Ike and His Victims...All But Forgotten...

Random Thoughts on Paper

By Crystal Laramore

Edited by Deborah Martin


Ike and His Victims…All But Forgotten…



Really? Why? Where are Brad and Angelina? Where is Bono? Where is Elton? Where is Harry Connick, Jr.? Emeril Lagasse (I have looked all over my kitchen and cannot find him)? Where is Band-Aid? Where oh where are our saviors?
We Texans aren’t upset that these people don't care; we just wonder why they don’t care about us. We support them. We trade our hard earned dollars to watch their movies and listen to their songs and purchase the tabloids when they are naughty or when they’re helping the hungry in Africa. What is it about us that warrants their blatant absence? I believe we’ve been snubbed. I guess we're just not needy enough and maybe that's the more important point. We don't need them.
Maybe our expectations are too low when it comes to hand outs and we need to raise them. One thing is for sure, our expectations were exceeding low when the Army showed up with MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat). And wasn’t everyone surprised! Maybe that is the key to success…lower your expectations so you can be pleasantly surprised. Anyway, the MRE’s showed up and the lines were long. I wasn’t in the line. I was in Baghdad. I’ve had MRE’s.
I’m telling you, I WISH I could get people to talk as much about my Shrimp Crystal as they did (and still are) about the MRE’s. The food critics gave raving reviews; here are some of the comments from the galley:
“Mine had a dreamsicle cookie! We got: lasagna, star fish tuna with fancy crackers, Ravioli, fajita chicken, stew, Mac & Cheese, chili w/Mexican corn; we got cookies, sweet bread, Reese’s, M & M’s, Red Hots, power bars, spearmint gum, Tabasco, salt & pepper, sugar & creamer to go with the cappuccino and hot coco and yes, even milkshakes! They had cheese and potato sticks. Now, every box had a mixture of each so it was like Christmas when everyone was opening their presents: “Oh, look what I got! Hey! I want one of those. I’ll trade you my jalapeno cheese for mild cheese. I’ll trade you two chocolate cookies and a cappuccino for your dreamsicle cookie”!
The dreamsicle cookies were the most coveted of items! And the biggest surprise of all-you could heat them up! Everyone was thrilled, simply thrilled to have hot food. No one cared that you had to set the bag to the side, so as not to breathe the mysterious gray smokey stuff, while the magic little chemicals worked together to create heat. No one questioned the heat gods. They just did what the box said and ate with wild abandon!
Whoever is in-charge of the Army MRE Institute of Culinary Food in a Box needs a big fat raise. Hey I know, maybe we could give him some of that 700 Billion…
And we didn’t wait for FEMA or our insurance companies to show up before we started patching our holes (in our homes and in our hearts). All over Southeast Texas the same scene of non-neediness was repeated; people in communities coming together to help each other. Restaurant owners opened their doors even when there was no power to give folks a place to gather and commiserate with one another. Guys broke out their toys - lowboys, backhoes, bulldozers, generators and chainsaws and went to work. If your gas pumps didn’t work two of our fellow Texans displayed the best of redneck engineering and rigged up a way to get the gas out without using electricity!
Those who had food shared it. Strong backs lifted and toted. Roads were cleared. Trees were lifted off houses. All over tarps were spread over holes in roofs till a more permanent solution came along…still waiting. And to make things festive we had tarps in red, blue, camouflage and even purple! FEMA did its usual song and dance and got some stuff done. But the real heroes were and still are our churches, our local organizations, family members, friends and individuals who rounded up ice, food and other necessities (like beer and tequila) and took it where it needed to go. I have never been more proud to be a Texan.
Having said all that, there are still thousands of displaced families who desperately need help (and probably beer and tequila). Why are you not hearing about it; cuz I’m sure you’re not? Maybe it’s that good ole Texas pride. That’s all I got. I don’t really know the answer. Maybe the news reporters who were trying to make a name for themselves, on the tragedy that’s on our backs, have lost their GPS and can’t remember where we are. This hurricane promises to be the most expensive hurricane in HISTORY. So can someone tell me where our benefit concerts are? Where is Michael McDonald when you really need him? He wants to take back his country, he could start with Galveston; it’s a clean slate…

