A home along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The sign says, "Do not allow Katrina to steal your joy." (Photo by Andrea James | September 2005)

I’ve been meaning to write a post about how every day is a special occasion. But every time I begin, I think, what kind of cliche piece of advice is that? Everyone knows that from reading Hallmark “just because” cards.

And yet, I have to remind myself of that often.

In the past, whenever someone gave me perfume or a sweet smelling lotion, I would save it. By the time I was 23, I had amassed a solid collection of lotions and soaps and bubble bath and bath beads and relaxation oils — you’d think that I was obsessed with indulging myself amid the scent of rose and lavender.

And I think that friends and family must have seen my collection and thought, “Wow, she loves Bath & Body Works,” thus creating a multiplier effect on gift occasions.

Once, while helping me to move, my brother-in-law exclaimed, “You and all your bottles!”

At the time, I couldn’t bear to part with even one bottle. I was storing these away for a special occasion. This went on for years.

Then my wedding day came and went. I think I used one of the lotions. Once.

I gave away my collection shortly after.

This upcoming Sunday marks the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

I wonder if my newfound penchant for giving things away, and not holding onto too many posessions, comes in part from having lived on the Gulf Coast during the storm. (See my recount in the aftermath, here.)

During that time, I volunteered to help families clean out after their homes flooded. Beloved possessions became soggy stinking junk.  Items that may have been saved to honor a special occasion instead became chores — stuff had to be picked up, salvaged or discarded.

It seemed like an enormous and endless task.

I’m eager to read some of the Hurricane Katrina look backs and the where-are-we-now pieces.  Particularly from those who have a connection to the Gulf Coast.

As for how to mark this special-tragic-occasion? I will try to remember that there’s never a better time than now to drink the good wine.

More photos below the jump. Click any photo to enlarge it:

Formerly an apartment complex in Mississippi (Photo by Andrea James | September 2005)

From: James, Andrea
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 4:16 PM
To: *Newsroom Group;
Subject: That lucky old sun

Hey guys,
 
Thank you so much for the past year and a half.
 
I’ve had the time of my life in Mobile and it’s been an honor to work with all of you.
 
(For anyone who isn’t plugged into the Register rumor mill: I heard Steve Myers was coming back to town so I took a job as far away as possible. Barring any hurricanes that mess up my flight plans, I will start as a business reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Sept. 19.)
 
This is a great newspaper full of competent people. We miss that sometimes in the day-to-day shuffle — but you are truly working for one of the best newspapers in the South and the most aggressive newspaper in the state. It informs and unites South Alabama, a growing vibrant community on the beautiful Gulf Coast. People here read their newspaper. In many towns, that isn’t the case.
 
It’s been a privilege to work here and be a part of that.
 
Also, I just hope you realize what a special and unique part of the world you live in. The geography and the mix of Alabama, Southern, Gulf Coast and beach cultures all blend to produce the quirky city that is Mobile.
 
I once wrote home to my family in New Jersey, “The trees are bigger. The talk is slower. The weather is hotter. The food is spicier. These things combine, I think, to make the people more eccentric.” — Nowhere is that more true than in this newsroom. (We all know who I’m talking about.) And I’ve loved every bit of it!

 
When I came here on my interview, Mike Marshall gave me a copy of “Stars Fell on Alabama,” by Carl Carmer. (You didn’t want that back, did you Mike?)
 
Although it was written in the 1920s, his words capture Mobile in a way that mine can not. He calls it “a city of intimacies that have stood the test of time.” Indeed, his descriptions hold true today, almost 90 years after they were written. So I share select excerpts from his chapter on the Port City:

Mobile stays in the heart, loveliest of cities. I have made many journeys down the Black Warrior and I have always found happiness at its mouth. Few travelers “pass through” Mobile. The old city rests apart, remembering the five flags that have flown over her. Spain and France and England and the Old South, grown harmonious through the mellowing of time, are echoes in the streets.
 
The air is soft in Mobile — filled with sea moisture. The tropics reach toward the town from the south. Palms raise straight trunks to the greening tufts that cap them. Fig trees and oleanders, magnolias and Cape jasmine, Cherokee roses and azaleas make the breezes heavy with sweet odor through the long warm season. It is a gentle air.
 
