Thursday, September 1, 2005. Evening.

It only took Carol and her husband, Joe, twenty minutes to drive from their house to the restaurant. I had never met them before, and prior to Katrina didn't even know they existed. Yet, here I was riding in the backseat of their air-conditioned car on the way to spend the night at their house. But, given the events of the last week, nothing surprised me.

They graciously opened their home to me, which stood in stark contrast to the “every man for himself world” I’d come from. I felt as if I had just stepped out of the Nineteenth into the Twenty-first Century. Everything was a novelty: electricity, hot and cold running water, air-conditioning, television, refrigeration, even food.

I was filthy so I took my first shower. I lingered, letting the water run over my face and rest of my body, but felt guilty for taking so much for myself. I stepped out and grabbed a clean, white towel. I flushed the toilet just to watch it work.

Back in my room, I put on a dirty shirt and pair of shorts while Carol washed some of my other clothes. Now that I was clean I got the full impact of my unwashed clothes. I went to the window air-conditioner and put my face where I could feel the full flow of cool air, which brought such relief, but more guilt. Why was I getting all of this?

Carol knocked and delivered a load of freshly laundered clothes. Selecting a Hotel Monteleone tee shirt and khaki shorts, I dressed and began to feel a little like myself. At the same time though, I felt like a tuning fork, set in motion by Katrina, and I was still vibrating.

I called Kathy to let her know I was safely at Carol's and then Brian to coordinate my morning pick-up. He would drive down with a farmer friend and meet me around 10:00 a.m.

In the kitchen, Carol offered me food and drink. I wasn’t hungry, but accepted a beer, since they weren’t wine drinkers.

I watched a little television with them. An angry New Orleans Police Lieutenant was telling his story to a news anchor on one of the Baton Rouge stations. He had driven his family in his police cruiser from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and dropped them off at a relative's house. He then drove his cruiser to a shopping mall and abandoned it in the parking lot.

"Why did you do that?" asked the anchor.

"We were overwhelmed and the leadership of the city of New Orleans failed miserably. There was no plan to handle a crisis like this, even though this is exactly what we feared could happen," he said.

"What do you mean there was no plan? You mean the plan was outdated?" the anchor asked.

"No. It's not that the plan was outdated, there WAS NO PLAN," he added. "We had no emergency plan. We were told to show up for our normal shifts and do the best we could," he said bitterly. "What the...!?!?" I thought.

Feeling wiped out, I excused myself and went to my room. Being able to close the door and not suffocate nor worry about someone breaking into my room was a luxury. Before dropping off to sleep I turned up the window air-conditioner and made some notes in my journal. My mind was racing, trying to make sense of the last week. Finally exhausted, I switched off the light, slid between the fresh sheets and fell instantly to sleep.

The next morning, I awoke around 9 a.m. and had a light breakfast with Carol and Joe. By 9:30 a.m. I was anxiously listening for the sounds of a truck driving up to the house. At 10:00 a.m. Brian and his farmer friend pulled into the drive. I ran out and gave him a big hug and kiss on the cheek. He's my baby brother, but here he was rescuing me.

I thanked Carol and Joe, invited them to come and stay with us in California, and threw my bags in the back of the king cab. Since Brian and his friend didn't know what to expect, they had planned for total self-sufficiency. An ice chest packed with drinks and sandwiches was in the back of the truck along with a fifty-gallon drum of diesel fuel. A pump and hose was attached to the drum, as was a car battery to power it so that they didn't have to depend on finding open gas stations. Not knowing how dangerous it might be, they both had pistols with them. "Thank God for these Arkansas boys," I thought.

The drive to Arkansas took us around seven hours. Along the way we passed long lines of utility repair trucks heading south. They were keenly interested in hearing my story so I told them, and doing so helped me stay grounded and begin my transition back.

I marveled at being back in a world that worked. Speeding along in that truck was a novelty as was seeing all of the other moving vehicles and people going about their normal lives.

We arrived back at my mother's house, a place that I hadn't expected to see again this soon. After hugs and dinner, we settled down in the living room and I told my story again. In addition to my mother, Brian's wife Rita was there as were my brother Steve and his wife Sally. When I told them about not being able to light that little oil lamp I had taken from the Carousel Bar, I broke down sobbing. Steve moved over to sit next to me and put his arm around me. Normally I'm the strong one, but here I was, spent and being propped up by my brothers. It felt good.

