December 26, 2005
Hello Everyone—
Here’s an update on the efforts we’ve been making to help the horses and people affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The day after Christmas, Pete and I packed up and headed for Lakeshore. We had stayed up late Christmas night making a present for the Ladners and all the people we’ve met there. We made prints of all the pictures we’ve taken on our trips and bound them together in a book. It said Happy New Year to all our friends in Lakeshore from all your friends in Florida! We also carried a crate of oranges and a bottle of wine (along with 2 tons of feed and 45 bales of hay).
I-10 was fairly quiet. I think for a lot of people the week between Christmas and New Year’s has a special kind of peace—sort of a tired but satisfied time. As we passed by little towns I noticed a lot of cars gathered at some of the houses: people still visiting, watching games, putting up the new swing-set and jungle gym.
At Gulfport, we took a detour north to visit another feed store we’d been told was operational. Fazio’s is a big store located about an hour north of Lakeshore, with a lot of horse supplies, saddles, outdoor equipment, and feed. They were open, and doing a pretty booming business. After Pete and I looked around for awhile, I approached the lady at the office window and asked her if they had any horse feed. As she was showing me a list of what they had available, I began telling her about our project to bring in supplies to the people in Lakeshore. I explained that we were checking with them because we didn’t want to undermine businesses in the area, that we would be glad to do business with them if they could handle the volume. “We bring in feed and hay every two weeks,” I told her. Suddenly, I realized everything around me had gotten really quiet. I looked around to see that everyone standing nearby was looking at me. “You’ve got hay?” a man in line behind me asked. People were shifting nervously, eyeing each other. “Well, everything I’ve got is spoken for this time,” I said. I was silently beginning to wonder if we were going to get out of there with our hay load intact. “We’ll buy your hay if you want to sell it,” the lady in the office said. “Any hay you can bring in, we’ll buy. We need all we can get.”
I began to see how easy it would be for hay loads destined for one location to end up “mis-delivered.” I said again that I didn’t have any extra this trip, but I took her card and told her I’d do what I could to help her locate some hay. As I folded the price sheet she gave me, I looked around for Pete. Catching his eye, I nodded toward the door, thanked the folks in the office, and beat a hasty retreat. I half expected to get outside and find people lining up to try to buy hay off the trailer, dragging bales through the parking lot to their pick-ups. “Remind me not to mention to anyone that we’ve got hay,” I said to Pete. “It’s like walking around eating a big slice of pie in a place where everyone is starving.”
We drove south towards Lakeshore. Of course, that takes you through the Kiln—no way around it. Then you would have to stop for coffee, particularly if you had a club card. Pete likes to keep account of just how far out of my way I’ll go for an iced mocha. So I positively reveled in the fact that, in this instance, it was only a matter of 150 feet.
Back on the road, we saw several horse trailers carrying horses with sale numbers on them. This made us think that people in the area are feeling optimistic enough to buy horses again. In fact, Kenny Ray told us later that day that Carlos had gone to Florida to buy a horse.
In Lakeshore, it was a beautiful afternoon. Kenny Ray and Teresa were in good spirits. Eddie and Aaron were on-hand to help unload. Eddie told us Kelley was at the vet’s getting some of the horses vaccines and coggins tests. I asked him how the casino recovery was going. He said the Imperial Palace had just opened and there were lines out the door. The casino he works at, though, wasn’t opened back up yet. “They paid us through November,” he said. “They ordered all new slot machines, and they aren’t in yet. They said it would be at least two months.” I didn’t ask him how he and Kelley were doing without his salary. He went on to tell us that the casino where he worked didn’t go under water, but some of the machines had surface rust or rain damage. They were all sold to a salvage operation, probably for about $50 apiece, Eddie said. “Ya’ll goin’ gamblin’?” he asked with a grin. “No,” I said. “I spend all my money on horses. They’re enough thrills for me.”
We asked Kenny Ray how his trailer community was coming along. He said they were doing fine. “The only trouble we’ve had has been one or two little domestic squabbles. You know, husband and wife get to fussin’. The police come in and it quiets right down. It’s nothing like what people said it would be.” Kenny pointed out the piles of crushed rock FEMA had brought in for the road through the trailer park. “That’s really nice rock,” he said. “From Alabama. Makes a good road.” He estimated that the FEMA improvements to his property for the trailer park are now between $200,000 and $300,000. “Those are improvements that will stay when all the trailers are gone,” he said. “Then I’m going to open up my own trailer park.” I told him I’d come down and stay a few days, go to the beach. He grinned. “You stay as long as you like,” he said. “No charge.”
We gave Kenny and Teresa their presents and went back to their trailer for cold drinks. I think they liked best the pictures—showing the months of recovery, the snapshots of themselves during a time when they could hardly think of themselves. “You’ve come a long way,” I told them. Teresa talked about wanting to get back in their house. I joked with her about not wanting to stay in the trailer. “Not so much to clean,” I said. “I’d like that part of it.” But she wasn’t having it. “I want my house,” she said longingly.
