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In Mississippi, a struggle for normalcy on Thanksgiving "Red Cross! Hot food, cold drinks!" a volunteer called out over the loudspeaker to families who emerged from trailers and approached the truck window. Barb Wilson, a volunteer from near Chattanooga, Tenn., handed out disposable containers filled with turkey, stuffing, yams and peas. "Whoever comes to the window gets food," she said. "It just makes you want to cry. I'm just thankful that most of these people survived." The Red Cross truck was making its normal rounds, like it does every day now. To residents, the piercing horn has become as routine and welcome as the music from an ice cream truck in the summer. Nearly three months after Hurricane Katrina, life in Bay St. Louis is anything but normal -- a fact made glaringly obvious on a day like Thanksgiving, which threw into sharp contrast images of tradition with the images of post-storm existence. For thousands of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents, normal is the sight of white Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers next to crumpled homes, rusty appliances and rubbish stacked shoulder high on the curb and check points manned by National Guard members wearing fatigues. Joyce Jordan, 67, came out to get food trays for her husband, son and self. The family, which narrowly escaped Katrina's waters by boat, would eat this Thanksgiving dinner in the front yard. "The trailer's kind of cramped," Jordan said of the structure standing beside the lavender ranch home that had flooded with 4 feet of water. "A lot of us don't have jobs right now," she said. "We really weren't going to celebrate at all today, and we're not celebrating Christmas either." Thanksgiving was also an opportunity to explore some of the most damaged neighborhoods on the coast. The missing U.S. 90 bridge that used to connect Pass Christian to Bay St. Louis was a popular spot. Cindy Schoonmaker, 60, stood in a red dress and red heels, looking out over the wrecked bridge that her dad had helped build. When she tried to speak, she started to cry. "Look how beautiful the water is, how calm and peaceful," said Schoonmaker, who was born in the area. She, with six family members, also ate Thanksgiving dinner outside. "Don't you think it's a beautiful day? God blessed us," she said. "I had so much to be thankful for, I didn't feel like cooking for the first time in 40 years." Schoonmaker's home is lopsided, the walls are cracked, the doors have buckled and salt water is eating it away. But she considers herself luckier than her six sisters, her brother and both of her children, whose homes are not standing at all. "My granddaughter said, 'I knew you were going to dress up, Grandma, you always do,'" Schoonmaker said. "They say if you dress nice, they say it makes you feel nice." Schoonmaker's family won't let her get away with not cooking for another holiday. "They informed me that I am cooking gumbo for Christmas," she said. Another sightseer, Chris Paratore, 52, relaxed on his back with his leather jacket spread beneath him. "It looks like a war zone," said Paratore, who rode from Slidell, La., to the end of Highway 90 on his gleaming new Harley-Davidson. "It reminds me of Vietnam." He took the ride to de-stress and escape Slidell, a city that's cramped with evacuees, he said. "I bought that bike -- cash -- $20,000," said Paratore, a carpenter who has found abundant work in the wake of the storm. The motorcycle's back end has a decal of a sexy woman with horns, which he calls "Lady Katrina." "She paid for it," Paratore said of Katrina and the windfall of work it's brought him. "My old lady hates it. It's like another woman bought me a bike." Some looked around at the destruction and wondered if the rest of the country knew of their suffering. Last Thanksgiving, Kristee Brown, 44, spent the day at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, which was destroyed in the Aug. 29 storm. "There is no more normal," said Brown, a graphics designer from Mandeville, La. Every home in her neighborhood was destroyed, save for hers, she said. "I'm thinking it's never going to be the same," Brown said. "I think the nation's just moving on to the next thing. There's a lot of hurting going on." The volunteers from around the country that could be found in lower Mississippi on Thursday were greeted by a gentle breeze and warm sunshine. "There's organizations all over this Gulf Coast; it's amazing," said Tom Mims, executive director of the Gulf Coast Rescue Mission in Biloxi. Some had arrived to volunteer for the day or deliver blankets. Others, like the Stahly and Kreczmer couples from Elkhart, Ind., have relocated to the Gulf Coast permanently. The couples arrived a week ago to start a construction business and turned up Thursday at the Gulf Coast Rescue Mission to help serve food. "They're getting high winds and snow where we're from," said Chuck Stahly, 56. "We like calling home and going, 'Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.'" He then pointed at a magnolia and asked, "Do you know what kind of tree this is?"
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