Wayne wrote about New Orleans:
A dear friend of mine lost almost everything she had. My friend is a participant in the Goth subculture, and every year there's a gathering of Goths called "Convergence." The city changes from year to year, with online voting determining which city gets to host Convergence for that particular year.
New Orleans won the vote for the 2006 Convergence. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, and the town was devastated. Rising from the rubble, the Convergence organizers declared that Convergence would continue as scheduled. It will take place in April 2006. The hotel wasn't too badly damaged, so it will still host the gathering, but a second venue where nightly musical performances were supposed to take place fell by the wayside.
Back from New Orleans 5142Mike Pearce A lot of people I know say the place should just be bulldozed but I think anybody who has spent any...
My friend has attended Convergence with me for the last four years, but she won't be coming to this one: It's not that she LOST so much, but she had to come back to her shambles of an apartment and sort through things which had been precious to her but which were now utterly ruined. And on a grander scale, she had to see so many of her favorite places irrecoverably damaged. She doesn't want to see them again, at least not until she's had plenty of time to grieve for the loss, both her loss and the loss to the world. She's living in Seattle now.
(I'm helping her rebuild: When I asked her what she felt worst about losing, she said that she was moved to tears by the loss of her game collection, her Disney videos, and her Christmas ornaments. I'm replacing the games and the videos, and I shared my own Christmas ornaments with her so that she would have SOME ornaments this Christmas.)
Bob
