So Long, Summer

It's been an eventful week. The political bathroom sex sting, Wall Street hopping up and down, a commemoration of a devastating hurricane (from which recovery is moving much slower than I personally would like), kids returning to school in many areas, and family plans for the unofficial end of summer. (Officially, there's still about three more weeks.)

I've already commented on Senator Craig's self-induced troubles. I just pray that the bottom doesn't fall out of the housing market.

As for Hurricane Katrina, I will never forget those images two years ago, of people on the roofs of their homes pleading for rescue, of a woman beside her newly deceased husband on a bridge (a sufferer of a respiratory ailment, he expired when his oxygen ran out), and the water everywhere, flowing like rivers through the streets. I was disappointed to see that the worst-hit areas (anybody want to guess who lives there?) don't look much better two years later, with many of the residents who are eager to rebuild held up by bureaucracy and red tape, still living in trailers.

Has it ever taken two years and counting to restore other disaster-stricken areas of this country? Hurricane Andrew? Hurricane Hugo? Hell, what about Hurricane Camille 40-some years ago? Will people whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the recent Midwest floods still be living in trailers two years from now? (FEMA officials arrived there right away, incidentally.)

The TV cameras have left New Orleans to move on to the next story, the 10-year anniversary of the death of Princess Diana's death. But the images of streets with overgrown weeds covering foundations of abandoned houses, people living in trailers on their property or under bridges, and nuclear families forced to live in different cities will linger in my mind. Here's hoping the third anniversary will show families reunited and living in new housing and cleaned-up lots.

I wish you all a fun Labor Day holiday. The pictures above, by the way, were taken at our Family Reunion at the end of July. My husband and I, pictured on top, were both on the committee and I'm happy to say that a good time was had by all. The other shot is of me and one of my husband's cousins. You readers may know her by her pen name, Eboni Snoe.

Have a great weekend!