Mark Gordon: “like so many families, my family has been watching the horrible scenes that we see from Mississippi and Louisiana, and…”

“like so many families, my family has been watching the horrible scenes that we see from Mississippi and Louisiana, and really every day my wife, Leslie, and I talk about how lucky we are and talk about how really the trivial problems in our life are just that, trivial, compared to what is going on elsewhere. Last night, I told her a story that I had not thought about in a long time, that was, that back in 1969, it was August of 1969, three friends of mine from school, Jim Caperton, Doug Young and Sammy Sells, we went down to Jackson, Mississippi, for a school program; and we were there when Hurricane Camille struck the coast. Some National Guard came to our meeting and said, Would any of you volunteer to go down and help clean up after Hurricane Camille? Well, Doug and Jim and Sammy and I decided we would do that. We wanted to help, and we also thought it would be an adventure. So we got in the back of the National Guard truck and started heading down to the coast. As we drove down there, there was just a steady stream of cars and trucks and buses coming the other way. So many folks had all the goods that they could salvage tied down to their car and were coming this way. Then when we got there, it was shocking. I had seen what a tornado could do in my hometown of Murphysboro to a house, and I had seen how it was torn up. But at that time, what you found is that the hurricane would send in these massive tides.…”