In Loving Memory of Scott Paul Pearsall

After 35 years of living with cerebral palsy, earlier this year my cousin Scott made the decision to end his life. Although Scott ended his own life, it was the cruel insensitivity of other people who took so much of it from him. Despite his constant pain and the tremors shaking his body he spent his life helping others reduce the pain in their lives. If you were ill or feeling down and out you could always count on Scott to lift your spirits.

Scott’s cerebral palsy slowed his pace and speech but instead of learning from Scott about the value of a less rushed and a more reflective life people often gawked, taunted or rushed past him with a dismissive or disgusted glance that he was in their way. They never benefited from the gift that Scott’s wisdom, courage and loving life could have given them. So many people saw only Scott’s disability and not his caring heart, beautiful mind and loving soul. Scott lost his young life but the world lost a life that could have helped make it a much more loving place, just when the world seems to need it the most.

This month my family and I traveled to Honolulu to celebrate Scott’s life at his Hawaiian funeral ceremony. Scott has lived in Hawaii for the last decade in a beautiful house overlooking the coastline. This was my first time in Hawaii and my first time meeting the Hawaiian family my aunt, uncle and Scott have been adopted into. Eight of us traveled from the mainland but over 150 people came out to show Scott their love.

My uncle, Paul Pearsall, is an author and travels the world lecturing on the Hawaiian way of thinking and loving. He infuses his lectures with the halau, hula group. Along with the Hawaiian music and dance he is able to show others how to attain fulfillment in their lives. When the halau was informed of Scott’s death, they offered their talents at his ceremony. Scott’s celebration was filled with lots of music, photos, stories, food and of course hula. Although some of the songs were in Hawaiian, their meaning was understood through the halau’s movements. It was one of the most moving ceremonies I have ever attended. I truly feel Scott was able to feel the love for him during the ceremony. During the meal, all the halau members took the lau-a-ee (spelling?) leaves from their hair and draped them around Scott to encircle them with their love. It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture and one filed with deep love and respect. They called Scott the “child born into the darkness but became the child of the light.”

I hope Scott’s death can be a lesson to us all. You may think one stare or whisper directed at someone different than you may not have any effect. But when those stares and whispers are added up over a lifetime they can have devastating results. Please treat others with the respect and dignity you would want shown to you. Think about Scott often and remember your greatest lesson may come from a book with a faded or dented cover.

Mahalo - thank you

Nacogdoches, Texas = Good Friends

We made it to East Texas a couple of weeks ago and have been spending some time visiting with our friends Kari and Ryan. I met Kari when I first moved to Louisiana in 1999. We were interns together at Southeast Louisiana Refuges for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I don’t think it was possible for interns to have as much fun as Kari and I did. We spent our days laughing and dancing at the clubs on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. She left Louisiana for awhile but came back and was living with dave and I just before we left for Alaska in 2002. It’s great to be back together.

Welcome to Texas … Too bad they ruined the sign with the info about Bush!

Kari’s boyfriend Ryan is getting his masters studying wild turkeys in East Texas. He is trying to get an accurate population count on these elusive birds. Many people thought he wouldn’t be able to capture turkeys in this portion of the country but he proved them wrong and put radio tags on 10 birds last year. Capturing wild turkeys is tricky work and he needed some help with all the baiting, netting, and listening for birds so he was able to hire dave and I as biological technicians for two months to help him. So far the elusive turkeys have not shown themselves to us but we are excited about the job and the project. We are officially staff at Stephen F. Austin University which means we get a fancy parking permit and a staff photo ID. However, we are not allowed to operate a University vehicle because we don’t have a Texas driver’s license. The upshot is that we are being reimbursed for mileage we put on the van.

The study site is located on the Angelina National Forest. The Forest surrounds the Sam Rayburn Reservoir. This watershed flows into the Sabine River which makes up much of the border between Louisiana and Texas.

The area surrounding the reservoir is beautiful and has lots of recreational sites.

So far our work has consisted of locating possible trapping sites and baiting the sites to lure in the turkeys. Cracked corn is used as bait. We have also been getting GPS coordinates and remarking the gobble count routes. A gobble count is performed by driving to specified spots and listening for a gobbler (male turkey) to gobble.

Dave Baiting With Cracked Corn (that is Ryan in the background)

Jody Taking GPS Coordinates of Points on Gobble Count Route

Dave Painting Gobble Count Points (so they can be seen in the low light of early morning when the survey is being done)

Leaving New Orleans for East Texas

As we were leaving the city of New Orleans we peaked over the levee to see these ships stuck in the fog on the Mississippi River. It seemed very spooky.

Ever wonder how rice is grown? South Louisiana is home to many rice farms. The fields are covered with water and drained at certain times to facilitate the rice cultivation. On some fields you can see small wire traps sticking out of the water covered fields. These traps catch crawfish, a tasty treat in Cajun Country.

