# 126 Crazy Tunica Nights...

Thursday evening about 9:30, I headed back up to Tunica County to work at the Red Cross shelter again. I've gotten a lot of interesting feedback on my previous shelter experience, and I believe together we've all learned a lot about the Red Cross and their shelters. So I was looking forward to heading back up there for a bit more excitement. And excitement is what I got.

(Note to readers-- I don't have any pictures of the shelter or any residents or volunteers-- simply because I felt it might be a bit rude to try to take pictures.)

The night started out with a bang, when at 11:00 p.m. on the dot, I walked in, and met Wendell. Wendell is an 84 year old volunteer from Florida, and he's a wild and crazy guy. I introduced myself and explained I was from "DHS" and he kept saying, "really, DHS?", "Wow, I didn't know they were sending anyone from DHS", and "that's good that DHS people are here now". I felt like I must be missing something important in this conversation until the other volunteer said, "no, Wendell, Department of Human Services, not Department of Homeland Security."

I was quite surprised, or maybe not surprised at all, to see that the entire "night shift" was different from the previous time. I'm not sure if there was any fallout from the sweet tea catastrophe, but it was an entirely different group of people, and a much larger group. There was Gail and her son Sean, who were from Brooklyn. Sean was a senior at both Penn State and University of Southern Michigan. I'm not really sure how that works, but he said he goes one semester to each college. He also knew all about Ole Miss since he said "Ole Miss and Penn State were big rivals, you know." I didn't know.

My previous shelter experience had been, in a word, boring. I sat around, feeling like a waste of space, with nothing to do. Its why I jumped at the chance to make the sweet tea and "stir things up" literally. This shelter experience was a LOT different. There were all sorts of supplies that had been donated-- cleaning supplies, bath stuff, clothes, diapers, books, etc. We spent a lot of time organizing the donations by size, type, etc. These "night-shifters" were a wild and crazy group-- they told me that as soon as I got there and they were right! There was a LOT of chuckling going on and a lot of laughing and telling goofy stories. Gail spent a lot of her time dancing around the donations, singing old country songs. Sean spent his time going behind his mother and messing up all her perfectly laid out supplies. Naomi, a graduate student from DC, decided it was beyond time to clean every square inch of the kitchen-- from the baseboards to the inside of the mostly empty cabinets. Gail and I helped her do some scrubbing and we reorganized all the food. It was actually a lot of fun and I enjoyed talking to everyone and getting to know these people. They are super great people for taking time off from work or away from their families and helping out others.

I got to hang out with some of the residents, who, despite it being the middle of the night, weren't asleep, either because of the bad weather or because they just couldn't sleep (since, as they said, they had plenty of time to sleep during the day-- some people had taken 3 or 4 naps each day.) I talked with Melanie, whose sisters, husband and mother were there. Melanie had been interviewed by NPR the day before, and I happened to hear it on the way home from work. I'd met her previously and thought she did a great job. I also hung out with Carroll-- the man who'd taught me some poker tricks my first shift. Carroll was lots of fun and he has a wheelchair. He doesn't sit in the wheelchair. He pushes it in front of him wherever he goes. I'm not sure if there is an invalid ghost in there or what.

The residents finally had their fish fry earlier that day and so there was some leftover fried fish, which was fantastic and me and Bobbie, a nurse from Hawaii, at a few pieces. She thought it was very good and was so excited to eat catfish! She kept asking me all about Southern food, and wondered if catfish could be eaten raw, sushi-style. I suggested that wasn't a good idea.

This group of night-shifters were a lot more laid back that the previous group (or maybe it was because it really was the middle of the night since my previous shift had ended at 11 p.m. Perhaps those guys got a little loopy in the middle of the night as well!). Several of them took naps, or played on the computer, or sat around and talked for a while when they finished finding things to do. Likewise, I took a short nap, around 4:30, and let me tell you-- those cots the residents are sleeping on are AWFUL. My neck is still hurting. I also spend some time on-line and had a chance to answer some emails and clean out the 1400 inbox emails I've been meaning to delete or take action. It was a good use of my time.

While I had been checking my email, several volunteers came in to check the weather-- it was raining outside and was getting worse and worse. The weather wasn't good-- there were severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings all around us. We went to check on the residents, several of whom were waking up because of the water coming in from the roof, all over the gym. We got to work fast, moving beds, cleaning the floor, strategically placing buckets and getting things fixed. The rain was coming down really hard-- for a while there, it was harder than I believe I have ever seen. And it was coming in from under a couple of the doors, and it came within about 3 inches of overtaking the main doors. We put down towels and hoped it would stop. We couldn't open the door and we were beginning to get a bit worried, but it finally receded, even though it continued to rain most of the night.

But the night wasn't all fun and games. Around 4:30 a.m., the night took an turn for the worse.

I was sitting around, eating the fish with Bobbie and an older couple from Pennsylvania, Louise and Richard. The conversation turned to the ARC (American Red Cross) policy about having a nurse or EMT at all times. Since the only ARC policies I know about are those directly related to sweet tea, my ears perked up a bit. Apparently, Bobbie and Sean (my rival from Penn State) were EMT/nurses and they were the only two in Tunica, at that time. Bobbie and Sean had been splitting the day hours, but during the night shift, they usually stayed at the hotel, and if there was an emergency, they could be called. Both of them happened to be there that particular night because they couldn't sleep.

Richard, however, took great offense at this policy and felt like there were enough people at this particular shelter (apparently the ARC shelter's in Memphis only had a few people each since there were more church-associated shelters up there), that a nurse or EMT should be "on-call" the entire time (his argument-- there were lots of people with pretty severe medical problems-- a couple stayed in rented hospital beds and had lots of medications and stuff like that to worry about). And if that meant they had to work too many hours, ARC should send another person to help. This conversation started out cordial, but it quickly escalated into a heated conversation, with Bobbie trying to calm things down but Richard alternating between saying "it wasn't really his problem, no one asked him" and offering suggestions that the ARC should be implementing. It was quite obvious that this was a sore subject.

I wasn't feel particularly uncomfortable listening to this exchange-- I'd learned firsthand how these ARCers take their policies very seriously. What I didn't know what how the ARCers view "outsiders". To be clear, that's me and you.

While this exchange had been going on, two other things were happening at the same time. First, I was losing interest and was beginning to nod off in my chair. It had been a long night. Second, Louise, Richard's wife, had repeatedly tried to get Richard to drop the subject, suggesting that Bobbie really had no say in the matter and it wasn't worth it to fight about it. Richard kept ignoring her.

Finally, Louise got angrier and angrier about the discussion, and kept point out that this "wasn't the time" to have this talk. Richard and Bobbie mostly ignored her. This continued and the argument, while never being loud or angry, by any means, was a bit tense. In between nodding off, I noticed that Louise kept telling them to be quiet, that "this isn't the place or the time to discuss this", and kept giving me pointed glances. I didn't have a dog in this fight and hadn't uttered a word, so I assumed this was merely my tired brain playing tricks on me. It wasn't.

A minute or two later, when Richard was getting up on his soapbox to explain why he was just a "volunteer" and not a "nurse" but that didn't mean he was an idiot, when Louise suddenly stood up and loudly said,

"Would you two just be quiet? There is a NON-ARC present. You should NOT be discussing this in front of non-ARCers. You should know better than to discuss something like this in front of someone like her." and pointed directly at me.

Un. Comfortable.

Richard shut his mouth.

Bobbie offered me her cot and kindly told me I could go lay down.

This non-ARCer knows a bad situation when she sees one. I took her offer.

I will never know what happened after I went to nap. I felt like it was best to not know. I don't want to be called in to testify in court someday.