Window Glazing
Author’s Note: The following events were written as they were occurring. As such, they were written in the appropriate tense at that time. The following events occurred on January 8, 2019. In addition, I present information which I may or may not agree with in this piece.
I woke up just after 6:00 AM on this fine Tuesday Morning. I quickly changed into my leaded work clothes, packed my lunch, placed my lunch with everyone else’s lunches, and met with the class outside to discuss coffee. We had the option of going to either Starbucks or back to Hi Volt off of Magazine Street where we went yesterday morning. After a quick debate and a tie, the group decided to walk as a class through the French Quarter to a Starbucks located near the intersection of Saint Charles and Canal Avenues. While at this Starbucks, I ordered some small breakfast items and a delicious shortbread Frappuccino with coffee. Although I try to avoid caffeine, I needed it this morning. We left Starbucks shortly after 8:00 AM and headed back to Saint Jude (SJ) to board our cars and drive 10 minutes to our house in the Seventh Ward. We worked from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM today with an hour-long lunch break starting at 11:30 AM.
Today’s workday went by much quicker than the last. One hour turned into two and three and four and more (paraphrasing of a quote in Robert Coles’ The Call of Service, 1993). While some classmates continued to strip lead paint from the eaves and some windows, I, along with about eight other students, worked on de-glazing the windows, or removing the “glue” that helps insulate windows and keep them secure. I focused on one window on the side of the house closest to Esplanade Avenue; this window was my window for the day and I spent all day stripping the old glaze from it. It wasn’t too difficult, and I enjoyed the task very much. Time flew by as I forced my razor blade underneath the old glaze, which popped off like Lego pieces as they fell approximately 10 feet to the ground like a leaded snow. The music on the radio was also upbeat and kept me motivated as I experienced a rush of euphoria for every little piece of glaze I was successfully able to remove. For once in my life, I felt like I was accomplishing something meaningful, contributing a minuscule little something which will, in the long term, better the life of Mr. Smith, his family, and even the city of New Orleans. After about three hours of stripping old glaze from the window, I took a short break which just happened to be before the start of lunch. Our class convened at the front of Mr. Smith’s home and ate lunch. Along with some Grape soda courtesy of Mr. Smith, we ate our lunches and had various conversations going on at once. I recall being quieter during lunch, I went on my phone for a little bit and thought about other things during this time. My lunch was a chicken sandwich with some goldfish and Cheetos. I gave my Cheetos to one of the AmeriCorps members as a way of paying it forward for the generosity my classmates showed me yesterday. Once our lunch concluded on this fine humid day, I resumed stripping paint from the window and even began to glaze some windows. AmeriCorps members Ben and Noah helped me with properly glazing the windows, using the correct tools and showing me the proper steps necessary to ensure a smooth, weather-tight seal. I don’t know how I did it, but I was able to successfully create two new seals on my window. It took a lot of work and patience, but the result was worth it. My biggest concern was with doing the best job possible. Failure to do a good job could result in Rebuilding Together having to reseal the window, wasting valuable time and energy that could go to repairing other homes in New Orleans. So far, my work has stacked up, albeit a little on the thicker side. As I was having conversations with another classmate working alongside me about Japan and our majors, I decided to resume stripping some more stubborn glaze spots. I focused my dwindling energy on these spots for the remainder of the day.
Even though I don’t like taking breaks, I took a short break at 2:15 PM to take my mind off of things and to make a phone call. I resumed work and continued until 3:24 PM when I put my tools and safety gear away, disposed of my mask, and moved ladders and swept up the site. Once everyone had cleaned up the site, we headed to our cars and drove back to SJ where we held our second class session in the upstairs room. We started our session off with a discussion on connections. Yesterday’s conversation revealed that the majority of us want to be included and that we want to make new friends, so today’s facilitation started off with an activity where a string was passed around the room and people gave shout outs to specific people for specific things. Someone gave me a shout out because I took time to get to know one of my classmates. This was because I asked this classmate a bunch of questions about herself. I paid it forward by passing my string on to the very classmate I had the conversation with. Once everyone was holding the long string, we had a visual for how connected we really were with each other. It formed a scattered web which represented how intertwined everything really was. At one point, our conversation turned into a discussion on how to remain positive in this world. One of my classmates revealed that their mother died of cancer recently and how learning about her mother at her funeral changed her perspective on her mother. She also went on to share how she has an analytical personality and how she tends to dwell on the negatives (same here).
We continued our class session by watching part two of When The Levees Broke. This portion, despite containing footage of decomposing bodies, was more bearable to watch. It opened my eyes to how Katrina’s aftermath was impacted by the political motives of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco. Blanco refused to accept assistance from the Federal Government due to not wanting to appear weak, but she strongly disliked Mayor Nagin for voting against her for Governor in 2002. There were some comments by Sociologist Michael Eric Dyson who claimed that Katrina was a race related issue as well, which I discussed further in class. My professors said that there is a race component and we will explore it further once we return from New Orleans.
We then ate dinner at SJ, showered, and headed over to Café du Mode to eat beignets as a class. This was my third time eating here, but tonight, I downed four beignets and some hot cocoa. I then headed back to SJ with the majority of the class, did some reading, emailing, messaging, and writing. Today was a really long day and tomorrow will be too. Overall, I think I am making new friends on this trip, but I also wonder if my pursuit for truth interferes with that. Oh well, let’s see what Day Five brings.