Or, maybe he could start with sitting in a circle with the insurance companies and singing Kum Bah Yah. Maybe a little Zen and meditation will help them decide exactly how it was that our homes were destroyed during hurricane Ike. Apparently Ike isn’t very forthcoming with information so they are having to guess who’s at fault; was it the rain, the wind or the flooding (caused by the storm surge)…If you’re the flood insurance folks, the rain caused the damage which was propelled into your house by the wind, and if you are the wind insurance the storm surge washed your house away not us…really? How in tar nation (all Texans must know this word…) do they know THAT? Were they there? Did they call Ike? More importantly, did he answer?

Speaking of answers-I wanted to see for myself how forgotten we are so I logged onto YAHOO!, the most popular web browser in the world, and the only (semi) mention of a hurricane was a story about no gas in Atlanta. Seems Ike is to blame for that too. Guess he left them a note. The top SEVEN postings on Yahoo! were NOT about us. No concert postings, no benefit concerts slated for this week, nothing. Not a peep. Or a tweet, tweet, Twiddle dee.

Yahoo’s top story: Kim Kardashian is getting a lot of attention from the Dancing with the Stars judges for her non-swinging hips and low performance level. Kim said she joined the show as a personal challenge. Well Kim, no one is appreciating your personal journey. Maybe you cold waltz your way to Texas and do something really challenging…like help some people with some clean up or bring big satchels of cash from your friends and pass it out…I’m just saying…

So listen, the next time a hurricane blows through a distant region or an earthquake shakes a country a thousand miles away and you Hollywoodites run to the rescue-you will probably lose some of your fan base. I know one fan many of you have lost already.

Back to Ike: My step-father used to have a two-story house on Bayou Vista. Now he has a one story house on Bayou Vista. Luckily the bottom half was the blown away part and the piers are still there. Unluckily, Ike didn’t leave him a note to tell him who did what. My friend Jim Ray used to have a house on Trinity Bay in Anahuac. He now has a nice foundation. Ike took the house and the pilings. Again, no note from Ike. So, he and my step-father, along with tens of thousands of others, have to rely on the genius of insurance adjustors to meander their way through the forensic investigation to uncover the real culprit. It’s really fun (unless it’s your pile of debris) to watch people argue over who did what when no one was there. It’s like you want to say “Look, here come your friends in the white coats-just in time too, I’d say”. How do these people sleep at night?

Texas Wind Storm Insurance Association and the Federal Flood Insurance agencies are fighting over whether twenty feet of storm surge caused by Ike is a flood or a wind storm issue. Are you kidding me? TWIA is saying it’s a flood and the Federal Flood Insurance is saying…you guessed it…the Wind is at fault! Both agencies, GOVERNMENT agencies, are trying to cheat folks out of the help they’ve PAID for.

There are some jobs you couldn’t pay me enough to do and one of them is trying to keep people from getting the financial help they deserve in the face of total devastation to their homes and families. And when I say deserve let me be clear-help they’ve paid for. They do not deserve it because they need it. They deserve it because they’ve paid for it. (Read Atlas Shrugged people.) Whether the help is coming from an insurance company or FEMA, most of us have paid our dues over the years for this help; assistance…

Don’t tell me that we have 700 Billion (read Seven Hundred BILLION) to hand to AIG and Fannie Mae and those other companies yet we have to quibble over a few thousand dollars per household in a totally devastated area of our great nation. Seriously, don’t tell me that. The CFO or CEO or something of AIG is getting a severance package worth millions and gets to keep his signing bonus worth millions. He’s been with the company 3 weeks (read THREE WEEKS!). How much have we spent in Iraq & Afghanistan over the past seven years? It’s about 870 Billion. Divide that by 7. It equals about 124 billion per year! And the media is still yapping about that.

Someone, anyone, balance it out for us.

We Survived Ike!

Wednesday 24 September



We survived IKE!

