Dear Friends, I wanted to share with you a brief description of my trip to New Orleans this past week. My girlfriend Beth and I went with One Brick http://onebrick.org/ which has five chapters, one of which is in New York and the others; San Fran, Boston, Chicago, D.C and Minneapolis/St. Pauls. We teamed up with Habitat For Humanity, AmeriCorp and the St. Bernard Project. I am sharing this with the hope that someone else will feel inspired and do the same. I'm happy to say that already one friend is now going on the July trip and a close friend and his wife will go on the October trip.I booked this vacation because, as many of you know, life has not gone my way in the recent years (does it really ever) and the last thing I want to do is sit around feeling sorry for myself. My older brother Mike used to say to me, "Get off the cross, we need the wood." No truer words have ever been spoken when it comes to the waste of time and energy it takes to sulk around feeling sorry for myself. There are four other influences that brought me to the decision to volunteer on my vacation: 1. My children. I wanted them to understand the value of giving, 2. my sobriety and the value of being of service to others to get out of my own way, 3. My Grandmother always said, "Work will never kill you and idle time is the devil's workshop." and 4. the old expression, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Beth and I met amazing (and I'm sure life-long) friends while there. Each morning we got up at 7 and were at work by 8:30 or so. We worked until 4 PM on a few houses doing everyhting from debris removal, painting, priming to protect from harmful molds regrowing and lots and lots of caulking!!! I never laughed so much while working. It was very gratifying to meet the families who would soon be moving into the homes after living in FEMA trailers for over two years, and some even living in tents under the highway.We worked in St. Bernard Perish where Katrina left the most devastation. 20,000 people now reside in St. Bernard Perish where once 65,000 lived and flourished. There is still so much work to be done and they could use as much help as possible.In the evenings we did everything from overdose on beignets (French Donuts) and coffee from Cafe de Monde to dancing, listening to amazing jazz at The Spotted Cat (or as I like to refer to it as the Spotted Kitty) shopping and just simply chilling out. I wound up on stage twice, crunked to oblivion and laughed so hard.
I have taken many vacations to amazing destinations and yet this was by far, the most rewarding and fun vacation I've ever had. If it is in you to take such an adventure I encourage you to check out One Brick's website. You will never look back and say, "Damn that Queen, I wish she didn't suggest this vacation!"
