Hey all, I realize that this is the second time this week I've done a "memories" post, and I have a feeling that nobody is terribly interested in this stuff, but a look at the 2 PM update of the tropical weather map has me going again, and I just have to write, sorry.  Some things are bigger than baseball, and if you're not interested in these things please feel free to skip what I have to say.

So Gustav is now a Cat 4, projected to make it to Cat 5 before it collides with the Louisiana coast just west of New Orleans, and over the following day it is projected to remain a hurricane and take a path straight through the bayou country of Louisiana, an area that is renowned for its traditional Cajun culture.  My old friend Dirk, whose incredible music I am listening to as I write this, married into that culture about 15 years ago. He married a woman who was considered the crown princess of Cajun music (her father and uncles were world famous Cajun musicians).  They and their kids live on the banks of Bayou Teche in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.  Together, for many years now, they have carried on the musical traditions of her family, and Dirk is also one of the biggest names in traditional Appalachian music (his ancestral heritage is that of eastern Kentucky) and also is active in such diverse activities as performing Irish traditional music and writing film scores. In other words, he's made it. We were good friends 20+ years ago, had a falling out brought about by my stupid attempt to make it more than that, but have always had much respect for each other nonetheless. I've been out of that scene for some time so haven't seen he or his wife in several years and have never met their daughters. Someday. But right now I'm looking at that weather map and weeping, because they and the other good folks in "Cajun Country" are likely in for the ride of their lives in the next couple of days.

And then there's New Orleans. Three years after, and it's deja vu all over again. Although the forecast is for the eye to pass slightly to the west of NOLA, I've followed enough hurricanes over the years to know that the northeastern quadrant often is the worst, which does not bode well. I'm sure everyone who reads this knows more than they ever wanted to about what happened when Katrina hit that area in 2004. It was inescapable with the 24/7 media coverage, after all, but I had a uniquely personal window on it.

You see, the residency program where I work is populated by brilliant young doctors who hail from all over the country. Among them was Ryan, the chief resident of the class that was in its second year in the summer of 2004. If you've seen me mention during games vs the White Sox that Carlos Quentin reminds me of a former coworker, that's who I'm talking about. Ryan is of part Mexican descent and bears a striking resemblance to the Q-Bomber, albeit a nonathletic version. He was born and raised in St. Bernard Parish, immediately east of NO, and his father in law is the parish coroner. This is the parish that sustained 97-99% damage or destruction of all its buildings when Katrina came through.

Within hours after landfall, Ryan had decided to get his butt down there to help. Calls were made to contacts in Texas so that he could arrange to be helicoptered in, strings were pulled to rearrange his patient care schedule as well as that of his BFF in the program, a sweet wide-eyed fellow from Kentucky name of Paul, and although all of this took some time, they left within three days of landfall and arrived a day later in Ryan's hometown of Chalmette, the first outsiders to arrive other than some Royal Mounties. At the time they arrived they actually didn't know if Ryan's father in law had survived, but they found him working in a makeshift clinic in the parish jail. Besides acute trauma care and, later, preventive care for those who were slogging around in the muck, they found themselves doing such things as raiding abandoned pharmacies in order to get medical supplies. Oh yeah, and shooting alligators that threatened them. And bringing dead bodies out of the nursing home that was in the national news, the one that the owners refused to evacuate even though Ryan's father in law, who was their staff physician, beseeched them to do so.

During all this, the entire residency program family was very worried, of course. I got downright maternal about those two and shed many tears over them while they were gone. Suffice it to say that when they finally returned, they were changed men, Ryan more so than Paul for obvious reasons. He really never was the same after that. He made many more trips down there during the remainder of his residency to help with the recovery efforts, and then he went home to join his father in law's medical practice, which is where he is now. But prior to all that, a few weeks after those guys returned, they and Ryan's father in law (who was taking a well deserved break) presented one of the most heart-wrenching lectures I have ever attended. The entire audience was in tears for much of it. Hell, the father in law broke down and cried on the podium during his part of the presentation. They showed a lengthy slideshow of pictures they had taken of the destruction to the area, everything from aerial views from the helicopter as they approached greater New Orleans to interior shots of the house that Ryan's wife grew up in, a beautiful and grand house with filigreed windows on the front door, a spiral staircase, and mud marks all the way up to the first floor ceiling. Actually, when they showed those interior shots I didn't know whose house it was...I did a double take because I recognized it from media coverage on CNN. After the lecture I had a few words with the father in law and remarked on those pictures. When he told me it was his house and that the CNN crews had followed them in, I started crying.

Anyway, the Katrina lecture taught me more about what the folks down there went through than was possible via CNN, MSNBC and etc. And now I'm thinking of Ryan and "Dr. Bryan," his father in law, and their whole family and ALL the folks down there being in grave danger of going through it all over again when they have worked so hard to come back from near obliteration, and it's really pretty upsetting.

Kudos to anyone who bothered to read all this babble about people they don't know. I know I can be horribly sentimental and angsty. I'll shut up now.

ETA: Watching the news as of about 4 PM and they're also mentioning Houston as a possible Gustav target. Those of you who have read my journal for awhile know that I have family there, one of them quite precious to me. He just started a job in the southeastern suburbs, which usually take the brunt of any hurricanes that hit that area. Aww, hell no....