The Big (Un)Easy

I have never met Don Schwarzenbach; in fact, I have never even spoken with him. And yet I consider him a friend. A good friend. But having noted that, I must add that this has been pretty much a one-way friendship because I have gotten far more from him than he has gotten from me.
Don and his family — wife Alicia and son Adam, who is soon to turn 8 — live in New Orleans. Yes, they lived there when Hurricane Katrina blew through. He kept in touch with me through all of it, through the fleeing from the storm, the relocation to Dallas, the return to New Orleans. After all, New Orleans was home . . . is home. And home is where their hearts were and are.
He allowed me, through his e-mails, to live through the whole mess with him and his family. Words really can’’t express the chills that would run up and down my spine or the lump that would find a home in my throat when I read about the day-to-day problems with which they were faced.
Don is, above all, a sports fan. In fact, it’s fair to see that he is a multi-sports fan. We first came into contact in the mid-1990s when he was a freelance hockey writer covering some of the ECHL action in the deep south. Then, as now, I just loved his e-mails which were simply loaded with questions.
These days, he has a blog — community.foxsports.com/blogs/Fightin_Fugee — that definitely is worth checking out, even if just for another fan’s perspective. Note that it hasn’t been updated in a bit, perhaps because he has other things on his minds these days.
It’s called Hurricane Dean . . .
“The Tropics are definitely a topic of conversation around here, but the media (both local and national) is getting a little carried away with a storm that is not even in the Gulf,” he wrote in a weekend e-mail.
“It looks at this point like Dean will miss us, but again, we just don't know for sure and we have to wait until the storm gets in the Gulf before we start taking a real serious look.
If it follows the National Hurricane Center track, it should miss us. BUT, after Katrina, we will take nothing for granted around here. I just can't describe that feeling — of knowing you have to get out of the way with no gurantee that you will be able to return home.
I guess with us it is the knowledge that we sit so precipitously near water that will inundate us, we just get the feeling that we're Atlantis or something.”
This time, however, Don and his family are more prepared than they were in 2005. Now Alicia’s mother has a place in Natchez, Miss., about 180 miles away, so they will at least have shelter from the storm.
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If you want to know what life was like in New Orleans before, during and in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, read The Great Deluge by Douglas Brinkley. It will leave you shaking your head on just about every page.
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I found this link on Don’s blog to a brilliant editorial cartoon — blog.nola.com/stevekelley/2007/07/20_july_2007.html.