With all its outward semblance of calm, Mobile is gayest of American cities. Its free spirit, less commercialized than that of New Orleans, has kept its Gallic love of the fantastic and amusing. Behind the ornate balconies and long French windows that sedately face the streets live a people to whom carnival is a natural heritage.
 
It is easy to become adapted to the rhythm of this city. Acquaintances gradually become friends. The processes of earning a living are slow and comparatively unimportant to the living itself. Dignity and charm and gayety permeate life there. Mobile is a city of the lotos – bringing forgetfulness of everything except the pleasant passing of the hours.
 
Thank you for your friendship, for many firsts (sweet tea, crawfish and Mardi Gras to name a few), and the pleasant passing of the hours.
 
Please keep in touch.

I’ll just put the lead at the front, so if you read no further, you’ll know this much:

At the end of the month, I will move to Seattle, Washington.

Today is my 25th birthday, and it is bittersweet. I’m a bit overwhelmed, but in a very good way after a whirlwind week in the Pacific Northwest.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the oldest daily newspaper in that city, flew me to town to interview for a business reporting position.

I left Mobile last Saturday with a packed suitcase and a head full of story ideas for those editors. I returned today with a job offer, a signed lease on a Seattle apartment and no liquids in my carry-on.

Before the interview, the paper put me up in a $300 per night Marriott hotel on Lake Union, gave me a rental car and said, “explore.”

I did.

My Medill friend Chuck Chiang, who works for a newspaper in Oregon, drove six hours to the city to share the joy. He brought his guitar. What a happy reunion!

We ate at the Pink Door in Post Alley. Rode to the top of the Space Needle. Strolled around neighborhoods. Watched men toss fish at Pike Place Market.

I marveled at the prospect of moving back to a big city after 17 months of living in Alabama.

The night before the interview I jogged to calm my nerves. I trotted past the Seattle P-I building — which is a part of the Seattle skyline, right on Puget Sound with an enormous rotating globe. The globe has the words, “It’s in the P-I.” (Reminds me of the Daily Planet from Superman!)

The interview was intense. I met with 10 managers and editors and five reporters. But I was so impressed with the dedication and talent of people in that newsroom. I can’t wait to work with all of them.

On Tuesday, I took a vehicle ferry to stay with my American University professor, Rob Wells, who first planted the seed that I could maybe make it in this business. He lives in a small shore town called Gig Harbor, on a peninsula about an hour from the city.

He and his wife let me stay in their gorgeous guest room right on Puget Sound! Their home became my staging ground for the rest of the week.

On Friday, I returned to the P-I to sign their offer letter and make plans for my move across the country (which they will pay for, entirely, thank God!)

Then I met with a property manager to sign a lease and pay September’s rent on my new apartment — a cute bungalow in a neighborhood called Greenlake. It is just five miles north of the Space Needle and the Seattle P-I. It is one block from the lake and next door to an outdoor grill, a public library and a Starbucks. (Of course.)

In the weeks ahead I’m looking at lots of goodbyes. Hugs and tears. And excitement over the newest adventure.

(Miss Carol from church called me while I was in Seattle. “Come on back to us baby ’soon as you can. It was lonely in the front pew without you darlin.”)

In many ways, moving to the South was like coming home. The South to me feels as real as any other place I’ve lived. It is here. I am here, in the South, right now. Surrounded by heat, palm trees, bugs & critters.

Oh, I will miss the South. Alabama. The Gulf Coast. Mobile.

I will miss the grey-haired ladies at my church, their big hats and spindly hugs.

I will miss ice cold sweet tea on heavy hot days.

I will miss being baby and darlin’ and honey.

I will miss the enormous fuzzy live oaks.

I will miss knowing all the shop keepers, walking down the street and saying hi to everyone.

I will miss my antebellum apartment, with high ceilings and mahogany floors.

And mostly, I will miss my awesome Mobile Press-Register colleagues and friends. My fellow “expats.”