The Gulf Coast and New Orleans Post Hurricane Katrina

After New Years we again set out on the road heading west. We took small roads along Florida’s panhandle coast and eventually made it to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We had a wonderful visit with our friends, Sami and James and their almost six year old son, Jimmy. We also had the opportunity to meet all their animals; the eight dogs (three of which have a genetic defect that has left bald spots all over their body), the three turkeys (which have club feet and can hardly walk), the hords of chickens (some of which Jimmy entered into the fair and won blue ribbons and grand champion), the peacock who showed up soon after they moved in, and their donkey, Gus.

Baldy the Bald Dog

Gus the Donkey

The Gulf Coast is still a mess after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. Most of the damaged seemed to have come from the high winds and storm surge associated with the hurricane. Almost everything two blocks in from the ocean was demolished. Sixteen months after the storm most of the debris had been removed. Yet there were For Sale signs on many of the lots and many people were still living in FEMA issued trailers on their property. The huge live oak trees seemed to have faired relatively well during the storm but it was still a sight to see nothing left of houses but their foundations. There were signs of life all over the place. There were contactors and homeowners hard at work rebuilding what was left of the area. There was a fair amount of rebuilding taking place but there is still a LONG way to go.

This was written on the side of a wall next to a nice house.

Slabs are all that is left where buildings once stood.

Large mats of marsh grass were moved into the woods from the storm surge. It covered anything in its path, like this house. In some areas the marsh debris was arranged in large wave-like formations and was very difficult to navigate.
These FEMA trailer cities were all over the place along the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana. Some people had a trailer in their yard while others were living in these make shift cities.
As we continued heading west into Louisiana we were nervous of what to expect from our old stomping grounds. Both dave and I lived on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain for three years before we moved to Alaska. The Mississippi Gulf Coast looked pretty bad until we went into New Orleans. Rebuilding in New Orleans has been slow and many areas look the same as they did after the water finally went down. Here flooding was the main source of damage. When the levees began breaking the day after the storm, HUGE sections of the city found themselves underwater. In many areas the water came in so fast people didn’t have a chance to get out of their homes and sometimes the swift moving water completely moved or leveled houses. Compared to the Gulf Coast little if any rebuilding was taking place and large sections of the city were complete ghost towns. We estimate about 70% of the city seemed to be extremely hard hit by the storm. Yet there were sections of New Orleans that were almost untouched by Katrina. Ironically these untouched areas seemed to be the main tourist areas or wealthy neighborhoods. Walking around the French Quarter (Bourbon Street area) you could hardly tell the area had recently experienced a hurricane.

Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter

The Marigny on the eastern edge of the French Quarter sustained little damage. This is where we spent the night while staying downtown.
Side Note: dave used to put up flyers for punk shows around the French Quarter. In return he got free admission to the shows. Although the flyers on this board were from November we were happy to see the boards were still useable.
When we finally worked up the nerve to go into the Ninth Ward and Lakeview areas, where some of the most extensive damage was, we were in utter disbelief at the lack of progress since the storm. While some of the debris and houses had been cleaned up there were still large tracks that didn’t look any different then to media coverage the days after the water went down. In fact there were still National Guard troops stationed in some of the harder hit areas. Patrolling we assume.

The following photos can hardly give you a taste of what we saw. Picture each photo multiplied by miles in each direction. It was extremely hard to take in.

Notice the water line on this house. Many houses sat for a week or more in the water that flooded in after the levees broke. (Lakeview area – extreme southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain)
Most of the houses that were still standing looked in pretty bad shape. (Lakeview area – extreme southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain)
Many houses still had blue tarps covering their roofs. (Lakeview area – extreme southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain)
We saw many sites similar to this; the porch was still there but the house was not. (Ninth Ward – eastern side of New Orleans)
Imagine what the force from the water must have been to pick up heavy items and deposit them on top of people’s roofs. (Ninth Ward – eastern side of New Orleans)
Many houses were completely picked up off their foundations and moved.

This one on top of a car. (Ninth Ward – eastern side of New Orleans)

This one on top of the fence. (Ninth Ward – eastern side of New Orleans)

Some levee repair work had taken place. This is the site of the main levee break which flooded the Ninth Ward. Notice the new concrete levee in the foreground and the devastation in the Ninth Ward neighborhood in the background.
New Orleans is in desperate need of a strong leader who can take control of rebuilding and make the tough decisions needed to lead New Orleans on its road to recovery. Please keep the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in your thoughts. Their struggle is far from over even though the media is done covering this “story.”

New Years 2006 – 2007

After leaving the comforts of the parental unit’s home we again packed our bags and headed out for the open road. This time we took the smaller roads across central Florida to the big city of St. Petersburg on the Gulf Coast. St. Petersburg is home to the Salvador Dali museum. I had been to this museum before but this would be dave’s first time seeing some of Dali’s work in person. We were fortunate enough to get there just as a tour started. We tagged along and were clued in on a lot of double images and hidden meanings. It was a neat way to experience Dali’s work. It was worth the trip if you ever catch yourself in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We spent New Years with an old friend of dave’s. Mark is living just north of St. Petersburg so it made sense that we stop in and see him. It was nice catch up and drink a few beers to ring in the New Year. We lit off a few cheesy sparklers and watched the ball drop. All in all it was a nice laid back evening.