A man with about eight teenaged boys came by and asked for Kenny. It seems they had contracted with Kenny to take out his above-ground pool, which was destroyed in the storm. We watched them cut the twisted metal into strips with a saws-all, then pack the strips in the trunk of their car. I never saw a more organized group of boys. They were fast. Wish I could get them to help out at my barn.
I talked to Teresa for awhile about her family. She told me her sister’s trailer had slid off it’s foundation in the storm and all the windows were busted out. The insurance company wasn’t going to give her much for it because the roof was still in tact. “That’s what I don’t understand,” I told Teresa. “They seem to come up with certain things they’ll pay for—like the roof—but not the windows, or getting it put back on the foundation. But you can’t live in it with it tipped off the foundation and the windows all broken.” Teresa said it was easier to get help if you knew the right people.
“Speaking of which,” Pete said, “has David Yarborough been over here lately?” Teresa laughed. [Yarborough is the county supervisor who tried to stop the FEMA trailer park going in on Kenny Ray’s land, after Kenny had agreements for the deal.] “He came by one day. He’s trying to put butter on it now,” she said. “He told us they were giving some things away over at the fire department and to tell everybody in the trailers. But he knows he’s on the way out. Everybody that we talk to blames him.” She said most of the people in the trailers know he caused the delay in them moving in.
Teresa also talked about her family—she lost her father in early December. She broke down as she talked about her father’s death and her mother’s sickness. I thought about what a hard year she’s had. Her mother is now staying with one of her sisters. “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital,” Teresa said. I told her it was the same with my mom. Between my sister and me, we were able to keep her at home the last year she was dying of cancer.
We went outside to watch Kenny Ray supervising the pool deconstruction. He said, “Walk over here with me, I’ll show you the feed store.” We walked over to the gutted building where Ladner’s feed store once stood. The whole place has now been stripped of shelves and debris. It’s ready to be repaired. Kenny was telling us how he’s going to lay it out. We talked about the difficulty of getting feed and hay, and I told him what we had discovered up at Fazio’s earlier in the day. He showed me how he keeps control over the feed and hay we bring him. “I keep it locked up,” he said, “and I write down everybody who gets feed or hay and how much they get.” He pulled a notebook out of his pocket and showed me. I said he needed to start making some money on the feed. He said, “No, I can’t make money off free feed. I’d go to hell if I do that. I may not be a religious man, but I’m honest.” I said, “Well look. We don’t always get enough donation money to cover us. Do you think people are ready to get on a little bit of a paying basis?” “Yes,” he said eagerly, “I think they’re all ready.”
“How about if you start charging a little bit at this end so we can keep bringing it in?” I said. “It doesn’t look like the feed stores up north are going to cover you for some time, so we’re trying to keep coming. But, if people are paying, you could start to make a little something for all the work you’re doing. And, even if you do go to hell, I’ll put in a good word for you when I talk to St. Peter.” He laughed. We worked out a pay schedule. Kenny Ray thought most everyone could pay $3.50 a bag for feed and $3 for hay. He would make 50 cents a bag on feed and give us the rest to buy more. As things improved he would gradually raise prices so that his customers would cover more of the expense of bringing in the supplies. (We pay from $6 to $7.50 a bag for feed, and around $4/bale for hay. Diesel is running us around $120 a trip.) I think he was excited about this plan—I think he saw it as the first step to really getting back his business. He talked again about getting his Purina dealership back as soon as his building is ready. He just continues to amaze me—the energy and optimism he has for rebuilding his life. So, another milestone.
Kenny then began to point out his collection of antiques, which he had organized under a portion of the roof still intact—a cart, old glass, various implements. Pete spotted an old wooden ship’s wheel. “You got a nice place to hang that?” Kenny asked us. “I’ve had it for 30 years and I’ll give it to you if you want it.” We pulled it out and admired it. It’s the real deal, with a brass center and hand-turned handles on a beautifully laminated wheel. “Really?” I asked. “Sand it down and varnish it, clean that brass,” Kenny said. “Thank you, Kenny,” I said. “I would love to have it. It’ll be our memento of you and all our trips to Lakeshore.” Pete hefted it and stowed it in the back of the trailer. I realized that Kenny had been trying to think of something to give us since we’d arrived with presents for him and Teresa. I could tell it made him happy to have found the wheel, and to see how much we liked it. It was exactly the right thing.
As we were getting ready to go a man we hadn’t seen before arrived bearing presents for Kenny Ray and Teresa. His name was Terry. He presented Kenny a knife in a small wooden box and he gave Teresa a lovely cross necklace set in her birthstone. She said she and Kenny Ray have the same birthday, August 14th. “So it’s his birthstone too,” she said. Kenny looked wistfully at the knife. “I had over a hundred knives that I lost,” he said. I said, “I remember you told me about your knife collection the first time I met you.” Kenny recalls the special ones: a John Wayne knife with an American flag, John Wayne’s signature, and “Give ‘em hell, John” inscribed on the case. All the knives were ruined in the storm, even though they were in a bank vault, because the bank was flooded. “The spring in the back of the blade got salt water in it,” Kenny said, “and it crystallized. Of course the bank had no insurance on that kind of thing.” Terry told us about all the old currency he had in a bank vault that was ruined.
