Eartherine and Ferdinand Lower Ninth Ward 09/14/05

EARTHERINE: My name is Eartherine. I was born and raised in New Orleans and went to New Orleans public schools. The first school was McCarty School -- that was elementary; I went to Lolis Junior High School and I went to a lot of the little colleges. That was way back in the early '70s.

AIT: What were you learning? 

I was going for secretary. Mm-hm. I have three daughters. Deatrice is the oldest, she's 31. Marcela, she's 29, and Tolanda, the baby girl, she's 27. 

AIT: I bet you have grandbabies.

Yes. I miss them too. Yes, I have eleven grandbabies, I have six boys and five girls. I have one grandson with me, the oldest one. He's Joshua and he's very spiritual. He's eleven. He prays all the time, with us and for us. He really does.

AIT: And what year were you born?

I was born in '57.

AIT: And who raised you?

My mother and father. Until they expired off the earth. My father died in 1977 of a heart attack and a stroke. And my mother passed in 1982 of a liver disease.

My grandmother, my aunties, we all lived in the same community in the Lower Ninth Ward. I lived in the Lower Ninth Ward from eight years old until I was seventeen. And I lived in Desire. I raised my three daughters in the Desire Projects. They all graduated. Yeah, God brought us through. He brought us through, you know. 'Cause, they all graduated from high school on time. Each two years apart.  And they all have their own homes, their own houses.

AIT: In New Orleans?

No, here in Dallas now. But in New Orleans, they did, you know. So after raising the kids in Desire, which was great because -- I'm not bragging because they're my kids -- but they were really obedient children. I had no problem with them, none at all. I give all honor due to God because without him I know I wouldn't have made it, you know. Because the surroundings, I mean, it was just infested with drugs and sex and everything. Alcohol. Drop out rates at the high school. But my kids got through it and I thank God for that.

Six years ago they relocated us because they was tearing down the Desire Project. So we reside in the Lafitte Project. And it was great for the six years.

AIT: At Orleans and Galvis?

Yes, it was North Galvis.

While raising my kids I was a volunteer parent.

AIT: At the school?

Yes, in the public schools. That was because of... I always thought that teachers couldn't give them everything, so you know, I wanted to be there for them so I could know what was going on and where I could help them. I think it paid off because I had no problem with them. One teacher told me when my kids was in first, second, third grade, somewhere along there, they admired me for that. They told me to always walk with my children, so I never stopped. I walked with them 'till 12th grade. When they got in 12th grade, that's when I gave them theyselves.

AIT: Their freedom?

Exactly. I dressed them, I did their hair, until they made 18. After that I said 'Oh well, you're 18 now, and you did what I asked you to do, you was obedient. You on your owns now.' They did great. So now I been volunteering in the public schools. I do it now but I don't have nobody now at the schools where I volunteering. But I like volunteering, I like being with the kids. I like doing something that I'm not getting paid for because you can do it from the heart and not the pocketbook, you know. The kids loved me there. We had a sewing class. We had a club, a Helping Hand Club. We started the club after the tsunami [in Indonesia]. We were picking up donations. That's right. We picked up donations and we packed stuff and had it sent over there. So in the process of doing that, we formed this club. We named it the Helping Hand Club because that's what we're really doing. I started a sewing class because I can sew a little bit.

AIT: Who taught you to sew?

I did. I take that back, God. God taught me when I was a little bitty girl, with baby dolls, how to sew and make clothes. Me and my doll used to dress alike, and you know.

AIT: How has it been for you and your husband to be here together?

Great! I thank God that we made it through the storm together. You know, I tell him that often, because a lot of people lost their husbands and their wives on this journey. They still looking for them. But we refused to separate. We refused. And my husband really sick. He had just had an operation on his arm. They was removing?

FERDINAND: I had an infection.

EARTHERINE: I was afraid because during the storm, or the day after the storm, we had to walk through the water to get to where we needed to be.

AIT: From Lafitte to Claiborne?

To Claiborne. Yes.

AIT: How high was the water? Up to your neck?

Oh, all the way up. And I was afraid that his arm would get infected. The last place that we stayed during the storm was the Riverwalk. Those people helped us real well. They gave him medicine and got him started with his antibiotics and everything. 

FERDINAND: When we're going to the bridge, didn't have no place for me to use the bathroom. Have too many women right there for me to disrespect them, so I had to hold it. So I had that for six and a half days and I didn't eat for six and a half days. No water, nothing. The water that we did get hold of, and a juice...[there was] a lady had two little children, and she didn't have nothing and the people wouldn't give her nothing. I told my wife, 'I don't need this, go give it to that lady and her kids.'

