Gregory M. Ledet

It’s almost hard to believe it’s been 5 years since my whole world changed.  Around this time 5 years ago, I was writing my name on various body parts with a black Sharpie to make sure that if something happened, I would be easily identifiable.  My fiance had evacuated to Houston and I was left home alone with the cat.  Little did I know that I would lost both the girl and the cat and damn near the house in the weeks to come.  The storm itself changed my life, but like the City of New Orleans, it wasn’t the storm itself but the events after the storm that really fucked me up.

Losing the woman that I loved more than life itself really fucked me up mentally. When we were doing cleanup after the storm and the things that I saw there fucked me up even more.  There’s no need to go into detail about what happened between the woman and I, nor is there any need to relive those images in my mind of the devastation and destruction of the city I love.  What needs to be talked about isn’t the things that happened 5 years ago today, but the things that need to happen to make sure that 5 years from now, the city is better than it was 5 years ago today.

We’ve all heard it on the news… “Louisianians are a very resilient people”.  Well, if we’re so resilient, then why is the city’s population only 60% or so what it was before the storm?  Why are there still parts of the city that look the same way they did 4 years and 11 months ago?  We need to quit looking to the government to fix everything and get off our asses and doing it ourselves.

There’s been a lot of work done since the storm and like I tell a lot of people that ask me about it; if you would have went to New Orleans 6 months after the storm and stayed in the normal tourist areas, you wouldn’t have known that the costliest natural disaster in US history had happened.  Sure, you would have seen some places still boarded up, but for the most part, the city had bounced back.  The outlying areas were still badly messed up, but downtown didn’t look bad.  When I go back home now, we don’t even talk about it.  It’s everywhere else that keeps bringing up bad memories.  Sometimes you just want to forget bad things.

5 years from now the city needs to look like the storm never happened.  It should already be that way, but there’s too much laziness and bullshit going on to have it happen.  The politicians need to get off their asses and get shit done.  The media needs to quit airing specials to dredge up old memories and make it seem like we’re helpless still today.

5 years from now I hope to be back in the city that lives in my heart; back to abnormal.  5 years ago today was the beginning of the worst time in my life; oh, and a Hurricane hit New Orleans.

*edit*

It’s now 4:30 in the morning and I haven’t slept all night.  I started to go to sleep earlier, but all the crap on the TV the past few days about the storm have brought up some really painful memories and that’s not very conducive to sleep.  I know people that lost everything they own in the storm.  I saw their homes… covered in mold with a waterline that is 3 feet high in the attic.  While I didn’t lose the possessions that these people did, I lost a lot.  I lost Sarah who meant the world to me.  I lost many friends because I lost my mind after the storm.  I attempted suicide over this crap and ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks.  I was found to be bipolar and having PTSD.  I even lost my freedom for a short time.

The weeks and months after the storm were hard on a lot of people.  The depression rate sky rocketed, as did alcohol and drug abuse.  We didn’t know what else to do.  You would walk around town and see people with their heads down, just shaking them back and forth… lost.  In typical New Orleans fashion, we tried to make fun of the situation.  I remember seeing a refrigerator on the side of the road and someone had written on it “Do not open, FEMA inspector inside”.  The comedians from NOLA were doing gigs around Houston and Atlanta and doing Katrina material already.  Down in my hometown of Houma, things weren’t as bad.  We had some wind damage and a bunch of rain, but nothing horrible; I guess you can say we were lucky.

I remember growing up and listening to my mom talk about Betsy and Camille constantly.  Never in a million years did I think that I was going to have a story for my kids that would rival, and in many cases beat, the stories my mom told me.  Then again, never in a million years did I think that I was going to go through the worst natural disaster in US recorded history and live to talk about it.

