My Life Circa 2003 - Part 1

It's near the end of August and I have neglected to post on this blog until now in part due to the busy club ultimate season. I'm also very boring and don't have exciting things to report now that I work a desk job. So rather than write new material, I'm resurrecting the past. I will share, in a 4-part series, e-mail updates I sent to friends and family during my AmeriCorps days that chronicled the service projects I worked on from 2003 to 2004 (back when I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and a little more interesting).

Aside from some minor editing, the content is the original.

Sent October 25, 2003:

Hi all!

I just finished my first month here in Charleston. It feels like I've been here for a lot longer than a month but at the same time I'm surprised to see how quickly time has passed. Because what I'm doing is not a typical 9-5pm office job, it feels like I'm on an extended summer break, especially because it's still warm here and I've hit the beach every weekend so far. And with everyone being between the ages of 18 and 24, it feels like college all over again except there's no homework and it's coed, which means I actually interact with males more than once every few months.

My team has worked on several short-term service projects during our month of training. We've dug out water pipes from the ground, built fences for a garden show, sorted donated shoes for Goodwill, tied pink ribbons to mark the course for Race for the Cure (for breast cancer), and worked in a Habitat for Humanity resale store doing everything from reorganizing their bookroom to building shelves and lugging window frames from one end of the warehouse to another.

We've also done some independent service work outside of the program on weekends. So far, my team has directed parking for a rock concert benefiting children with autism and painted rocking chairs for the Ronald McDonald house, which is a charity that provides parents of children who are sick and need long-term treatment at a hospital with nearby housing (a room in the Ronald McDonald house) so they do not need to travel far to be with their children.

We also helped an animal rescue organization called the Keeper of the Wild, which is really run by one woman (aka the Keeper) who cares for injured and sick wild raccoons, prairie dogs, squirrels, foxes, possums, and skunks. She has a 15 year-old squirrel as a pet. Squirrels in the wild generally live up to only 2 or 3 years but if kept in captivity can live up to 18 years. This geriatric squirrel was so old he had lost over 50% of his fur and was completely toothless and wrinkled. (Think Grandpa without his clothes on). JSo- even YOU wouldn't want to keep this little guy as a pet!

While doing yardwork at Keeper of the Wild, we encountered a copperhead snake that slithered into our work area within a few feet of us. It didn't seem like a big deal until I was told that it was poisonous and in pounce mode (whoa!). We notified the Keeper who nonchalantly, while talking on her cellphone, took one of our shovels, flung the snake into an open space away from us, and basically ripped it into pieces. It was mesmerizing to watch. That snake, as vicious as it had seemed to the rest of us, didn't have a chance against the Keeper!

We recently were briefed about two of our future long-term spike projects that will take place between the end of October (next week) and Thanksgiving. For the first project, which will be 3 weeks long, we will be in Jackson, Mississippi working in a psychiatric ward of the Mississippi State Hospital. We were told that this mental hospital is one of the largest in the United States. Our primary project, however, does not entirely involve working with live patients. Instead, we will be working in a graveyard that contains about 4,000 corpses of psychiatric patients dating back to the 1930s. Due to the stigma of mental illness, none of these patients were given a proper burial. Many but not all have only small markers to indicate their approximate location. We'll be working with hospital staff and archaeologists to locate the bodies and help prepare the pouring of the headstones for them. Besides this job, we'll also be doing carpentry work of repairing a chapel on the hospital grounds and spending time with the patients (all senior citizens) at the psychiatric ward. We leave for this project next Monday!

Our second project will be back in Charleston and we'll be working with monks at a local abbey. Our project will involve mostly gardening work and carpentry. We have been invited to join the monks for a silent meal as most of them have taken a vow of silence, which will be interesting.

End of Part 1.

Notes: Back in the stone age of 2003, none of us owned digital cameras. The next time I go home, I'll try to scan some to post (there are some real gems in my photo collection).