, stand, and move around again. They wheeled my bed into what I guess was the casting room. They pulled my sheet off of me, and moved me to a very cold hard table. Then the nice man, making small talk with me in his cheerful tone, started wrapping gauze wet with plaster around my belly. I was confused.

“Hey, what are you doing,” I protested.

“I’ve giving you your cast,” he said, still cheerful.

“But my body isn’t broken, just my leg”

“Oh, but this is the kind of cast they told me to give you. It starts here,” he placed his hand just above my belly button to illustrate,
“and goes all the way down to here,” showing me that it ends at my toes on my left foot. “ and then for good measure, it goes down to here too,” showing me that my cast will go halfway down my right thigh as well.

I immediately started to cry. How come nobody told me about this? I really felt like this cast was some kind of punishment, but I couldn’t figure out for what.

Once the cast was on, and I was completely immobile, Dad showed up with my Aunt Martha to take me home. Dad did his best to console me. Telling me that it wouldn’t be long, and I’d be healed up and out of the cast before I knew it.

Aunt Martha pulled a nightgown over my head. It was the first time I had worn any clothes in weeks…it felt so warm and secure.
They wheeled me through what felt like miles of hallways, and we finally made it to the exit. Dad had bought a new station wagon. They opened the hatch and loaded me onto a mattress in the back. Laying there in the back of the station wagon, unable to move, all I could see was the headliner, and bits of sky and clouds. It was a very long, strange ride home.

I wasn’t able to go to my mother’s funeral. I can only imagine what it was like. My sister Cheryl says she remembers being scared of the coffin, and not believing it was our mom lying there. Peggy, although only 4 at the time tells me she remembers kissing our mom goodbye.
I don’t remember actually going to my mom’s grave until years later. It seems strange that I never asked to go – but the combination of my dad getting remarried, and us still moving to Virginia Beach probably was the reason.

Six years ago my sister Peggy tragically lost her firstborn son Blake soon after he was born, due to a heart defect. Plans were made to bury Blake with our mom. Although this was such a sad time for us, and especially my sister Peggy, Blake’s funeral offered me a glimpse into the past. I saw my mom’s coffin. I thought that seeing it would be upsetting, and surprisingly I felt a sense of calm.

Filling in the blanks:
This story is told strictly from my memory as a 9-year-old. So I feel that it is important to fill in some details of that day. Over the years I’ve collected information from my dad, siblings and a few years ago I read the newspaper article about the wreck.

We were driving on the interstate in Mississippi, probably north on I-59, when it happened. We were in the right lane behind a slow moving truck, and my dad decided to pass. He merged into the left lane and began to speed up when he was surprised by a pickup truck headed straight for us, traveling in the wrong direction. My dad tried to turn the van out of the path of the truck. The truck hit the driver side of the van popping the doors open and throwing my mother and me out.

My dad, brothers and sisters had cuts and bruises, and were able to travel home the next day. I had a crushed left tibia and fibula, broken femur, lacerations on my right leg, and left arm, and had to have emergency surgery to remove my crushed spleen. I believe I was in the hospital for three weeks.

My mother died of head and neck trauma.

The driver of the truck was drunk. I think he had few injuries, and was able to walk away. I don’t know what if any legal action was taken against him.

Irreverent

written 2/21/2006

S. invited us to go to her house on Saturday night for a party before the Krewe Du Vieux parade. She lives in what is now referred to as "the sliver by the river". It is the Bywater neighborhood that escaped (for the most part) the wrath of Katrina. It is one of the only areas in New Orleans that has not been destroyed by Katrina, and it is back with a vengeance.

On our way to the city, Greg and I passed through some pretty horrific areas. Greg likes to drive through the devastation. He has been on a photographic quest since right after the storm, and has done a very good job of documenting in pictures what has happened here in the last 5 months.

Instead of taking the interstate, Greg wanted to go through the Lakeview area and show me where the tornado blew through last week. Yes, a tornado, on top of everything else, we had three tornados touch down in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish last week. Talk about getting kicked while you’re down.

We drove through Lakeview and saw the obvious path of the tornado. Houses with no roofs, collapsed buildings, and just total devastation where someone’s whole world used to be.
For me, this is all so depressing. After we passed through the Lakeview neighborhood, we took a right turn onto Elysian Fields towards downtown. This is an area of town that has been hit particularly hard. Block after block of flooded out abandoned homes and businesses. By the time we got close to Port Street, our destination, I was nearly in tears.

I asked Greg how he could stand to look at this day after day. He explained that after a while you get numb to it. I don’t know how that is possible, but I guess it is.

We drove up and down the streets of this 150 year old neighborhood near the river, looking for a place to park We found a parking place a block away from S.’s house. Greg is a "master of parking" and manages to squeeze between an SUV and a pile of hurricane debris.

