The Southern Chapter

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the South is awesome. Laid back, chill (that one's for you Dan), and extremely friendly. New Orleans is a great city. I would have to classify it as a small big city. It really isn't that huge, maybe 400,000 in population. According to wikipedia, it is a mere 350 square miles, compared to Detroit's 1, 295 square miles of urban area. Then again, Detroit is a monstrosity...

Back to Green Light. This past week we have been doing mostly light bulb installations around the area. People sign up with Green Light to have us come and change all their light bulbs, then we go around to their houses and change each one.

I will now present to you "Stories of CFL Installees," a small sampling of people I have met:

Sister Teresa, the smiling nun:
Blue 6 trekked across Lake Pontchartrain two days in a row to meet up with this wonderful woman in Covington, LA. Our first day, we had to meet the nun in a Domino's parking lot to discuss light bulb installations. Yeah, never thought I'd say a sentence like that. She then took us around to homes in her community that were in need of light bulb changes. Many of the homes were extremely low income. It was poverty many people would never know existed beyond the main street. Hopefully they now have a sense of how they, too, can help save the planet without having loads of moolah or being friends with Al Gore, while saving money on their electric bills.

Swamp Man:
We then ventured out later in the week to the swampy bayou, about an hour away from NOLA. There, was a home on stilts right next door to alligator country. An adult son and a father lived there with three adorable doggies. After we installed, and after the son picked flowers for us, he took us to his dock to try and stir up the gator that lived in the water near them. Unfortunately, there were no gator sightings that day, but he told us about his days as a swamp tour guide, and then some of the affects of Katrina. He went north during the storm, but when he came back, the big tugboat next door was on top of a roof of a house less than a mile down the road. Crazy.

The Great Swimmer:
Later that day, we came upon an older man's home whose son lived next door. While we were installing, he told us how when Katrina came, he stayed despite all the warnings. His house filled up with water up to his chest and he had to swim to his son's house (who was gone at the time) and he lived there on bottled water and canned goods for 15 days by himself. He then went around showing us all the water marks around the house and the water damage to much of his furniture. He's definitely a tough cookie.

Some people might think that people need to get over Katrina and stop expecting sympathy, but I don't think it's sympathy they want. I think they just want to tell their story, and most of them are amazing stories. We're happy to hear them.

That's all for "Stories of Installees." Until next time.

Anne