After all that, though, we had so many murders, killings and everything going up in there. They were running at people and causing things at the Convention Center. We set up outside, set up inside, we didn't get a decent place until we went up on the Riverwalk. Then the people up there they nurse me back. 'Cause when I first got up there, I laid down on the bench and I seen myself dying. My wife -- I could hear her but I couldn't respond. She told her people that I was sick. I told them myself, 'I got an infection.' They said, 'No you don't.' I said 'I have an infection.' I said to workers, 'I know my body. I have it.' Because, like before when I had the operation and things, 'cause I had carcinoma. I was feeling the same way.

After that I talked with my wife and my little grandson, he's the one that keep us together. His name is Joshua. All the time I break down, I cry because I have a problem [I can't locate] none of my brother-in-laws, none of my sister-in-laws, and none of my nieces and nephews on both side of the family. Yeah, yeah, it hurt, and I think about it and I go to crying. Then he come and said, 'Pa Pa don't worry about it.' He said, 'Let's pray.' He said, 'Everything's gonna be alright.'

We made phone calls, I think through Red Cross, we did. Also we went on the internet. And can't find none of them. Our people live in the Lower Ninth Ward. Where they lived at the water was up to the second floor. So we don't know what happened, water go all over their head.

In New Orleans East they have a school called Averson and the school all collapsed. So they might tell y'all three hundred people but it was actually three thousand people drowned in that school. They were dying on the bridges, they were dropping dead in the Convention Center and everything. Then you had these hoodlums, they was going around killing people for nothing. If you didn't have no money to keep, you had money, they'd kill you. They hit an old lady in the head and took her food. It was all kind of different...

At the Riverwalk, I said to my wife, 'That's that lady that people run over [at the Superdome].' I said, 'I ought to go over there and say something.' But there were 16 of them and I seen all them with a gun, so I didn't say anything. When we got to the Riverwalk I told my wife, 'That's that lady right there.' We found out that she was a nurse. And then she told my wife the same thing that I told her, 'Too many all of them had guns.' I said, 'I wouldn't worry about it.'

Oh, the hoodlums. But the National Guard, [we] wonder like, why they were drawing guns on us? Well after we got to the Riverwalk, we found out why. See, because they was shooting at the helicopters, they were shooting at them and all. See at first, we was angry 'cause [we] wonder why people trying to kill us, we trying to get food. After we found out, we forgive them.

But if Kathleen Blanco gave the order to the mayor to evacuate the city, the mayor didn't listen. He said he had enough resources to get the people out the day before. No, it wasn't true. At one point they point the finger at Bush, but you know if it weren't for Bush, we wouldn't be here. He made the people open the door for us to come here. We appreciate everything they did for us, including the people up in there.

Yeah, in Austin. We're appreciating that, 'cause nobody else didn't want us. 'Cause the way the thing gone, you know, oh, we made about a mile up the little hill.

But we was planning on all moving to Dallas anyway, 'cause we waiting for Tolanda to get out of school. We were planning on moving anyway. Look like God saying, 'Y'all going now.' So that's how we got here. And our grandbaby, he jumping about Texas and jumping about the cactus. He told us when we got here, 'I dreamt about Texas.' So he went and got him some cowboy boots. Yeah, he's the backbone of the family right now. He's the strongest one. Each time he see us in tears, he'll come to us. He'll say, 'Don't worry about it Pa Pa, everything gonna be alright. This, leave it in God's hands.'

But I told myself, 'You just don't know.' It's hard when you can't find nobody. You know? We still hoping and praying that we find them and everything. If we can put some closure on it we'll be alright, everybody be all right. I know I'll feel much better because every day I cry. Sometime I try to hold it in, and then like when I talk about it, I get full and I break down. Most of the time, he'll be around and come pat me on the shoulder.

And then we were living in the___house and had the same thing going on which was going on at the Convention Center. We heard over at the Convention Center the people was getting killed up in there. But we was on the Claiborne overpass where they have a down ramp that go to the Superdome. Ray Nagin said the people that were out there want to be out there 'cause they could have gotten to the Superdome. But a guy [who] stand six-nine, he walked down there and the water was up to his mouth. He came back and told us, 'Look, can't get down there. Y'all gonna drown.' He said, 'I stand six feet nine and the water up to my mouth, and I wasn't at the bottom.' We didn't have a choice to be there. We didn't have a choice.