S. and her husband live in a double shot gun house that they have been renovating for the past 4 years. Walking through the front door, her home oozes the bohemian lifestyle that characterizes this neighborhood. Sparsely, but stylishly furnished, S. has decorated her home with her paintings. She is very talented portrait artist, and her walls are a testament to that. Her home was full of artsy, shaggy, well educated young party guests…bohemians. I felt a bit out of place at first, being the only middle aged suburbanites in the crowd, but it wasn’t long before we were chatting and laughing with this very friendly group.

About a half hour after we arrived it was time to make our way down to the parade. Greg and I walked about three blocks down to the corner of Chartres and Marigny Streets, where we found a good place to stand along side the wide intersection. The crowd was pretty thin at first. From where we stood I was able to get a good look at people around us. Mostly young adults from the neighborhood, sprinkled with a few older people and tourists. It is well known that this not a parade for children, and I think I only saw one child.

Many of the people were dressed up. A three wheeled, giant Amphibian-bike rolled by trailing behind it a tail end of frog legs on two more wheels. A few feet away a man in a hat with naked Barbies all over it was talking to a group of "blue tarped" people. Sprinkled in with the naked Barbies were small pieces of paper with the words "MO DYKES" printed on them. I thought about it a moment and realized I was looking at the first of many expressions of political satire to come.

Irreverent, unconventional, crude, crazy and funny, all describe the Crew Du Vieux parade on Saturday night. This year’s theme was "Cest Levee". Although the Krew Du Vieux is one of the newer organizations in the city, it actually resembles traditions of Mardi Gras past more closely, than the more popular larger krewes. It is made up of several "sub krews" each with their own crazy theme - Krewe of Underwear, Mystic Krewe of Inane, Krewe of Comatose and Krewe de C.R.A.P.S. to name a few.

The parade started with a brass band, marching in front of the float carrying Walter "Mr. Bill" Williams. Big headed Mr. Bills walked by, followed by a Governor Blanco-Refrigerator Cyborg looking float. Float after float of political satire, silly and strange things passed by followed close behind by their creators dressed up to match their creations. Almost every group was accompanied by a brass band.

Smiling, drinking and dancing, the krewes handed their treasures to the crowd. Greg and I collected the traditional beads and cups along with some original items such as FEMA money, Chocolate city Chocolate, and a teeny-tiny comic book. The revilers following the "Premature-Evacuation" float we handing out squirts of hand lotion – yuck.

After the parade passed by, Greg and I went back to S.’s house, collecting FEMA money along the way. We sat in the living room and had some gumbo and kingcake and talked for a little while, then decided to head home.

On the way home Greg decided to drive through the neighborhoods on the way to the interstate. Just outside of "the sliver by the river" the streets were pitch black. I was not very happy with this route, but I knew it wouldn’t take long to get to the interstate. Working our way though the streets, Greg took a left toward Elysian Fields. As we turned the headlights illuminated a house sitting in the middle of the street, blocking our way. I had enough, and ask Greg to please get us home.

Natures On...

Sitting on my front porch at 7:30 this morning, sipping my coffee. I notice nature in all it’s drama. Like a nature show, I sit and commentate in my head the events taking place in my yard and in the street.

I see a woodpecker on the bark of the live oak across the street, a rare site in our neighborhood. He is running in short spurts straight up the tree. This is very interesting, but at the corner of my eye I see a black cat slowly make its way out from under the house next door and walk across the yard. When he gets to the sidewalk he crouches down and flattens out, with his body half on the sidewalk and half on the grass.

A morning dove lights in the street. Walking this way and that, searching for whatever morning doves search for. She pecks the street and walks in diagonals toward the curb.

In the mean time all sorts of bird and squirrel chatter going on. A blue jay lands on the branch above the cat’s head and begins to screech. The morning dove takes no notice of this. It was not the che-che-che of the morning dove emergency call, so the Jay’s warning calls did not register in her morning-dove brain. She walks and pecks in diagonals, up onto the curb and into the grass.

The cat’s bright emerald eyes widen. He watches the morning-dove as she absently makes her way closer. His body is completely flat and still, but his tale seems to have a life of it’s own, swirling left to right, and the tip flicking in the opposite direction. His ears twitch and rotate forward and to the side. As the morning-dove pecks her way a little closer the cat raises his haunches ever so slowly. Suddenly the Jay drops out of the tree from the branch above the cat and almost lands on the cat’s head. The cat jumps straight up into the air and swipes at the jay with one paw in a simultaneous reaction. And just as quickly, the jay flaps back up into the tree. In the meantime the morning-dove flew off with calling her che-che-che emergency call as she went.

