From This Chair……
By Cloann McNall
They say it never rains but what it pours, and the Phantom Charlie and I learned this to be true during our recent trip to Texas and Arkansas. Shortly after our arrival in Houston the clouds opened and I’ve never seen rain such as what we experienced there. It rained five inches in a short time.
The freeway had a foot of water standing all the way across it and the slow moving vehicles were traveling with the flashers on.
We were headed to Silsbee, TX where we visited my niece Jan Reneau and her husband Dan who own the newspaper at Silsbee, plus two other papers and a printing plant in that area.
Jan lived next door to me in Colorado during the first 10 years of her life so she is more of a daughter than a niece.
They took us to Larry’s French Market near Beaumont, TX where I had my first taste of alligator, crawdads and crawfish. Jan mentioned I was from Idaho and the chef at the buffet thought she was the one from Idaho and from that moment on treated her like a princess from a foreign country bringing free food to our table and telling us the details of each sample. We didn’t tell him differently we just enjoyed the fun.
The next day we took the ferry to Galveston, TX. Before reaching the ferry we drove along the gulf coast through the area devastated last fall by hurricane Ike.
It was an unbelievable sight and the only way to describe the devastation and debris is to say “it’s like driving through a 40-mile landfill.” There were clothes and other fabric hanging off the trees and fences, bathtubs, toilets and mattresses strewn along the roadside which had murky water standing in the ditches. Seagulls were circling the debris.
Expensive coastal homes were totally blown away and even the iron structures on which they had been built were left standing twisted and mangled for miles along the coast.
There was a 40 foot high stack of vehicles piled on each other and trucks with cranes were loading them on dump trucks. It will take years to clean up the area.
Jan said the insurance companies are arguing as to who has to pay the claims so restoration of homes isn’t quickly forthcoming.
Galveston
Once in Galveston the mood was more uplifting. It was sunny and balmy as we walked along the water front. We had dinner at the Rain Forest restaurant which is complete with fake overhead lightning and thunder storms and animated roaring animals. Quite a treat. If you ever have a chance to dine at the Rain Forest do it!
The Reneaus are excellent hosts and Dan told us if we want to spend time next winter in Galveston he will park his fifth wheeler there so we can stay in it. That is lots of sun for someone like me who is allergic to the sun. We’ll see.
During our trip I was in two states I’d never been in before now, Georgia and Arkansas. I thought Little Rock was pretty and we drove by the Bill Clinton Library. Little Rock was picturesque and would make a good setting for a romantic novel. Maybe that’s what Clinton was working on during his time there!
Arkansas Potlatch
Another highlight of our five day trip was for me to see the paper mill at McGehee, Arkansas that Charlie was instrumental in building in the 1970’s for Potlatch. The entire plant size is about 750 acres. We were given a tour of the mill and it was rewarding to see many of the Potlatch personnel remembered him and showed a great deal of respect and hospitality towards him.
It was enlightening and pleasant to see a glimpse into Charlie’s past, in the work force as well as the different homes he had owned and shared with his young family.
In McGehee was my first time to wear a hard hat and eat at a Catfish Kitchen café. The mill is about 15 miles out of McGehee and located by the Mississippi River. Approximately 350 persons are employed there. McGehee is about the size of Orofino. We flew Delta out of Spokane both ways and enroute home irritated the plane’s stewardess by keeping the two tiny bags of peanuts she gave us before we had the nerve to ask for two small packages of cookies. When she finally gave us the cookies (took awhile) she asked if we wanted to give back the peanuts. We told here “no put it on our tab.” If you hear Delta, which merged with Northwest, has gone broke blame it on Charlie and Cloann for being such pigs!