Kenny began telling Terry about our plan to charge a little bit for feed and hay. Terry agreed people were eager to get back on a paying basis, to help ensure the supply of feed and hay. Kenny told him what Pete and I had found at the other feed stores: that no one in the area was having an easy time of keeping feed, and hay was even harder to come by. “They’re selling it for $5 and more when they have it,” Kenny told him. Kenny said he was going to keep limiting his customers to two or three bales at a time. Otherwise, people would come in and buy ten bales and turn around and go sell it like they do “down in da Kiel” (that’s the local pronunciation of The Kiln].
“Just remember Kenny, the price is 3 dollars to your regular customers. For race track folks it’s 7,” Pete joked.
Terry said that’s what had happened at the county barn. People from the big tracks in Louisiana grabbed 250 bales of hay, took it up to the race track and were selling it for 10 dollars a bale. “Then when I complained about it (to the county), they told me, oh no, this is for this one and that one and all that . . . . and they said Oh we got plenty of hay. When I got up there they had three bales left.”
Terry told us he had Arabian horses. Two of his stallions drowned in the storm, losing some eighty thousand dollars in stud fees he had booked for this year. But, he says, he has mares and one stallion left. “I’m still sick over losing them,” he said. “They were like my little kids, I raised them from babies.”
Pete asked if they were in stalls. Terry said, yes they were here at Kenny’s, in their stalls. “I couldn’t get out to get down here,” Terry said, his eyes tearing. “Just thank god you didn’t,” Kenny Ray said, “or you might have drownded.” Terry said, “I would have gladly went with them. We’d have all went together.”
We talked about how all the horses that got out of their stalls drowned; the ones that stayed in survived. “That’s important for people to know,” I told him. “People are always wondering what to do in a bad storm—put the horses out, or keep them in. But every time I ever hear anybody talk about what kills a horse in a storm, it’s either the debris hitting them, they get into a wet place where the electric lines are down and get electrocuted, or they get hit by a car. None of that happens if they’re in a stall.”
Kenny was still trying to console Terry. “We judged this thing by Camille,” he said. “We didn’t realize . . . .” He bent down and indicated the level of his ankle. “We had this much water after Camille. In this storm we had them hung up in the trees, in the telephone wires. That’s how my donkey drownded out in the cow pasture. He got swept over the fence and got his back leg hung up.” He shook his head sadly.
“He was the best donkey,” Teresa said. “Kenny Ray would bring him every year to the Coming of Christ (celebration at the church). The kids loved him. You could ride him without a halter.”
“We named him KC, after Roxanne’s husband,” Kenny said, “Kenny Crawford.” Everyone laughed. “We used to pick at him and tell him you’re just as ornery as that donkey out there.” Pete asked if KC was related to the donkey in the barn. “That’s the mother of the one we can’t find yet,” Kenny said. “He was on I-10 after the storm. A man had to stop and push him out of the way to get by. Somebody picked him up [to keep for themselves].
“KC was so good, you could ride him by just pulling on his ears to steer,” Teresa said. “The little kids could walk under his stomach and around his legs and he would not move. So loving.”
“It’s too bad to lose the good ones like that,” I said.
I thought about these people and how much they love their animals. A lot of stories, like this one of KC, the good donkey, are just now starting to be told, and it seems to me it has taken these many months for people to even be able to tell these stories. I look at their faces as they remember their donkey. They are smiling, but their eyes are glistening with tears. Something about it makes me think, so this is Christmas in Lakeshore, 2005.
“Happy New Year,” I say, hugging Kenny Ray and Teresa. “See you in two weeks.”
Thanks to all of you who have donated, written encouragement, sent information, or wished us well. To the Emerald Coast Pony Club and Anita Owens, and to Jeff and PJ Broadfoot in Van Buren, Arkansas, thank you for your generous donations. Special thanks to Monica Colquett, who continues to work to get the word out about our efforts to keep the hay train rolling. Special thanks also to Ronny Morgan, Sam Morgan, and Morgan hay growers, for your kindness and generosity.
These trips have made me realize that we have this world here, everyday, for the making. We don’t have to wait for anything to make it our own. Of course, on a good day, this is obvious to most people. But, we get worn out, disappointed, taught not to expect much. Our spirits forget what they’re about, and we begin to overlook our own options. A friend of mine wrote recently, “Explore the world as if the only events that take shape are those that will benefit everyone.” I think what he means is that, when you approach the world in this way—pursue your goals with others—frustration and obstacles disappear. Even the unrelenting pressure of time seems to lighten. Friends are everywhere, and you are at home in a world in which goodness seems likely enough to try for. That, friends, is your present to me this year. And I treasure it greatly.
Cheers,
Sara Warner
Please continue to donate what you can by sending checks to Sara Warner at 1939 Sand Basin Road, Grand Ridge, FL 32442. Or email me if you have items you would like picked up.
