Porch Chairs and Hurricanes Trilogy - Part 3 | Eastern NC Now

I Was So Shocked I Almost Ran Off The Road...Part 2
Written May 19, 2011
Updated May 28, 2017
    I am so happy that I now have conclusive proof that at least one person is reading my Foolishness, even if it is a relative.

    In response to my blog "I Was So Shocked I Almost Ran Off The Road", my cousin sent me this info. I think the People Picture it paints is priceless and is proof that my original posting was right on the money.

    I was out of the United States (Vietnam) when this happened and this is the first time I have been told my cousin's story...
    • My grandfather's house in uptown New Orleans had very wide front steps that could accommodate a lot of neighbors.
    • Most nights In the 1940s the steps would be full of neighbors.
    • If one of these neighbors would have started talking about what was on TV that night, the rest would have really been puzzled about what a TV was.
    • On September 9, 1965 Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans.
    • This is the hurricane that made the people in the New Orleans area fear future hurricanes.
    • Much of uptown New Orleans was without electricity for about three weeks.
    • During that No Electricity, No Air Conditioning and No TV period the neighbors returned to my grandfather's front steps.
    • For a very short period in 1965 it was the 1940's all over again.

    I wish I would have been there but probably would not have appreciated what I was experiencing at the time. It very likely would have taken the hindsight of today to understand how nice those three weeks were.

    To finish this one on a sad note, when the electricity came back on, the neighbors went back inside and have not been seen since.

    Would I kid u?
    Smartfella