By Crystal Laramore

Editing by Deborah Martin & Bill Stratton

Did anyone take note of the way Texans behaved during the recent natural disaster we called a hurricane? Some 800,000 people are still without power in our area. People are only able to enter Galveston Island to look and leave. They are given “re-entry guidelines”. If you go to Galveston Island you have to get a tetanus shot and people are asked to not bring their children onto the island. The city is uninhabitable. Wiped out. Yet, I’ve heard of no riots, no National Guard called in to keep the peace, no murders and no rapes. And as far as I can tell thousands of Galvestonians and Houstonians were not evacuated to another city only to be forgotten.

But that’s ok, all-in-all we took care of our own. And for those who did not have family members to take care of them our Texas Government took care of them, churches took care of them, strangers took care of them, local organizations like the YMCA, FEMA, the Texas National Guard, the Illinois Baptists, DHS and the white house and congress. Actually most of the credit should go to lessons learned all along the chain from the mishandlings of Katrina. Just look to the death toll to find out how well we did. Now, we can’t save every (stupid) person, but we sure try, ya’ll.

Looting? In Texas? Are you kidding me? We have guns. And we have signs to warn you that we have guns. There were signs everywhere that said “You loot, we shoot”.
Rick Perry is our governor and he when he spoke directly to the would-be looters he was clear in his message; “Looting will not be tolerated”. What did he mean? Well, seems no one was interested in testing him or the mettle of their fellow Texans.

And the blame? Where did we place the blame? OK, this is not a silly question. We didn’t blame anyone because there is no one TO blame. Mother Nature is not a real person. I guess we could have blamed the President, seems he is powerful enough to have conjured up hurricanes in the past…

All in all I am proud of the way we reacted to the coming of the storm and the way we are reacting in the aftermath. As for me and my house…I stayed at the restaurant during the high winds and when the worst of it was over I took UB’s advice and opened the doors so that those who needed to could have a place to commiserate; and they did.

We are only open Thursday-Saturday but we’ve not closed once since Ike. Friday night was the calm before the storm. We weren’t very busy but we were very excited. It was a mixture of anticipation and nerves and some calmness that we were so far away from the gulf. We had a real live evacuee from Tiki Island here. He said when he saw his hot tub float away he began packing really, really fast. He had us all at rapt attention while he was telling the story about how fast the water was rising-about a foot every 10 minutes! There were several sideways glances amongst us locals that said “OMG! Why are we still here”?

Part of the reason we were still here-in Ike’s path-was in large part due to media coverage; or lack there of. Oh, well they were ALL around us and they were on the television 24/7 but the coverage was…lacking. And it was inaccurate and each channel had opposing opinions on where the eye was going and if it was going to be a category 3 or 4; it was a 2. The speed of the winds was also apparently hard to determine. We heard anywhere from 75-120 mph. Why? Because 75 doesn’t sound scary and doesn’t get the people’s attention but 120 mph winds…well they can knock over even the most solid of reporters-like Geraldo Rivera. Somebody fire that guy.

What goes through his mind right before he does something really stupid? Don’t answer that. As we huddled around the three televisions in the restaurant listening intently Geraldo gave us something to laugh about. Before long we were no longer paying attention to the news. We were paying attention to Mother Nature. She was right out side and telling us it was time to pay our tabs, close up and go home.

About 1:30 in the morning I was talking to AC (Auntie Cheryl) and the satellite was flickering along with the electricity. Ooooohhhhh. I tried to stay awake but fell asleep and awoke about 4:30 to darkness and loud winds. Oooooohhhhhh. He was here.

As he howled outside the door I walked through the restaurant like a mother hen. The winds were coming in from the East so the courthouse was blocking a lot of the forceful winds from my building. Thank you God! It was eerie. There were many times when my family would call (cuz I have rotary dial phones-call me silly now!) and try to reassure me by saying things like “You survived much worse than this in Baghdad”. No. No I didn’t. But the burning question is “Will I stay again”? Hmmm. Not sure. It was scary but I think it would have been less so if I had not been alone (contingency plan in place for next time!) However, I’m glad I did stay b/c of the service we offered afterwards.

And afterwards came on Sunday. “They” came in droves. UB was right; people needed a hub, a place to gather and tell their war stories and hear others’ stories. People needed hot food and a friendly face. The people needed beer and tequila.

