Kevin enjoyed sitting at Lazy Daze recently listening to a wonderful musician, Greg O'Haver. Greg and Kevin sort of knew each other but had never met. Greg graduated from Howe a few years before Kevin and so had met him via the Howe website. Unknown to Greg, Kevin also knew him through his wonderful wife Jeanne (McGill) O'Haver. Kevin had met Jeanne years ago at the Dry Dock restaurant through Mark Hancock and the band "Kara Company." Greg currently plays solo and with a Christian group called "Crossover Road." Greg opened with a song Kevin had only heard one other person play, "Deep River Blues." The song appears on Jorma Kaukonen's "Blue Country Heart," his Grammy nominated CD from 2003. Kevin learned "Deep River Blues" from Jorma during one of his visits to Fur Peace Ranch. Greg continued with a wonderful version of the Dirt Band's "American Dream." Greg has a clean finger-style of playing and a deep, pleasant voice. He also has a wide range of songs to please most folkies and rockers. If you've never heard Greg or "Crossover Road" you should make a date to hear them. <a href="http://www.crossoverroad.com">Visit their site at www.crossoverroad.com.</a>

Bob, Kent and Tim get ready to head for the Gulf coast. We left Indy around 3pm after Kevin returned from performing at a wedding in Lima Ohio the night before. We just arrived at a motel in Grenada, Mississippi for the night. The weather was mostly clear until we got south of Memphis. There we hit some rain, although the rain was light.

We packed up around 9am and headed back on the road. We have about 4 1/2 hours to Mandeville/Covington. The weather is rainy and warm.

This shirt we saw in the Quarter was representative of the feelings we detected from many in the Quarter.

We visited a friend of Kevin's home in the Lakeview area just west of New Orleans to see the work the crew here performed last week. Kevin had visited this home on the previous trip and had requested it be placed on the list to be gutted. The group from Volunteers In Mission (associated with The Christian Church, Disciples of Christ) did a great job of clearing out the house. We have settled into the Grace Christian church and are preparing ourselves for the week of work.

We arrived in New Orleans to see how life was coming back to the French Quarter. There was considerably more activity than when I visited 4 weeks ago. One of the most famous of th Quarter's attractions, the Cafe Du Monde, was open and we stopped in and had chicory coffee and beniets (powdered sugar coated donought thngys). We also checked out an oyster bar on Bourbon street. The Quarter still seemed sterile compared to its usual feel. Pat O'Brien's was open but Preservation Hall was still closed. The doorman at Pat O'Brien's said that they still didn't know where many of the musicians who normally play Preservation Hall were. After dinner, we returned to Grace Christian Church and settled into our sleeping bags to get a good night's rest before starting work.

This shirt we saw in the Quarter was representative of the feelings we detected from many in the Quarter.

This was the house we were given for Tuesday. The house was located in east New Orleans just south of Slidell. This house was owned by a single, african-american waman with two young boys. When we arrived, most of the furniture had already been removed the day before by the two teams we linked up with in Covington. Our job for the day was to remove all of the wallboard and ceilings and cart it all outside. The weather was warm (in the mid 80s) with a relatively high humidity. The humidity made it irritating to work in the respirators. We sweated a lot but got most of the house finished. The two groups working with us are from Madisonville, KY and Hanover, PA. While we were eating dinner this evening we got information that a tornado had touched down in Madisonville and so all or our crew from there spent a good portion of the evening calling home to make sure no one was killed or injured. It was finally determined that everyone back in Madisonville was ok. It was kind of strange to know these folks were here helping out after a disaster and that a disaster was potentially happening back home. There are two young guys from Madisonville, Heath and Matt, who are great workers. They seem to have boundless energy and found themselves up in the attic of the house we worked on today kicking the ceiling down. They are great guys. Right now they are sitting at the same table as me after dinner playing Yahtzee with Tim Thomas. Tomorrow they are planning to eat sushi in Covington.

Today as we drove to a new work location we could immediately detect that something was different than the other locations we've been to. It just felt diiferent. We were on the eastside of New Orleans just like yesterday but it felt like we were somewhere completely different. The destruction was more extensive and there appeared to be fewer (infact no one) working in the area. We drove through blocks and blocks of empty streets before arriving at our destination for the day. As we got out, we got the news which explained our eerie feelings. We were in the infamous 9th ward, the part of New Orleans where so many had been displaced and so many had died not having any transportatiob options. This place truly looked and felt like a disaster.

