Freezer Pot luck

-Katrina Memorial Pascagoula Beach Park

This morning, I read a list of local events marking the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The one that struck me most is a area Episcopalian congregation that is marking the event by meeting for services in the parish hall, where they worshipped for months after Katrina flooded the sanctuary. They will follow services with pot luck from the freezer.

This year, I bought a small freezer. It's only five cubic feet, about the smallest home freezer you can buy. I found it on Craigslist. Big Sis was kind enough to pick it up for me in New Orleans and deliver it to my house. Turns out, the man selling was a shrimper in New Orleans who sadly didn't need it due to the oil spill.

But anyway, back to the freezer. My biggest concern this hurricane season centers around that freezer. I'm so worried that we'll lose power and lose everything in the freezer. In fact, I've considered buying a generator just because of that silly freezer.

For this reason, the idea of a commemorative freezer pot luck strikes a chord. Should south Mississippi have a significant loss of power anytime soon, know that you're all invited for a blueberry feast accompanied by chicken on the grill and spiral sliced ham. I would sprinkle everything with milled flax seed and steel cut oats but I assume those stockpiles will survive outside the freezer.

A few notes on Katrina itself:

Everyone here has a story. I think a lot of people are tired of telling their stories. My story is one of observation as I didn't move here until a few months after Katrina but having visited the gulf coast for many years prior to Hurricane Katrina, I know what was lost.

I've watched the coast rebuild. This is truly a resilient place with resilient people.

I understand the frustration of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the epicenter of Hurricane Katrina, which had a few towns almost wiped off the map when the spotlight of storm damage is again and again focused primarily on New Orleans.

One of my strongest memories of the rebuilding after Katrina will always be the debris trucks, piled high with ruined belongings, rattling along I-10, and occasionally losing a sofa or mattress off the top of the pile.