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History of Gleann Abhann

September 11^th 2005.  It was the anniversary of a horrendous crime.  It was just under two weeks after an even worse natural disaster.  The media portrays the worst in people, warning of shootings and hijackings on the roads.  But all we see is the best.  SCAdians driving over an hour to cut down leaning trees so a mother can rest easy while her kids play outside, since her husband is deployed.  A supply run driver picking up a stranded college student and driving him four hours home so his mother can once again have him at her side.  A tired Peer stopping at a hotel not on his way home to check in on someone he has never met.  Supply runs coming in from all directions carrying all the necessities and a few luxuries for those who now have nothing. 

I began taking pictures to document a supply run from Jackson to Gulfport, MS.  A SCAdian from Ansteorra had made it this far with her supplies and wanted pictures of the rest of the trip.  Some of these supplies had also come from Memphis and points north, Shreveport, and even mailed to me from Minnesota.  Once we arrived in Gulfport, the supplies had to be transferred to another vehicle since my car was too overloaded to clear the driveway. They were then placed in a yurt until they could be distributed.  While I was talking with the members of Gambit the discussion turned to some fabric they were hoping to save but with out the ability to do laundry, they thought it would be a loss.  We decided to head further south to their house to pack the fabric for a return trip to my laundry room.  The pictures included here were suggested by Sir Loric.  He does not want to sensationalize the disaster, but put a recognized face on it.  I can’t show you the feel of the humidity or the stench of rotting books, fabric, and wood.  Mistress Diana of the Isles at one point leaned against a wall and her hand sunk into the saturated dry wall.  But they are managing to salvage things.  Diana’s ceramic Tinkerbells sit lonely on an otherwise empty bookshelf.  Daphne’s Vlad Tempest ceramic tile was found unbroken under a pile of refuse.  A handful of Gleann Abhann gift bags sit atop liquor bottles to dry.  Sometimes they wish everything had washed away so they wouldn’t have to pick through the house finding treasures that can’t be saved.  However, since they were in the attic through the storm surge, it is most assuredly better this way.  Daphne, Diana, and Loric led us through the house showing us overturned furniture and scrolls with the words washed clean from the page.  Daphne pointed to the small attic hatch they crawled through for safety (taking all their animals with them) and then pointed out the water line above her head.  It was close.  It was close for a lot of our friends.  But they still laugh.  They laugh about the concrete mascot bunny in the front yard they dressed with Halloween costumes pulled from the waterlogged house.  They laugh about the music box that played “My Favorite Things” from under the rubble of a bedroom for four hours while they cleared away ruined possessions.  They laugh about their SCA t-shirts, with Loric’s being the whitest, of course.  They laugh with their friends because that’s all they can do.

            Our supplies and hopes and prayers have reached them. In the future our gifts of replacement garb and scrolls and gear will begin to once again fill their lives with some semblance of normalcy.  They are grateful for our help.  We are grateful to have people such as them in our lives.

            In service to our shared Dream,

            Anna Genevieve of Ancyra

Home

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Event Journal

History of Gleann Abhann