A & T @ Camp
In a little bitty town outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, there's a potbelly pig by the name of Miss Lucy. She lives on a farm with two gals, three cats, five dogs, a kid goat, some armadillos, a horse, and God knows what else.
During the bad manners of Hurricane Katrina, as people scattered from helter to skelter, the two gals, who could have sought far safer shelter, gathered all the animals around Miss Lucy. And while this little piggy stayed home, the furry little family, all snuggled up, formed one big hairball on the floor of the kitchen.
As Katrina sucked the scream from the lips of coyotes, and the wind pried the clouds right off of the sky - as one tree after another went up and came down, and pieces of the roof delivered telegrams all over town - the big old oak that used to shade the main house went toenails up, went clean through the room with the computer, the printer, and the telephone that ran the farm.
'Cept it wasn't just a farm, mind you. It was a retreat center-sorta-summer camp for women (mostly gay) who drove all the way down from the tippy-top of Maine- just to sit back and reflect, just to re-read an old book and maybe make a little art. And the two gals who ran the camp hoped to do the same thing right after the critters were fed, the meals were served and the cabins were cleaned.
Well, it doesn't take a Southern Baptist to report that the sweetest place on planet Earth to be outright homosexual sure ain't Mississippi-but there they were: two women. And it wasn't any fun findin' the dogs poisoned, hearin' the bullets whizzin', and growin' numb to the sound of the threats against your life. But when you love your land you love your land, and that's the place you call home.
So when Katrina spat her way over the river and through the woods, making the dirt road impassable and the office just plain unusable, all Camp programming went the way of the old oak. And the two gals, they rolled up their sleeves, hiked up their skirts, and went to work: haulin' trees and clearin' trails, patchin' roofs and pluggin' leaks. From McCallum to Biloxi there were houses with no rafters and babies with no bottles, but you know all that.
What you don't know is that the little gay summer camp with the still-stocked pantry (which might have fed those two gals 'til Katrina's cousins came a-callin') became a food bank even faster than FEMA could whistle Dixie. So while the old lady up the road was out of everything from grits to food stamps, and while the kind churches opened their big kitchens - but the disciples of one doctrine turned away the believers of another - the two women got the word out that there was food up at their place for anybody who would come and get it.
Not everybody knew what to make of a farm with lavender gates but one by one, folks inched up the dirt road. They loaded their trucks and layered their trunks; they crammed their knapsacks and bulged their pockets. And a funny thing happened. The more oatmeal and toilet paper that flew off of those shelves, the higher the food piled up in that pantry.
No matter how many piggies came to market, it seemed that no little piggy had none. And you can call it the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes but when those two gals passed around what they had-what they had just multiplied.
Don't know how, but money started pourin' in - mostly from gays and lesbians who'd heard about them from a friend. They had everything from rice and beans to toothpaste and tampons, from frosting and cake mix to wooden chopsticks and kosher noodles, from bird seed and pig vittles to insulin and little needles.
They gave it to anyone-no matter what color their god or flavor their Jesus-
who would come up the road and fetch it. But some little piggies, on account of that "lifestyle" and the chance they might "catch it," went wee wee wee all the way home. And if you think that stopped those two gals-from pilin' high that truck and makin' one big drop where folks wouldn't hesitate to stop and pick it up-you can think again.
They had, at last count, moved over one thousand tons (that's two million pounds) on and off of those shelves, up and down that dirt road.
And now that things are windin' down-and most folks have makeshift roofs of tarpaulin blue-Miss Lucy, the three cats, the five dogs and the kid goat (the armadillos, the horse, and God knows what else) have better things to do than huddle up in a hoof-heap on the floor of the kitchen.
And the same folks who might have once set out antifreeze for the animals, or pocked the stable wall with bullet holes, are just as likely to have the two gals in for supper. And the two who used to offer solace to their sisters all the way from Maine (the two who can tell ya that givin' and receivin' are the same dang thing) are thinkin' on ways to blend their gift for community with a little hospitality-and
serve it up to their friends and neighbors there in southern Mississippi
She is happiest be she queen or peasant who finds peace in her own home. ---- Goethe