I am leaving all that, and them, to go back to metropolis. Faster pace. Diversity! Coffee shops. Recycling!

Good bye dive bars and watering holes, with your beer-stained floors and neon Bud signs. Hello martini glasses and plush couches and $9 froo-froo drinks.

Goodbye bright sun and beach on Saturday and skin browner than I thought possible. Hello to grey winters and skiing on Saturday and my naturally pale self.

Goodbye to the County Commissioner who grunts “Git ‘r done” at board meetings. Hello to professionals in business suits who make deals without twang.

Goodbye hurricanes swirling. Goodbye slow talkers. Goodbye $450 per month rent. Goodbye Confederate flags. Goodbye dusty front porch.

Goodbye lizard skeleton.

What am I doing with my life? All this moving! Searching, writing, reporting, seeking, learning.

They say that journalism comes with many sacrifices. You spend a good part of your 20s moving from place to place, working hard. Crying over goodbyes and shouting with joy over triumphs.

I wouldn’t trade this career, or the past 17 months in the Deep South, for anything. It’s been such a lesson! On politeness, on the other America, on a place that is constantly struggling and striving. It is very special, I’m glad to have known it.

But now I’m ready for a bigger challenge. What an adventure.

Yawn. I’ll start with a nap.

Medill School of Journalism – Northwestern University:
Medill Alum Documents Katrina Aftermath in Mobile, Ala.

Story by Andrea James, MSJ05

Andrea James is currently working as a business reporter at the Mobile Register in Mobile, Ala. This commentary is excerpted from an E-mail she sent to friends and family after the hurricane.

Hello from the Gulf Coast. Life down here, as we knew it, has changed, and for many it has been destroyed.

The destruction and chaos down here is worse than anything I’ve ever seen, and I was in D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001.

I have so much to tell all of you. I’m sorry for not staying in better touch. It’s been difficult, and I’ve been using the remaining juice in my cell phone battery to talk to family.

Let me start from the beginning.

Last Friday was a normally gorgeous day in Mobile. Hurricane Katrina was supposed to cross Florida and hit Florida again in the panhandle. I flew to California for a friend’s wedding and had a blast.

By mid-day Saturday, the projected path, size and strength of the storm had changed, and things weren’t looking good. I caught a midnight flight back to Mobile, and got in just before the airport closed. I went to church and we prayed, and then we all went home to prepare for the storm.

But it wasn’t enough time.

Most of the Gulf Coast was caught unprepared. New Orleans evacuated Sunday, but that wasn’t nearly early enough to get everyone out. They are still counting the bodies.

On Monday morning at dawn, I arrived at the paper with most of my important possessions in tow. Our paper is one block from the Mobile river. Our newsroom is on the third floor. Good news for New Orleans came in early that day — Katrina had ticked east, meaning Mississippi would get the brunt of the storm, and Mobile would probably flood.

Katrina roared in full force from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Downtown Mobile flooded under 12 feet of water, meaning that the water level reached the streetlights. Our newsroom was surrounded by water. People had to be evacuated from their homes by boat.

The wind picked up anything that wasn’t bolted down and tossed it into the air, into windows and cars. I was awed by Mother Nature’s power. To see it in person, not on a TV screen, is incredible. This entire half of the state lost power. The newsroom didn’t have power for two days. The computers were hooked up to generators, and at night the only light came from the glow of the computer screens.

This newsroom that was our sanctuary during the storm soon became our pressure cooker. It was over 100 degrees, and we were working under tight deadlines. Our paper was printed in Pensacola and Birmingham and shipped down for delivery, because our presses had no power. Reporters from newspapers in Mississippi and New Orleans also camped out here.

(Never fear though, caffeine was in high supply. Using an impressive tangle of extension cords, the editors hooked up the coffee pot to the generator outlets. They also somehow brought in sodas chilled by ice.)

I spent Monday night sleeping in the accounting department. Tuesday morning, the water had receded and I headed home to retrieve my car from a parking garage, see my apartment in daylight and hopefully take a shower.

I found my place still standing in one piece, surrounded by debris and a mangled fence. That’s it. Oh, and my bedroom window leaked in water. I was extremely lucky.