My staff had evacuated except for my bartender Shaun. He and Marty cooked all day on Sunday. We fed a lot of people. And we didn’t just feed them food. We fed them laughter, hugs, smiles, beer and tequila, a hot shower, hot tea, hot food, a soft sofa, a dry place to hang out and beer and tequila.

We’ve served the Army, the DPS troopers (from the Dallas area), the electrical crews, the Sheriff’s Department, the tree trimming crews, Pike Electric, C & H, SHECO, FEMA (that one guy); we served our friends, family, strangers, neighbors; we served beer and tequila and we served those who evacuated from an hour and half away. We were able to serve them because others served us. The Cavalry (aka my father and step-mother) showed up with napkins, paper plates, plastic cups, tomatoes, eggs, propane, candles, ice…and I don’t mean a few of these and some of those…HUNDREDS of each, gallons and gallons of propane (we cooked on the gas grill outside), dozens and dozens of eggs, pounds and pounds of tomatoes but, most of all daddy showed up with a big hug! That’s what I needed most. The other stuff was just ice on the chicken.

Matt & Kelly Bruner brought us a generator. Sysco would not deliver more food until we had either a generator or electricity. (Ok, that is probably b/c some idiot sued them one time for something stupid they did and some idiot attorney took the case and some idiot judge…Read Atlas Shrugged for lessons on taking responsibility for you very own actions). Anyway, the generator seemed the more likely fix given the circumstances…we had a lot of folks to feed and we were eternally grateful! Matt usually sings and entertains us on Saturday nights but this week he and his wife (not any government agency) have cooked, replaced shingles on the roof, cleaned drip pans, washed my laundry and yes even managed to sing and entertain us! JD (not some government agency-but wait…) fixed lights, replaced bulbs, fixed plates, cooked and served our customers. Many, many of my friends and customers brought us things we needed and I and we are eternally grateful.

Our community and our state have been complimented on our patience and understanding by all of the service entities who showed up, in mass, to serve us. I’ve heard that if this would have happened in DC or Detroit people would be shooting each other. My staff and I have been thanked for our hospitality and they are the ones serving us-16 hours a day! Our local officials stepped in and stepped up. The Baptist church, the Methodist church, our local law enforcement and our local politicians all worked tirelessly and around the clock some nights. I am proud to be an American and especially proud to be a Texan. Actually, I’m proud to have capable and helpful friends.

My friend Penny has a flower shop and, sadly, there was a funeral on Sunday. She couldn’t see in her shop so we designed the flower arrangements in the front dining room of my restaurant. My bartender arranged flowers, the florist cooked, Marty and I stepped & fetched and not one person complained all day (OK, Marty and I may have mumbled something about starting a union…it seemed to be the theme throughout the week-thx JD for keeping the dream alive…). We were all tired beyond words but we all kept going. We played cards by candle light, and talked. There was no background noise to divert our attentions so we talked and asked each other questions. We hugged a lot and sent well wishes to each other. We made phone calls and checked on loved ones and let loved ones from afar know we were ok. But we didn’t complain -too much.

Sometime Saturday night while we were playing Attack UNO® by candle light and flash light we realized what was important: good friends and any kind of food-and beer and tequila.

Electricity is a luxury but not a necessity; ice on the other hand… Candles make everyone look better. Hot showers are great but taking cold showers saves water! Clothes can be cleaned without a washing machine and dried without a dryer! The restaurant does NOT have to be spotlessly clean for people to eat/drink here. Men may not be good at mopping or sweeping but they are really good at cleaning gas grills-thx JD! The Army is one big family whether you are in Colorado or Texas; retired or active. ATM’s run on electricity. Cash IS king. Chicken has endless possibilities. After 3 days of eating eggs, Picante sauce is priceless! Caffeine is the BEST drug ever! (Besides beer and tequila.) Text messaging: it’s not just for kids anymore! Gratitude can make you smile in the face of any disaster-so can beer and tequila.

And grateful we were: Grateful we were alive; grateful we had gas to cook with and take hot showers with; grateful we didn’t know one person who died during the storm; grateful we had people who loved us. And, grateful we had hot food, cold beer- and tequila!