August 29th will always be a day that I will never forget.  9/11 has been drilled into us by the media for 9 years now, but the only thing that had to drill Katrina into my head was being outside in the storm, facing 120+ MPH winds.  I didn’t need CNN to tell me how bad it was in New Orleans… I lived it.  I don’t need Anderson Cooper set up on a street corner in the 9th ward every year “celebrating” something that devastated the lives of so many.  All I need to do is go to sleep at night and the visions of the destruction are there like it happened only yesterday.

When people find out that I’m from New Orleans, I get the same questions all the time. “Were you there for Katrina?” “Was it as bad as they say it was?” etc, etc, etc.  It’s always the same shit, and to be honest, I’m tired of hearing it.  I’m still trying to get over that time in my life and the last thing I need is some moron sitting in front of be and bringing up bad memories.  Sometimes I don’t mind it.  Like today, someone IM’d me because they saw some posts I had made in a Fark thread during Katrina.  They wanted to find out if I was still alive!  It was actually kinda nice to be able to sit there and spill my guts to a total stranger over what happened in my life back then; even the Hep C stuff.  She sat there on the other end of the computer and asked questions to which I replied.  I divulged info that I normally don’t, but it was comforting to know that even a total stranger out there cares.  And it’s not that the stranger cares about me personally, they care about New Orleans and the people that went through hell on earth.  That’s what’s comforting; to know that there are people in this world that still give a damn about his or her fellow man.

I hear all the time from people saying that they should have never rebuilt New Orleans. “It’s too far below sea level” and “it’s just going to get destroyed again” are just some of the shit that I hear spill out of these idiots’ mouths.  I even heard “you should never build a city that close to the mouth of a river!”  What about New York?  Alexandria in Egypt? Hell, ANY MAJOR PORT ON EARTH!  Without New Orleans, we’d all be drinking tea and singing “God Save the Queen” right now.  Where else on Earth can you go and get the culture, food or people that you have in New Orleans?  Where else on Earth would people move back to knowing that it was prone to disaster again and again?  Hell, I’ve met tons of people that had never been there before the storm but came down after-wards to help and they’ve never left!  The City has that effect on people.  Either you love it or you hate it, either way it’s going to create strong emotions in you.  I love New Orleans with all that I am and it will always be “home” to me.  I don’t care where I live or how long I live there, I will always think of it as temporary until I get back to New Orleans.  I will always talk about going “home” for vacation and I will always try to talk people into coming with me.

The people of New Orleans need tourist.  Like a needle needs a vein, like a preacher need pain; NOLA need tourism.  It’s the blood that pumps through the city, albeit with a high blood alcohol level.  The American people should not be writing New Orleans off like I’ve heard so many times being done.  The City wants you and it doesn’t care who you are or where you’re from.  They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas… well what happens in New Orleans is something that you’re going to want to tell everyone.  But start with your priest, because there’s going to be some sins that you need to confess.

Man, my knee is killing me right now.  I know it’s been a few months since my last update, but I’ve been a busy bee for a while now.  Let me fill you guys in on the past couple months, then I’ll explain the title of this post.

I finished up with my little contract that I was on at the beginning of July.  I had a good time working at Express and I wish those guys the best with their new network.  As a consultant, all good things must come to an end, but with every ending is a new beginning.  Before I had even left Express I had started the interview process with a new company.  They have a VERY thorough interview process and after 3 separate interviews, one of which was me being vetted by an engineer that actually works for Juniper Networks, they decided that I was the guy they were looking for.  So, I’ll be starting a new job on August 16th!

Now, for the whole “OUCH!” thing.  This past weekend was the Dublin Irish Fest in Dublin, OH.  The Irish Fest is always a great time.  Last year I worked the Utilikilts booth out there and had a blast.  I picked up Stewart from UK at the airport on Thursday and we went out that night, helped setup on Friday and worked all day Friday, then returned on Saturday to work.  I could have went back on Sunday, but I couldn’t walk then.  This year I had volunteered, but they already had a full crew.  Well, my father-in-law, his girlfriend, my wife and myself all went down on Saturday to take in the festival.  The UK booth was right at the entrance that we walked in, so I immediately stopped by (in my Utilikilt, none the less) to say Hi to the guys that were working (I had worked with 2 of them last year).  Well, the 2 guys that had volunteered this year decided to bail and Douglas and Ken were alone, so I stepped in to give them a hand.  Big mistake on Greg’s part.

