What Fresh Hell is This

I am sharing that wonderful, witty statement, “What Fresh Hell is This?” It is one of my favourite quotes from the most respected and beloved author, Dorothy Parker. It relates to this Food for Thought, so I trust Dorothy wouldn’t complain. 

On September 29 Tim and I blithely set out on a vacation I had been planning for months. We were to visit my daughter and her family in Philadelphia and my son and his family in Vermont. On the way we would stop in Charleston, South Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia. After Philadelphia we would stay with my dear sister in her Vermont home and visit our newest family member who was not quite a month old.  We looked forward to relishing old haunts and revisiting beloved family and friends. The icing on the cake would be spending a day with my son and his family. This planned reunion would take place in Vermont, the place of my renaissance and youth.

I had researched and planned everything for our trip perfectly down to the last detail.  My fellow writer and dear friend, Cathy, agreed to be our caretaker. She would stop by to nurture my African Violets, in full bloom, and my Line of Hearts Plant, collect our mail, and watch over our home. I provided Cathy with a voluminous list of instructions. One item read, “If there is a hurricane I don’t know what to tell you.”  Prophetic words, as it turned out.

We loaded the car with our trip itinerary, luggage, emergency phone numbers and all we needed except our Atlas Road Map. Why would I need that? I wondered. After all, we have a GPS on our phone with a map app. Those were words of naive ignorance which I would later deeply regret. 

The first revelation of our trip going south came as I confidently strode into a Holiday Inn in Beaufort, South Carolina. We were in dire need of a hot meal, a bath, a bed, a TV, Tim's drawing book, my journal for writing, and my book for reading. There was no one about and the lobby doors were all unsecured and wide open. We eventually discovered a woman in a hotel uniform napping on a couch in the lobby. She awakened when she felt my presence.  I asked her if I could reserve a room for the night. 

“No ma’am, there ain't no rooms available. We have no power, internet, or wifi. Ever since Hurricane Helena.”    

My writing grotto, post Milton

Helena? I asked myself, but that was over a week ago.

Alarm bells began to go off in my head. What if we couldn’t find a hotel room? My phone hadn’t been working as all the towers were down. My GPS had retired. The final insult to my confidence was the lack of our road Atlas. I was certain that my phone would guide us every step of the trip. After all, who needs a road Atlas?

We drove from one hotel to another, using up precious gas until we finally discovered a Comfort Inn that appeared open. A wonderful man, Ben, was the reservations manager. Ben found us a cancellation providing an empty room at the Inn. We were thrilled. I walked to our designated room while Tim retrieved our luggage from the car. I inserted the key pass, opened the door, only to find a very shocked man in his underwear staring at me. I managed to stammer, “Is this room 216? I have a key. Ben said it was empty.”

“Yes, this is room 216, but it’s mine. It’s not empty.”  Shamefacedly, I backed out of the room as I apologized.

Downstairs we straightened the mess out with Ben. We were provided with the correct room number and key. Tim and I rode up on the elevator with another quiet gentleman. I related my room invasion story to Tim. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more flabbergasted, unless it was the guy in his underwear in 'our' room!” Tim and I had a good laugh. The quiet gentleman in the elevator said, “Yeah, that was me. I think I was the more flabbergasted.” Again, I apologized profusely and we all had a good laugh.    

The next day, Monday, September 30, we continued on our sight-seeing journey to Charleston, South Carolina. Fortunately, I had previously booked a room. Charleston was all we had hoped for. We researched history and enjoyed the beautiful brick streets and historic homes along the river. We noticed water had swamped the public park. The waterline, many feet above where the river now peacefully flowed, was filled with the refuse of human life. That’s odd, I thought. It was also a bit disconcerting.

At our next stop we took a wonderful three-hour tour of Boone Hall Plantation. We inspected the brick slave quarters, each one with its own fireplace. Every cabin would have been home to three or more families, housing 10-20 slaves, very tight quarters. Those were the luxury slave quarters reserved for house workers and slaves with special skills: carpentry, masonry and the like.

We listened to a talk provided by a Gullah descendant. The “Gullah Gal” was barefoot and wore native Gullah dress. She provided us with stories passed down through generations of her ancestors from Barbados, where her families had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. We learned new words and discovered previously unknown paths from the past to the present.

Later, Tim and I touched fingerprints forever sculpted in a brick made by a slave child in the 1850s. At the early age of three or four these children were not playing Tag and Hide-and-Seek with other children. They were making bricks to help build their homes. This child’s fingerprints were a testament to a slave history some try to ignore. The prints are an indelible link to the past which could not be wiped out or neglected in the pages of history.

We continued our vacation in Richmond, where our room overlooked the raging James River. We talked over each historic discovery as we strolled the brick streets and alleys of Richmond, shopping, dining and prowling through antique shops. Next, we reached Philadelphia where we visited my daughter and her sweet family. We played games, went on a ghost tour, and enjoyed Salmon my daughter had grilled for dinner.

