When I first got to America four and a half years back, we flew out from Los Angeles, The City of Angels to spend some time in Houston, Texas, where Solange Knowles grew up.
On the front desk of our Hotel’s reception was a lady named Verna who had lost 13 family members overnight in New Orleans to hurricane Katrina’s unexpected ravaging effects. Verna had been relocated to Houston.
Though her grief was fresh, Verna’s smile and joie de vie for life, was a gift to us all. Reminding us each morning how precious life is, and how as a gift, we should try and use each day of our lives to be happy and make a difference to others. Verna chose to express this joy for life, by wearing a different colored wig every day. As a surprising entertainer, Vera would turn on a daily show and she was hard to keep up with.
As a star of America, Verna’s spirit burns bright in my heart and memory. Each time she smiled in her job, I realized that I could never really complain again, about anything that could ever possibly or would ever happen to me. She was my first American hero of sorts in America that I’d met. I loved her.
Here’s Cambell Robertson‘s words as the New York Times looks back on the resilience of New Orleans people in celebration of their recovery at the five year mark since Hurricane Katrina occurred. What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger and shines brighter, into a fuller day.
“NEW ORLEANS — This city, not that long ago, appeared to be lost. Only five years have passed since corpses were floating through the streets, since hundreds of thousands of survivors sat in hotel rooms and shelters and the homes of relatives, learning from news footage that they were among the ranks of the homeless.
For most of the last year, in many parts of the city, the waters finally seemed to be receding.”
Recovery of any kind, involves people surviving a flood–whether that flood be due to a hurricane or natural disasters effects, or that of a flood of economic, manmade disaster leashed upon the world–hope for recovery victims, is like an ark of Peace, that we are all called to build somehow with our imaginations and our hands. Katrina is a metaphor of all who are in recovery, that rebuilding a State, a city, the dreams of community is achievable with kindness, resilience, strength, tenacity and truckloads of pure old-fashioned American courage.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 8.28.10. If you’re reading, ICU Verna. xox~
RIDIN’, ROPIN’ AND WINE SIPPIN’ – HOUSTON COWBOY CULTURE AT THE RODEO 2011
Grit, sweat and danger and the three components needed to get your cowboy factor on at the Texas Rodeo that will draw two million people very soon.
Even a kangaroo will be at Houston this year as a draw. That’s odd for Texas. The Aussie alligator of the Southland outbacks got bumped for a roo? Wow. A wine garden as a draw may bring some Aussie cowgirls and cowboys up this year.
Full story at Wall Street Journal.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 3.18.11~
Posted by horiwood on March 18, 2011 in America, Cowboy Culture, Entertainment Celebrity News, Entertainment Distribution, Entertainment News, Hollywood Entertainment News, Houston, Humor, Pop Cultural Commentary, Rodeo Riders, Sports, Sports Horiwood, Texas, Westerns