Mobile wasn’t hit nearly as hard as New Orleans or Biloxi. New Orleans sits under water as I write this. Most of Biloxi was destroyed. An entire casino broke off and fell into the water. Officials say that the Port of Gulfport, Miss. no longer exists.

Much of downtown Mobile has been ruined from water damage.

The water missed my apartment by several blocks. The wind basically ruined everything that wasn’t cemented into place, and the water got the rest.

It was one of the worst storms to hit Mobile, and yesterday felt a bit like living in hell. It was hot and sticky and sad. Everything downtown was covered in mud, and smelled something awful. But Mobile’s buildings are still standing, which is more than we can say for Mississippi and Louisiana. The death toll keeps rising, and many of those who survived lost everything.

As for Journalism

I wonder if maybe I am getting a little sample of what it is like to be a war correspondent.

It’s super hot and humid, the phones aren’t always working and people are hard to reach. There’s no power so we aren’t eating properly. I really look forward to eating the MREs (meals-ready-to-eat.)

There’s lots of confusion, and Tuesday it was hard to figure out exactly the extent of the damage. Reporting is harder because I get conflicting information, and on Monday the phones kept going out.

By Tuesday, I hadn’t slept properly in three days. We are reporting through it all. The day after the storm, we put out a 12-page paper chock full of help and information for folks. (No ads.)

I wrote two stories for that edition and contributed to many more. My sources are the waterfront and maritime industry, the airport, the state docks and the business community. One of my sources at the state docks called Tuesday and was surprised to hear me answer. She said, “Well if it isn’t the business reporter who never sleeps.” Hahaha.

Tuesday I toured the state docks and got a first hand look at the destruction there. I wrote an article on it, and wrote about the economic impact of having all of the Gulf Coast ports closed. I also contributed bits of information to other people’s stories.

This is not typical reporting; we just cull information and then put it into the paper. Disaster reporting is fascinating because the normal routine doesn’t apply. It’s not about individual glory. It’s about capturing the destruction, and at the same time telling people what they need to know. Especially since many people don’t have TV or radio right now.

A Tranquil Night

When I left work Tuesday, I felt really down. I had been reporting for about the last 48 hours — and it gave me something to do. I knew I was heading home to a lonely apartment with no power, and that millions of people had no homes at all.

I got home and cleaned up the place until the sun went down.

I couldn’t take a hot shower, but as my apartment doesn’t get cold water anyway thanks to the Alabama heat, the shower was lukewarm. That’s OK with me.

I lit two candles and did yoga by candlelight. Then I played the piano and the light from the little flame danced across the sheet music notes.

I was in bed asleep by 9 p.m.

Now I’m at work and looking forward to another day of reporting. The work is getting me through and I am reminded of why I went into journalism.

What is strange is I feel almost guilty, and extremely thankful, for having my own apartment to go home to. For so many, that is not the case.

It’s heart breaking. There is little comfort in knowing that I am recording the first draft of history for what is the likely to be the deadliest storm to ever hit the United States.

Note: Andrea James’ colleagues at the Mobile Register include Medill alums Susan Daker (BSJ04), Dan Murtaugh (BSJ03), Rena Havner (MSJ00), Kristen Campbell (BSJ95, MSJ97) and Jane Nicholes (BSJ81).

Posted on September 1, 2005 03:22 PM to Medill School of Journalism – Northwestern University

In the ladies room, I heard one woman tell another, “Dang! It’s cold as a truck stop in here! Ain’t they got no heat in here?”

And I thought, “What in the world am I doing?”

It was February, and I was in the Atlanta airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Mobile, Ala., where I would interview for a job.

There’s a part of me that panics when I get too far from a major city. Having grown up just a bike’s ride from the Monmouth Bay, which overlooks the New York skyline, I’ve never lived outside of the shadow of a global city.

Even when choosing colleges, first in D.C. and then Chicago, I made sure that I would be living where the action is, thus earning me the nickname from a close friend, “Action James.”

I’ve always taken a strange comfort from population density – I need people – lots of them in all colors and cultures, or else I feel choked.