As you may know, I’m a bit of a desk jockey.  I’m not used to spending all day on my feet, much less while wearing combat boots and thick wool socks.  I stood up without sitting at all from 11AM until about 10PM.  By the time I got home and took off my boots, my ankles had swollen to the point of actually breaking the leather of my boots and my legs had swollen to about an inch bigger around on top of my socks than below them.  I had trouble making it up the stairs.

Because I was walking gingerly up the stairs to protect my feet, I didn’t realize just how bad my knees were.  On the way down the stairs this morning, my left knee gave out and I took a nice tumble down the stairs.  I’d be willing to bet that I’ve stretched out the MCL on my left knee.  I don’t think I’ll be working any festivals again for a while…

If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely because you are a friend of mine; and if you’re a friend of mine, then you know by now that really weird shit has a tendency of happening to me.  You also know by all the stories that I tell (and I do go on, at length, about them) that some very interesting thing has happened to me in my life.  Well, this morning, the most interesting thing to happen to me so far this year occurred.

I finished up with my allotted work early so I cut out of work about 4:45am and was on my way home.  I stopped off in Dublin, OH to grab a bottle of water because I was a little parched.  I pulled up to a pump, jumped out the car and ran inside.  On the way out with a Krispy Kreme in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, I notice that the Transformer Bumblebee had pulled in behind me (a bright yellow Camaro, in case you haven’t seen the movie).  As I’m walking up to my car I notice 2 things that stick out at me.

#1. The license plate on the car reads PMOY
#2. The woman getting out of the car is roughly 6′ tall, blonde, leggy, and drop dead gorgeous.

What Bumblebee and a Playmate of the Year may look like

About this time the little devil and angel pop up on my shoulders.  The devil tells me “Dude, you need to say something. She could be an actual Playmate of the Year!” and the angel says “Greg, just keep your mouth shut and get in the fucking car”.  Of course, the angel is always on my left shoulder and I have an 80% hearing loss in that ear.

Me: “So, is PMOY an actual title or just an aspiration?”
Her: *smile* “You get a +1 for the awesome fedora, but a -1 for a douchey pick up line”
Me: “Well, you get a +1 for being drop dead gorgeous, but a -2 for being a frigid bitch”

At this point she starts laughing heartily. I walk towards the back of my car to where she’s pumping gas and she says:

Her: “You’re pretty quick.”
Me: “I’m a comedian, it’s my job.”
Her: “It’s actually a funny thing about the license plate. I bought the car 4 months ago and within the first 2 weeks of buying it, I got pulled over for speeding 4 times.  I thought about what personalized plates I wanted to put on my car and the first thing that came to mind was ‘Pull Me Over Yellow’. The Playmate of the Year thing never entered my mind at the time”

I went on to explain that I had a yellow Dodge SRT-4 that I had named Amy, after Arrest Me Yellow.  We went on to have a nice little conversation while she finished filling up her car ($47!) and I hopped in my beat up piece of shit and continued home.

I know it doesn’t seem like it was very interesting to the outside person, but you have to remember that it’s been a VERY slow year for Greg Ledet. Up until 3 weeks ago I was on that fucking therapy that kept me locked up the whole time and nothing interesting ever happens in Bellefontaine, Ohio.

Now that I’m off the treatment, I’ll be moving the feeling of this blog back to a basic journal of my life.  The drugs have started to fade and I’m starting to regain full control of my facilities (ie, I’m getting back to being hypomanic), so hopefully I’ll start getting back to doing the crazy shit that makes my life interesting, like staring down category 3 hurricanes while completely shitfaced.

-Greg