Live from Pearlington - 11

As a young boy, when my father was drunk and my mother was nasty, often my eldest sister would take us upstairs and sing to us. She would smile and put on a happy face and read us poems - anything to distract our little minds from the travesty unfolding downstairs. Later in life, she paid a price for having to be the one that did that, and I have certainly paid the price for needing it done. While I am grateful she did what she could to get my mind off the fights, the bickering and the violence, none of it was lost on me and I grew to be an angry, defiant and desperately lonely young man. For my sister, she has long since dropped the role of our protector and surrogate parent, but we all still look to her for stability and strength in our times of need. I know this has been a heavy burden for her to bear sometimes. I think it can make one resentful and desperately hurt that the job of parenting had to fall to one so young and so needful of a parent of her own.

Welcome to Pearlington, Mississippi.

As a handful of volunteers from everywhere BUT Pearlington struggle to provide for, entertain and distract these traumatized people from the tragedy that continues to unfold around them, we are growing weary, resentful and desperately hurt. Off in corners, from Washington to the state capital, groups of clipboards gather to argue and fight about jurisdiction, control and whose going to take the fall in the end. The papers talk of politics and appropriations, budgets and oversight committees, elections and the future of politicians who have dropped one of the biggest balls in American history. People write in with their often ludicrous opinions, all delivered from the safety of their comfortable armchairs. Who’ll get the glory, who’ll take the heat, what will we do the next time. Yet, THIS time is still here and it is as real as it gets. As those charged with their protection jockey for position, both hands firmly covering their own asses, the people of Pearlington and elsewhere struggle to survive, hiding in the attic as Perfect Strangers feed them and sing to them, and try their best to protect them from the very people who were placed to do that job. And sometimes, like yesterday, those Strangers are criticised and chastised for their presence, because we remind them of their duty and their lack of responsibility. And in no place, on no committee are we present, despite the delivery of millions of dollars in aid and volunteerism to Hancock County.

On Day 84 there are still some people on the ground in Pearlington. This is unconscionable. Yet, at the same time, I believe we are coming to the end of the most desperate phase of this kind of mission. In the past week there have been numerous indicators - some showed up in a positive way, some in a negative way - that this is true. The basic needs of the people of Pearlington have been met. I believe it is coming to that unenviable time in any steward or parent’s life that we must begin thinking of how we will back away slowly and allow these good folks to find their own way.

We clearly will not change the politics and good-ole-boy network in the South. We will not change the face of racism in a few more weeks. But then, it was never our mission to do so. All of the out of town police and fire presences have played out their hands and resources and have returned home. We are now in the dubious hands of what-was-here-before. There is a thin line, as all good parents know, between supporting and enabling. I believe now that we have begun to cross that line. The lady in the Pearl*Mart yesterday who asked for some sheets and then turned them down because they didn’t match, has shown us this reality. She is not the only one and it is increasing. There is a point at which, if we stay in our current capacity too much longer, we will successfully create a welfare state in Pearlington, expectant and dependent on what goods we can provide. I care for these people too much to support that position.

Today, after a much-needed day off in the care of a wonderful family in Bugalosa, Sid and Darlene Kennedy, I see things from a fresh perspective. There will be no hasty bugging out or leaving the still-needy in despair. Today, in concert with the Carbondale Fire Department, whose city has invested scores of thousands of dollars clearing lots for trailers and manning the supply and distribution area in their turn, I will call a meeting with the Hancock County Emergency Operations Center. We will try to discuss a plan for a managed and orderly withdrawal from the Pearl*Mart side of things, as we have known it. All will not agree with me, not the least of which will be some of the citizens of Pearlington who make five trips to the Pearl*Mart each day and complain because we don’t have coffee-makers that day or that the comforters aren’t queen size. Some of my own original Renegaides may not agree with me either, but I was put in leadership and I must do what is in my heart to do, for the good of all. There is still much to accomplish but it must be on a different level now.

We will get those last people off the ground and give them what we have to start their trailer life. We have all done a remarkable job and now we should begin to recognize that we must love these folks enough to have faith in the power of their own recovery and rebuilding. Perhaps this will give them the strength of purpose to throw some of these clipboards out on their self-serving butts.

Maybe then they can come down from the attic and face the ones who should have been there for them all along.

Pray for us all....