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Published: August 31st 2009
Ladder Setting
First, you have to get up there.My good friend Marcos tells me that the subject of MRE's is not as interesting as I seem to think and he advises me to stick with the "here's what I did today" stuff. I suspect he felt inclined to add that he could have done without the “Noxious Weed Mouseketeer Roll Call” as well, but was too polite to mention it. Other feedback, or notable lack thereof, suggests that he is correct on all counts, so I’ll confine my remarks on military food to merely mentioning that it is perfectly edible. The beef ravioli might not make the cut at Delmonico, but it would not embarrass Chef Boyardee either. The chicken with salsa (menu #7) was a trifle bland, I will grant you, but this may be why they thought to include a tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce which, when mixed with the packet of Mexican rice (not, I note, Spanish rice), rendered it no worse than a Lean Cuisine. The “vegetable crackers” gave me some pause as I have no idea how you make a cracker out of a vegetable, but with liberal application of “spread, cheese with jalapeno,” it doesn’t seem to matter much. I’ve had the “brownie,
Doesn't look that high.
At least not from down here. chocolate” and the “cookies, shortbread” and I recommend the cookies. There is an interesting one I haven't opened yet labeled “vegetarian.” How nice that the US Army now takes this into consideration. It’s entree is “veggie burger with barbeque.” I’m saving that for last.
Anyway, with beef ravioli, apple sauce with tomato puree, and brownie, chocolate on the menu for the evening, I was ready to dig in to an exercise in temporary roof repair. If Louis happens to be reading this, he will be quick to point out that
all roof repair is by definition temporary as are roofs in general, for that matter. From atop Wesley United Methodist Church, you can look across the entire Third Ward to downtown and see his point. All roofs are temporary, some more temporary than others.
Weather for this exercise
Temperature: high of 94 degrees F (add 10 degrees for roof work and you get 104)
Relative Humidity: 63%!<(MISSING)br>Precipitation: dream on
If you’re working in it: suffocating. In Louisiana, where people generally refrain from commenting on the heat just like they typically ignore the rain (except to put a covering hand over their cups) those days deemed sufficiently miserable
The View
From Central City, looking downtown. to merit mentioning are not called “hot.” The phrase is, “the devil’s breathing down my neck.” On this particular day it felt like not only the devil, but the whole infernal host was hyperventilating in our direction. I would call it insufferable but for the fact that we suffered every minute of it; unbearable but for the fact that we somehow bore it.
In the interest of full disclosure I have to point out what anybody looking closely at the pictures would have figured out anyway. We didn’t do the whole job in one day. Daryl, the executive director of United Saints, is a roofer by trade, so he got us started on a Friday before he took off to do a fundraising tour. We got maybe halfway through before the hottest part of the day (about 3:30), then we had to evacuate the roof in the name of good sense. Actually, that’s not the full truth either. We came down for a “break” and, after a great deal of mutual hemming, hawing, and shameless stalling it became obvious that none of us, not even Daryl, was going back up on that roof that day. We had gotten the
tie-offs for the safety lines screwed in to the ridge at strategic points. We had gotten an enormous, very pink tarp battened down over the largest holes. We had gotten a couple more holes covered while we were at it. That was about the best we could do that day. So a team of us dragged ourselves out there on Saturday to finish the job.
I have to back up a bit and talk about Wesley United Methodist Church. What I‘ve found so far about the history of the place is a little murky. There is a plaque on the front of the building identifying it as a "Wesleyan Chapel" built in 1884. I find references, however, to a congregation, started in 1833 on South Liberty Street that moved over here in the 1950’s. Did they build this and the plaque is a complete phony? Did they occupy a structure already built and convert it into a church, adding the plaque retroactively? Did they take over a church that was already there that just happened to be called Wesleyan Chapel and the plaque is legit? Did the two congregations merge? I don’t have the answers yet, but I’m sure
Wow...
...that's one big pink tarp you got there. they’re laying around here somewhere, probably under a tangled mass of pepper vines. There's still something suspicious about that plaque, like why a church built in 1844 would call itself "Wesleyan."
