Every house as far as the eye can see has been wiped off the face of the earth, a wasteland of lumber and trees. Yet in the middle of this boneyard, Patsy Pinion, 52, is entertaining three friends on the concrete slab where her front porch once stood.
The wicker furniture with matching ceiling fans is gone, along with the screened enclosure. And she can’t play host for a fish fry or a crab boil as she used to.
Instead, four people are sitting on chairs on the slab, snacking on canned peaches amid the devastation.
The mood, however, is unmistakable: Southern hospitality is returning to the veranda, one of the few tangible signs that the Deep South is getting ready to rise again–if only psychologically–two weeks after Hurricane Katrina seemingly squashed or drowned everything but the human spirit itself.
“Well, come on in,” deadpanned a scruffy John Davis, 54.
“Help yourself to bottled water. Sorry we don’t have any iced tea,” added Pinion, a Cajun originally from Bear Island, La., who moved to the Mississippi coast three decades ago.
The return of families and friends to the front porch, gallery, or veranda–all terms used interchangeably here–is balm for their emotional recovery and ability to move forward, residents say.
“Rich people call it verandas,” admonished Davis.
In fact, Pinion and her three friends were taking a break from searching for any valuable objects with a metal detector under a steamy sun. They found a few things–a brass bed frame, shadeless lamps, pieces of china and bits of jewelry.
While the iconic image of Southerners lounging on the antebellum veranda has changed with the architecture of modern homes, the porch still thrives as a place to exchange woe, joy and, inevitably, tall tales. Indeed, many Southern traditions remained evident in the storm’s aftermath, including the controversial practice of displaying the Confederate flag one lot down on the seafront, the flag in tatters, the house destroyed.
Not surprisingly for Southerners renowned for their lilted accents and gift for gab, a new mythology about the latest hurricane was quickly taking shape on Pinion’s front slab.
“They say that the scariest thing about coming back into your home is the wildlife–snakes, alligators–that they got to watch out for things like that. Shark, too,” said Gary McCrory, 47, a crane operator who tossed in the warning about the shark with total seriousness.
“Someone found a baby rattler,” added his sister, Sheila Davis, 48. Her husband, John, also a crane operator, agreed.
A vulnerable position
In Bay St. Louis and neighboring Waveland, whose city line is just 16 feet or so from Pinion’s residence, the shoreline was in the feared 1 o’clock position–the most destructive side of a hurricane–for rampaging Katrina. Despite the towns’ ground zero status, New Orleans has received more media attention because of the imagery of widespread flooding and evacuations.
But the experience hasn’t been any less devastating here.
The coastline of Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation, resembles a “Gone With the Wind” battlefield with the angular arms of live oak trees standing leafless and blackened like ghouls attending a graveyard.
Waterfront roads, downtown Bay St. Louis facades, even railroad tracks–all are torn or twisted or gone.
For one family in adjacent Waveland, their sanctuary from the ruin has been their back yard and patio. Their home is too modest for a veranda, but the charm and cheer are just the same.
`A different generation’
“The generation behind me used to entertain on the front porch,” said Charles Bourgeois, 60. “When my mommy and daddy were living, they used to get together on the front porch and have coffee and a piece of pie, mostly sweet potato, not much pumpkin, maybe apple or pecan.
“It was just a different generation coming up,” said the former utility worker, who bought his home in June 1970.
Instead, the burly patriarch and his wife are using their cypress-shaded back patio to visit with one of their four sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and a neighbor and his two sons. They prefer the patio because it can hold up to 30 people, they said.
Because their flooded one-story house still was drying out, the men in the Bourgeois family have built a plywood shack to sleep in, as well as a pantry stocked with canned goods and bottled water. A new $600 generator juiced an air conditioner in the windowless shack.
Only the men sleep in the shanty. The mother stays with one son whose Pass Christian, Miss., home survived a tidal surge. In Waveland, it reached 7 to 8 miles inland, enveloping more than half of the Bourgeois house, which sits just a half-mile from shore.
“If they keep us separated,” Bourgeois cracked, “they figure we won’t have any children.”
Their meals were modest: a hot dinner prepared by the Red Cross of chili mac, corn and pudding. They didn’t complain, though they’re more used to mullet, catfish, shrimp or crab, often caught by fisherman Charles Jr., 21.
“Like my daddy used to say,” observed visiting neighbor Peter Marchetta, 58, “no matter how bad things get, it’s got to get better, so you go by life with a smile on your face, and that’s the best way to be.”
The Bourgeois matriarch, Kay, 49, a cashier manager at the now-destroyed Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, said the evening’s gathering bonded family and friends during an ongoing crisis.
“Well, we’ve got to stay in good spirits,” the mother said. “Otherwise, you’ll get down and out and depressed and you won’t have a life. It’s going to take a lot of time, and it’s going to take years to do it.”
There was always time for humor, even about themselves and their surname, a word with French origins meaning the capitalist class.
“I don’t know if it’s rich people or if we’re poor people,” said the senior Bourgeois. “Let me tell you how I feel: All but life is replaceable. … Everything you see back there is replaceable–except my family.”
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mjmartinez@tribune.com