The next morning, Saturday, Steve and Sally drove me to Little Rock to catch my flight home. I had finally managed to reschedule my Southwest flight to a day and place that it would actually happen. On the drive over, we stopped at a gas station and went inside the mini-mart. As Steve was paying for the gas we could see the Katrina headlines of the newspaper on the counter. "You know," Steve said to the cashier, "my brother just came from there" as he pointed to the headline.

"Is that right?" she asked. "Well, God bless you Honey."

As a final stop we went to the Cracker Barrel, which is a chain of "country style" restaurants in the South. The food was wholesome and the portions were huge. I again picked at my food while Steve and Sally enjoyed a full breakfast. I was amazed at all of the food and water, and had that feeling of almost being sick at the sight of it.

On my way out of the hotel I had carried a little green bag with three small half-filled bottles of water. As I got back into Steve's car, there it sat on the floor right in front of my seat. Not having enough food was one thing, but not enough water was something else altogether. I have that bag and bottles out in my car. I still can't let them go.

After Steve and Sally dropped me off, I made my way to my gate. As I sat waiting I made notes in my journal. Everything in the terminal worked. The people were normal, moving through experiences that they expected to happen: waiting for a flight, boarding, and getting to their destination. Having just come from days where few, if any, of my expectations of "normalcy" were met, I was feeling ill at ease. I wanted to get up and scream, "I've just come out of New Orleans. It's a nightmarish hellhole. Wake up people, we've got to do something."

We boarded and I managed to get an aisle seat at the front of the plane next to a nice tall young man named Congo and his mother. We had a pleasant conversation prior to takeoff and then again on our flight to Las Vegas, where we had a half-hour stopover, before proceeding on to Oakland. I didn't believe that I would actually make it home.

About halfway to Vegas we hit turbulence and I began to feel airsick, which rarely happens to me. With only twenty minutes to go before landing I began to feel really sick. The seat belt sign was on so I felt I couldn't leave my seat. I didn't want to throw up in the bag, so I fixed my gaze on the red heart logo on the front wall of the craft.

The flight attendants seated in front of me could see that I was turning white so one got up and handed me a wet cloth and advised me to turn the air vent directly on my face. These helped only slightly so they gave me the okay to hit the bathroom, even though the plane was bouncing hard.

I barely got in the door before I threw up multiple times into the sink. I sat down on the closed toilet seat and tried to get my bearings. All of this had brought on a kind of claustrophobic panic, a feeling that I couldn't stand another minute on that plane.

Once I felt as stable as I was going to get, I went back to my seat and tried to breathe deep and stay focused on that heart. Another five minutes of hanging on and we were on the ground. Once the Vegas passengers had deplaned, I asked the flight attendant if it would be okay if I stood in the walkway just outside the plane. "That would be fine," she said.

As I inhaled fresh air, I debated whether to get back on or not. I really didn't think I could handle a second flight, but so badly wanted to get home.

When everyone had boarded, I finally forced myself back onto the plane. We had a new flight crew, but they could tell that I was in bad shape. As soon as we left the ground I could feel the nausea and panic swell up, and they could see it too. One of them gave me the nod and I hit the bathroom again, only this time the results were more violent. I wanted to die.

It was all too much for me and now that I was safely out of New Orleans, all of the physical and psychological assaults of the last week came crashing down. I managed to get back to my seat and settle myself enough to endure the rest of the flight.

Once we landed, I exited the plane as fast as I could and made my way out to the curb, where my daughter, Kara Grace and my son, Conor, were waiting for me while Kathy and my daughter, Kaitlin, drove the car around. They both flew into my arms as did Kathy and Kaitlin when they found us. I wanted to pinch myself.

On the drive home we stopped once to get coffee. When we got back in the car I told them some of my story, and again broke down in tears. They all listened quietly and each reached out and put a hand on my shoulder.

The next day, Kathy and I went for a bike ride through the vineyards near our home in Healdsburg, in the Sonoma Country wine region. Being September, the vines were heavy with grapes and harvest was only a few weeks away.

Normally, when we ride I look at the vineyards and think how beautiful, what great "scenery" to ride through. Today, however, the first thought that came to mind when I saw those grapes was, "Look at all of that food."

I was back and I knew right then, I would never be the same. Against my will I had suffered through all that Katrina had brought, but now was grateful for the experience. I had become more fully human. I needed to be thrown out of my comfort zone, needed to experience deprivation, because without that, we all risk creating a world filled with people who just don't give a damn.

In the end, Katrina taught me not to let fear, a lack of courage, or the deadening impact of the "everyday" stop me from giving a damn or making my life what I want it to be.

I returned from my bike ride, took a long shower, pulled a corkscrew out of the kitchen drawer, and had a nice glass of wine sitting on the front porch with Kathy.