The date of 1844, if accurate, is significant, as this was the year that The Methodist Episcopal Church split into two factions, North and South. Care to guess the major bone of contention in this division? At any rate, it wasn’t until 1939 that there was a single Methodist Church and not until 1968 that there was ever such a thing as a United Methodist Church, so the three Central City sister churches of First Street United, Peck United, and Wesley United predate the name of their own congregations by as much as 80 years, give or take. Perhaps the intent of that suspicious plaque was, in the wake of a schism of sorts, to assert that the founders of this church considered themselves of the true Wesleyan tradition, not to be confused with the other branch whom they considered schismatic. Otherwise, they would have labeled their chapel "Methodist Episcopal," wouldn't they? Or then again, maybe the plaque is a fake.
All of this began with the
Warm Work
I think you can actually see the heat in this one. preaching of John Wesley, who, on his second trip to the New World (circa 1784) began teaching his own brand of Protestantism in opposition to John Calvin. Now, I’m
all for opposition to John Calvin, but Wesley’s goal was to keep this new sect
within the Church of England. The War of Independence permanently severed the link. I realize this is beginning to sound like “vines of Louisiana” all over again, but I find it interesting that, from its origins prior to the Civil War to the first decade of the Twenty-first Century, this rather modest little church has somehow clung to or ended up with the name “Wesley,” the founder of Methodist theology.
At present, both Peck and Wesley are closed due to hurricane damage (Katrina, Ivan, and Gustav) and First Street Methodist is holding them in a sort of trust. No matter what name they put on the front, these three churches have filled the role of stable social institutions for over a century and now they are all in jeopardy, especially Wesley.
Fascinating as all that is, I am forced to interrupt at this point to eat my words from last time. I had just
Audrey
Audrey's not the kind to be left on the ground. Emily was there too, but managed to duck all the pictures. written about how the neighborhood has been quieting down steadily. I think I was actually so incautious as to say "there hasn't been a shooting in months," or something equally stupid. Walking back from a coffee shop on St. Charles, where I was brushing up on Methodist theology obviously, I was greeted by the still-to-familiar sight of knots of people on every corner watching the flashing blue lights of police cars and crime scene vans working two different locations on opposite corners of the same block. There wasn't an ambulance in sight, but I did see the Parish Coroner vehicles. I saw a familiar face and raised my eyebrows. "Second Line was out." That's all the explanation I needed.
"Second Line was out" may sound cryptic, but it really does explain all of this. Each Mardi Gras krewe marches with the torch carriers in the front, followed by the brass band, and then the court (king, queen, etc). This is First Line. Second Line is the rest of the krewe and a Mardi Gras krewe does not exist solely for parade time. These are long standing social clubs and they "come out" all through the year. When a Second
The Bell, sulking in the corner.
Doesn't he look a little disgusted? Line comes out they hold a sort of rolling block party and pub crawl through their particular neighborhood. You never know when this is going to happen (text message from Hannah: "I'm a block away. Stuck in a parade?!").
New Orleans still has actual neighborhoods, even local butcher shops with the names and the wares hand painted on the outside and useful suggestions like "ask for case prices". Upper 9th ward is different from Lower 9th. Muses is a neighborhood every bit as much as it is a krewe. The boundaries are not explicitly marked, but they are well understood. At First and Dryades, I'm not a local but I'm okay. At Second and Dryades, I'm a stranger. So, while the First Street neighborhood continues to improve steadily, it's still on the fringe and this is why Second Line coming out is synonymous with emergency vehicles. The music and the noise attracts people from a few blocks away. There's drinking. Words are exchanged. Then everybody's on the corner watching the coroner and explaining to each other why this always happens when Second Line comes out. Last time I think I said something about "some things around here will never
Two Fools
The bell tower was the only place to get away from the heat without going back down the ladder. change." This is one of those things. So, when Second Line comes out, watch the show but leave early and stay off the streets for a good long while afterwards.