The cat looking quite dejected, looked up in the tree for a moment, then slowly walked across the grass and disappeared under the house.

Across the street, two sparrows rolled out of the oak tree in a ball of wings and tails angrily chattering. They landed on the street and rolled around for a short while until one finally flew away. I guess the one who stayed got to keep the oak tree.

Seagull

A seagull sits in the short yellowing grass of Waldenberg Park. He looks quite relaxed as a strong breeze whips by disturbing the steal gray feathers on his back. But he is puzzled. This place is much too quiet.

This used to be a much busier, noisy place. It seems strange to be relaxing in the grass in the middle of the day like this. He knows that this was not always possible. Looking around he sees his friends walking here and there. Some of them are taking advantage of the nice wind today and are hovering low overhead with great ease.


Along the red brick path by the Mississippi river he notices a couple of people with overstuffed backpacks walking by the rail. Then he realizes - that's it! It's the small people. That's why it is so quiet. That's why he and his friends can hang out in the grass undisturbed. The small people are missing. They used to be here almost every day. He realizes he has not seen them for a very long time.

Although it is nice to be able to relax by the river, he actually misses the small people. They would always come in groups. Each group had their own colors, red and gray, blue and white, or green and brown and others, all walking together. And the bigger people would herd them into the grass. There was no standing still when they were around. If you happened to land anywhere near one of them they were sure to chase you back into the air. But, they were great to have around, because they always carried bags, boxes and backpacks full of wonderful things to eat, and the small people would share.

Much to the delight of the small people, the seagull and his friends would fly overhead just out of reach. The small people would toss their food to the seagulls who would dive down and pluck the food up without touching the ground. The small people always had such great things to eat. Sweet, salty, crunchy, gooey and best of all, sometimes even fishy, the small people always provided a feast.

When their bags were empty, they would run. The bigger people would try to stop them and herd them back together again, but they would usually escape and run some more.

The seagull thought about how much he really missed the small people. He wondered where they had gone, and wished that they would come back soon.

Why "The Rookery"?

When contemplating a name for my new blog, I decided it would be a good idea to use an idiom of some sort. I was thinking that idioms have recognizable meaning, but used as a title for my blog would give an esoteric feel to it.

So my quest for idioms began. All I had to do is type “idioms” into Google, and “VOILA!” -lists and lists of idioms instantly appear. I began scanning the lists for just the right blog title. I wasn’t even out of the “A” when I found “As the Crow Flies”. This really appealed to me because I love Crows. It may have something to do with Halloween being my favorite holiday, or the fact that Crows are smart and gregarious and fun to observe.

My research then turned to crows. When I work on any kind of design, whether I’m building a web page, creating art or writing a story, I like to do as much research on the subject as possible before I start the project. I Googled “Crows”. Through Google I found the Wikipedia article about crows. (Did I mention that I think the Internet is a wonderful thing!) Wikipedia confirmed many things that I already knew about them, that they are smart social birds. But something that I didn’t know was how smart they really are. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the smartest, crows rank 10 on the smartness scale. In fact, besides being able to learn speech, much like minor birds and Macaws, they even have been known to make tools to help them gather food - impressive ain’t they.

With my admiration of crows substantiated, I turned to finding suitable imagery. Clipart.com is my favorite source for images in any graphic design project I may have, and my new blog was no exception. I entered “crow” in the search box for all image types and wound up with 1010 images. Woohoo! I love having a lot to choose from. I had an idea of what I wanted the site to look like, so I decided to skip all of the silly, brightly colored vector clipart – and went straight for the turn of the century line art.

Apparently, Victorians loved crows too. It seemed like I was clicking and downloading images of crows for hours. Everything looked good to me. It was going to be hard to choose. Much of the artwork I was downloading was advertising art, so it contained graphic text, to which I paid little attention. Once my download fest was complete, feeling very satisfied, I began to peruse through my treasure of crow imagery. Clicking on and studying each image, I came across “The Rookery” image. Great image, I thought, looks like mom and dad crow having a serious discussion with all the little fledgling crow. But what does “The Rookery” mean?

Back to Google. I Google “Rookery”. And wouldn’t you know it Wikipedia had the answer.


“Rookery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Birds
A rookery is a nesting colony of birds. The term is especially connected with crows, and the rooka bird similar to the crow, but smaller.”

That’s when I decied “The Rookery” is actually a better name for my new blog than “As the crow flies”. The graphic was perfect for the header. (with some small adjustment for spacing) The definition of “rookery” fits the purpose of my blog, as I plan on hatching new ideas, developing and nuturing my creative mind in this space. - It was fate.

And so it goes, my new blog “The Rookery” blog is born. I’m excided, the creative juices are flowing. I’m hoping that the people who happen to pass by will enjoy what I’ve contributed to this free web space.