More stirrings on TV news warned that a massive hurricane, Milton, was forming. I felt uneasy as spaghetti line forecasts were showing that Milton was gaining strength and was now forecast as a CAT 5 hurricane, with 150 mph winds.  Milton was hurtling towards Tampa on a direct hit trajectory.

“That can’t be possible.” Tim and I agreed. “Hurricanes always miss Tampa. Helena had gone the old route of zooming in outside of Tampa. Wouldn’t we be as lucky this time?”

On Monday, October 7, as we drove to Vermont hurricane warnings became more imperative, serious and frightening. Our Mayor, Jane Castor, was on National news: “I’ve never seen anything like this hurricane heading straight for us. I’ve never said this before, but I am now. If you don’t evacuate you will die.” We had never seen Mayor Castor on national news with such dire predictions.

“But we’re not even in a flood zone.” Tim and I reassured one another. A major hurricane hadn’t hit Tampa dead-on in over a hundred years. Weren’t we protected by an ancient Native American blessing that Tampa would always be spared? 

Tuesday, October 8 arrived. We were at the penultimate of our vacation looking forward to visiting with family and renewing loving ties. We had planned on catching up on my grandchildren's lives, meeting our new baby, seeing the bright autumn foliage, attending country fairs and enjoying maple syrup and pumpkin fests. We couldn’t wait to share old times and stories and receive many hugs. We did NOT plan on images screaming across all media of a hurricane destroying everything in our lives and world.

                                                What Fresh Hell Is This? 

I cried on and off the entire day.  Tim was much more stoic and sane. We feared the worst, realizing the full potential of Hurricane Milton. How could this have happened? How could Mother Nature have treated us so cruelly and dispassionately?  Through my fears and tears, hysteria and horror, my dearest friends, from California to Vermont, comforted me and pulled me through my nightmares. Milton was real. So were long-time friendships and family supporting and uplifting me with so much love.

We cut our vacation short and were fortunate enough to arrive two days later at my sister’s home in North Carolina, where we felt it best to wait out Milton until power was restored in Tampa. The time at their vacation home was a much needed respite. We were able to feel hopeful. Milton had landed south of Tampa. While we commiserated for friends in St. Pete, Sarasota, Siesta Key and Anna Maria Island, selfishly, we were relieved that Tampa hadn’t received the full brunt of Milton’s wrath.

We arrived home around noon on Wednesday, October 16. Old Seminole Heights park-like streets looked like a warzone. Trees were uprooted and crashed all over, soaked furniture, mattresses and debris cluttered the streets. The sound of many chainsaws filled the air. When we entered our home we found the living room, laundry, bathroom, bedroom and master closet had flooded. Our 

parquet floor, one of the most treasured aspects of our home, was popping up all over. Parquet tiles were broken, destroyed, expanded and cracked. The carpets were not entirely soggy, which allowed us to dry them with fans, as long as we had electricity. Power had returned ahead of TECO's scheduled restoration by noon on Wednesday. None of our enormous trees had fallen on our property or on the roof. We worked as best we could picking up fallen branches and yard debris, unpacking and doing laundry. We eventually collapsed in bed. We awakened at 4:30am to our security alarm letting us know our power was out, again. 

The remains of my beloved clothesline

The following day, Thursday, October 17, we felt more relieved. Our home had dodged the Milton bullet. While we had sustained damage, we still had a house to live in, unlike many less fortunate.

The morning was beautiful, cool, sunny and breezy. We looked at the overwhelming amount of branches, Spanish Moss, tree limbs and debris that buried our yard.

As we looked out our French doors we received a happy welcome. Our Catbird, who returns every October for his winter migration to our home, was hopping about on the patio. He turned to us and sang his call of “mewww….mewwww…” 

Tim managed to open the swollen French doors and threw “our” Catbird some crushed nuts. Mister Catbird picked them up, flew off, and returned with his lady love. They were back, giving us the promise of a new season of renewal. Tim threw out more crushed peanuts.

As are so many others, we are in the process of applying to FEMA Disaster Relief. We are cleaning the  mess of our floors, throwing the ruined tiles and carpeting in the trash. All the while we become mournful over our losses, yet encouraged by all that was not destroyed. Again and again we both reassured one another,

“Wow, it could have been so much worse. We are so lucky…”

Nature’s promise renewed us with the voice of a Catbird welcoming us to our home. After all, our nest is every bit as much his and his bride’s.

Birds are unprotected and live outside. We live somewhat protected in our cinder block and stucco home. We co-exist happily with one another.  Tim and I provide comfort and sustenance whenever possible, whether to birds or people. We realize that there’s always something to be grateful for. The world will renew itself with beautiful and amazing things to look forward to, even if it’s a couple of birds begging for peanuts on your patio.

We all need handouts from time to time, no matter what Mother Nature, or life, dishes out, even if it’s peanuts and bits of bread.

Our home, the day after Milton, was taken by our neighbour to reassure us that it was still there!

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