We've taken a short break while the huge trash pile we've been building all day is picked up by a crane. Notice the big stuffed animal in the front of the crane. We had a new appreciation for the disaster today since the home owners were present while we cleaned out their house. For the first time during all my days of cleanup work I got to see the real people for whom we do this work. I hugged the woman and told her how sorry I was that she had to go through all of this. She smiled and said that she was alive, her family was well and that the rest could be dealt with. In typical southern style she referred to me as darlin'. "I'm doin' fine darlin,' thanks for askin.'

This shot was taken yesterday in the 9th ward. Today we were closer to the downtown area about 2 miles south of the University of New Orleans just off of Elysian Fields. The home owners had an interesting story of their days around the storm. The wife left during the storm and went to Tennessee. Her husband remained with the house. He had lived in this house his entire life and was not anxious to leave. He had to survive the breaking of a nearby levee and the subsequent filling of his house with 4 feet of water. When his wife returned she couldn't get into the neighborhood because of all the standing water. She finally located someone with a boat and she made it back to the house. Her husband was nowhere to be found. She later located him several blocks away. They have been married for 38 years.

Well we finished as much work this morning as we could at the house we worked on yesterday south of the University of New Orleans. We hugged and kissed the home owner and her husband and told them we'd try to come back when they had their house rebuilt to share some gumbo with them. When we returned to Grace church we met up with Johnny Wray who is in charge of the "Week of Compassion" division of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This is the group that coordinates the denomination's relief work around the world. Johnny is a long-time friend (I sang at his wedding reception). We said our goodbyes and promised the folks involved that we would return again soon. Since we were leaving my trailer we didn't have quite the same amount of space as we had on the way down. We're packed in pretty tightly for the long drive home. I'll be posting some high resolution pictures in the photos section later this weekend.

We made it.

Alabama appears to be a very progressive state.

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Team one has been forced off the roof by a large thunderstorm. We had gotten all of the shingles up on the roof, laid a starter row of shingles and had begun nailing the first row when the rain hit. We re-covered the roof and stored the tools and have returned to the church for more equipment to do an inside job at another location. More later.

Kevin is under a house connecting wiring. Kirk danced around his feet singing 'ding dong the witch is deadl The sky has cleared so we may return to the original site soon to do some more roofing.

The weather improved greatly today so the roof crew returned to finish the job they had just started yesterday. Other crews returned to do continue painting work and plumbing. While there is a slight breeze, temperatures on the roof are miserable. The crew is staying hydrated with lots of gatorade and water. We hope to have the west side of the roof finished by noon.

Bryan and Kirk are heading back FOR THE THIRD DAY IN A ROW to work at the home of a wonderful woman who keeps feeding them gumbo and coffee. Her house was supposed to only take part of one day but for some strange reason they are still there.

The roofing crew returns to finish its job of yesterday.

The group decided to eat out one night. Kevin has a cousin, Morgan Young, who is the assistant manager of a Cracker Barrel in Gulfport. The meal was great and the service was wonderful.

Rob, Alex, Laura, Mike (pictured) and Eric and Kevin and Colleen and Lori worked on fixing fences. Mike, Lori, Alex and Laura spent the morning finishing the roofing work from the previous days and then joined the others on the fencing project. This has been the hottest day by far with temperatures well into the high 90s.

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Mike and Jill relax after a long hard work by listening to some great DIxieland Jazz at Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

The whole crew stopped along St. Louis st. After dinner to sing with a wondeful street singer.

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Michelle and Kevin took a day before their playing schedule to join a group (led by Kevin's wife Lenore) which had travelled down from Indy to do Katrina re-construction. Most of the work involved drywall replacement. Here Michelle and her friend Carter work with drywall mud. Michelle still likes playing in the mud.

Our favorite coffee man Jeff Coppinger's favorite spot in the New Orleans French Quarter. Jeff runs Irvington's own "Lazy Daze Coffe Shop."

Michelle standing on the levee in the French Quarter near the Evans Candy Shop where Dave and Kevin played for several years back in the 80s and the early 90s.

Michelle with our host, Chery's dog Tallulah Belle.

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