But then I moved to London, a city of 8 million, and I was surprised to realize that I didn’t want to live there forever. Instead of feeling like a part of something larger than myself, I simply felt lost in the crowd.

When I watched Americans go to the polls in the 2004 election from across the ocean, my East Coast snobbery hit me in the face – I had no clue about the 143 million people who don’t live in or near the country’s top fifty cities.

Red state, blue state – we’re all American – and I wanted to find out about the other half.

Upon returning to D.C, a job posting for a night cops reporter in Alabama caught my interest.  But I hesitated to send my resume.

Do I really want to live in Alabama? How would a Jersey girl fare in the deep South?

The more I looked into moving south, the more I resembled a character from Alan Jackson’s song, “She’s Gone Country.”

Rent is cheap. Life is slower. The city is on the Gulf Coast, at the top of the tropical belt. Mobile is Jimmy Buffet’s home town. People grow palm trees in their front yards.

It would be a great place to work as a journalist, with lots of opportunities to shine and make a difference. I grew up in New Jersey, one of America’s richest states. Alabama is one of the poorest.

It would be fascinating. Even the tax system is completely reversed – food and clothing is heavily taxed instead of property and income.

The legislature worries about things like Ten Commandments displays and sex toys, while the tax system remains unchanged.

And I could explore race relations, which fascinate me, in the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.

So, I applied for the job and the paper arranged to fly me in for an interview.

I arrived in Mobile during Mardi Gras, and the whole city was rocking.

The Catholics settled Mobile, so the city isn’t as strict on alcohol as upstate, which is full of Baptists. Christmas trees decked out in beads were everywhere, even in the airport!

My taxi driver to the Best Western was a friendly character, kind of smelly, born in Louisiana. Little did he know that I was studying him as if he belonged to a foreign culture. This was my chance to see what it would be like to live and work in this place.

He explained why there would be two parades that night.

“We was s’pose-ta-had the night off, but dat dair rained, and they ’sponed the parades ta tonight.”

Then he gave me some beads from the dashboard.

“I’m the only taxi driver in this city ta give dem out,” he said proudly.

For the next 45 minutes, we rode past big old southern homes, shaded by even bigger trees whose leaves formed a forest green canopy over the main road.

He “splained” the history of the buildings and told me some other basics.

For instance, he told me that there are black people in Mobile, but I shouldn’t be concerned or scared.

“Now I don’t know what you’re used to where you’re from, but we do have black people walking ’round downtown,” he said. “We all get along down here, it’s not like upstate or none. They have their own parades, and they live on the other side of town, but it’s voluntary segregation.”

Thank God he couldn’t see my face, I didn’t think my eyebrows could go that high.

Then he told me what’s really important.

“God, football and family. That’s all there is.”

Ah-hah. Yes, this is going to be a whole ‘nother world.

The next two days confirmed that life’s next stop would be Mobile, Ala.

I found that many people are apologetic about the state, as if they suffered from an inferiority complex.

“We’re already the laughing stock of the entire country,” one person told me.

The executive editor of the paper took me out to dinner, and everyone at the paper made me feel at home. They even arranged for me to have lunch with four Medill alums.

The alums gave me the inside scoop on the paper – who the cool editors are, where people hang out and office gossip.

Then the business editor took me aside and told me that the paper was interested in hiring me for the business section. While that was an honor, I didn’t really want that job.

So I told her the truth: I had offers to cover business in London and in D.C., and that I didn’t need to come to Alabama to write about business.

But she convinced me. I’d be one of two business reporters, and I could really help grow the section. Business is underreported in Southern Alabama, and I would help change that.

So, I accepted the business job, which pays more, and will work the night cops beat a couple of times per month.

In two days, I graduate from Medill. One week later, with my sister’s help, I’ll make the big move to Alabama — land of collard greens, chicken dumplings, moon pies and R.C. Cola.

For the first time, I don’t have a definite plan for the next two years – so I’m just going to live and be happy and see where life, and journalism, takes me.

Make sure y’all come and visit me sometime, ya hear?