Returning to the matter at hand, however, John Wesley may have left behind a solid foundation for the third largest Christian denomination in the United States, but whoever grafted together the Spanish mission portion of his namesake church to the conventional brick and wood structure behind it did not know his business. The expansion joint (or “slip-joint,“ given the time we’re talking about) that should be there to allow the two sections to move smoothly without tearing each other apart is in the process of coming into existence spontaneously. This is very bad as one end of the sanctuary (curiously located on the second floor) is probably resting on the very bell tower that is now trying to separate itself from the whole endeavor. Even the actual bell has thrown up its clapper in disgust and is sulking in a corner on the floor.
On a hopeful note, nothing can be in New Orleans this long without suffering its share of abuse and neglect, so these old buildings
Good Fight, Champ
Chet convincing Daryl it's okay to call it a day, not that anyone needed a lot of convincing. are used to it an their timbers are remarkably strong. If it hasn't fallen down by now, it's probably salvageable. Some of the floor joists and roof rafters may actually be barge planks torn up for lumber when flatboats got all the way down the Mississippi. They don't make lumber like this anymore. So, while the damage to the structure is as yet unclear until further demolition can expose it and the vines working steadily on the brickwork have done serious harm. it's the holes in the roof that need immediate remediation. We have to stop the bleeding first.
It's hard to be sure which hurricane is responsible for the present roof damage, but it doesn't really matter, the rain has been coming right in for years now. With the water comes the real damage. The reek of wood rot permeates the place. From the second floor, it's not hard to see that the timbers supporting the roof are probably safe to walk on except on the East side and the one that abuts the bell tower, but the roof decking is coming apart everywhere. Almost all the coping has been torn off which means the parapets have to be considered unstable from prolonged moisture penetration. I wouldn't set a foot on any of them. Basically, proceed with caution. The phrase "be careful" got so worn out that Chet came up with a better one: "it only takes one mistake."
I can honestly say that I don't have an irrational fear of heights because I don't see anything irrational about it. A fear of sharks isn't irrational, not in the ocean. A fear of sharks under the bed, now
that's irrational. So I have to confront my
perfectly rational fear of heights every time I ascend beyond about forty feet. The safety harnesses are, of course, not optional, but I have to say I was really impressed with the safety ratchets that you use to attach the harness to the safety line. These are neat little devices and, once you see how they work, you feel a little more confident being up there. Also, old couch cushions get an amazing grip on hot asphalt shingles. There's another trick learned.
Besides having to explain to us why we had to drag a bunch of old couch cushions up a ladder, Daryl has formulated a plan to make the most of some recycled tarpaulin. Ideally, if this were a house and we had lots and lots of tarp to work with, we'd basically mummify the entire roof starting with strips secured to the underside of the eaves and lapping up and over the ridges like gigantic plastic shingles. This isn't practical here. The roof's too big, we can't afford to buy that much tarp, and the eaves are too high up and too unstable to work on. His plan is to saddle tarps over the ridge cut long enough to cover each damaged area and then secure the tarps to what remains of the roof deck with batten strips. You can't nail tarpaulin to the roof, the wind will rip the tarp off and leave the nails. We'll use 1x (3/4" thick) batten strips facing down-slope and rolled up at the edges. We can then nail double headed nails through that and it forms a sort of linear washer. The double headed nails will make it easier to pull all of this off when the tarps wear out or when less temporary repair becomes feasible (funded). We'll also batten the tarps at regular intervals to keep the wind from getting under them. This has to be done slowly and with care because, once the holes are covered, you can't see them. I think next time I'll bring a can of spray paint and mark them. Lesson learned.
So there you have it, two days of work that's hot, awkward, uncomfortable, and dangerous. Just the thing to replace all those stupid celebrity diet plans. Any takers?
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Flip
non-member comment
Im sorry Ms. Jackson
Hey buddy! hope all is well down there and you havnt melted. Im sure youd rather be doin what ya do instead of hearing the word "Pa-unt" every single second. hehe you should tell the guys that little joke, theyll get a good chuckle. hehehehe. Your update reminded me of that song by Outkast titled Ms. Jackson. here is the link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPb2ZuvQxcA No matter how much they rebuild it, it all falls apart. hehe txt or give me a call sometime old friend. We miss you up here in Nashvegas! -Flip