See, how we get there'.My wife said, 'Let's take the screens out so we can see.' So we took the screens out, and we was talking to some people coming from St. Bernard Parish... We was upstairs. She went to talking to the people that was passing. So we went downstairs to the living room where the water's up almost to our knee caps. In the living room. And people say we better go. So me and my wife we packed what we could and then we leave.

AIT: What did you bring?

Well, only thing we brought, only thing I could get was a pair of black pants and a pair of short black pants and that was it, and some other stuff for my grandbaby and her [Eartherine].

EARTHERINE: Well, the first thing I took was my Bible because it was in a case like my purse. We put everything in an ice chest. We wanted something that was gonna float. So we floated on out and we got to Winn Dixie. They have a new Winn Dixie on Claiborne and Iberville St.. They had no water there. It was amazing how the water didn't go across the street, but it didn't. So we got to the Winn Dixie and we had to go across to the I-10. We had to go across water maybe to about our knees. We got to the bridge and we walked from Early's to Jackson and Martin Luther King.

AIT: That is a very long walk. You must have had strong legs.

FERDINAND: Well, I had all the bags?

EARTHERINE: God gave us the strength to do just what we needed to do to survive. We stayed there two days and a night. On the Claiborne bridge.

AIT: Was it hot?

EARTHERINE: Oh yes indeed! It was so hot! I just thought we was just going to burn to death. No water, no food, no bathrooms. We spent the night Tuesday night, Wednesday evening we tried to move on, and we didn't know where to go. We couldn't get to the Superdome. People was telling us how bad it was at the Dome, the killing and the this and the that. We didn't really want to go to the Dome.

So we traveled up the bridge till we got to the part where you could turn off and get to the Convention Center. We made it to the Convention Center. But on the way there, some people was coming up the bridge and I say, 'Where ya'll coming from'' They said 'The Convention Center. You don't wanna go there.' I said, 'Why' They're not letting you in'' He said, 'Oh yeah, they letting you in, but those hoodlums, the gang members from the First Ward, to the Thirteenth Ward, the Nineteenth Ward, they're tearing down that place, they're terrorizing people.' So I said, 'Well, doll baby, we shouldn't go there.'

So we just sit still for a while and I said, 'So what are we gonna do'' And I said, 'Well, the Bible say 'If you don't know what to do, stand still.' So just sit still for a minute.' So we just sat there on the bridge, thinking and talking to people. And people started coming down the bridge and going to the Convention Center. So we were about the last three people, me, my husband and my grandbaby, to leave that area, 'cause they still had thousands of people on that Claiborne stretch.

AIT: And so did you speak to people as you walked?

Oh, yeah. We talked to people. One lady, the last lady that we spoke to, she was the only child in her family. She had some clothing that had got too heavy for her to carry so she left them there where we were. She left her Bible. I told my husband, 'Well, I'm gonna see if there's things that we could use.' So we went through the bag and I took the Bible and some clothing. She had some powder, some pretty powder. I took the powder. I still have the powder.

I gave some of the clothes to somebody at the Convention Center. A lady, she didn't have anything but what she had on. So I told her, 'I'm gonna go ahead and get you some clothes.' I asked her what size and she told me. The clothes was really too big for me. So then I understood why God had me to take those clothes. You know, because they were too big for me, but that was her size. So I brought them to her. I told her they was kind of damp. I told her, 'So I'm gonna lay them on a chair for you. Maybe they'll dry in time enough for you to change out of your old clothes.'

So, once we got to the Convention Center, we stayed there two days and a night. And that was the longest, horrible, horrible.

AIT: By people that you knew? Or were you by yourselves?

It was people from the community. The first day we didn't really meet nobody because we was just trying to feel our way, you know. Trying to figure out why we here and why nobody's not here to supervise us. The kids, ten, eleven, eight. They was running around with these -- you know those motor cars that they -- golf carts --yeah. Aw, man, they was tearing it up. I was so scared they were gonna hurt theyselves or somebody else.

AIT: Who did you think would be there to help people take care of others and take care of yourself?

Well, I thought maybe that the National Guards or the police would have been there to supervise. But there wasn't no kind of supervision. So when I saw those kids running around on those carts, I told my husband, 'I'm going.' That's when I really found out that we was all alone. I said 'I'm going find somebody to stop these kids.' Because they parents wasn't telling them anything and they was running over people. So when I got up to go find somebody, wasn't nobody. When I went to approach the police, the police told me that he wasn't there for us.

AIT: Really. What was he there for?

For the looters. You know, I kind of felt bad, because our building a empty building that nobody never come back to anyway...you watching the building... You know. So, the next day, we spent the night. And it was terrible. I mean, the people was shooting and killing and running over the old people. Hurting the little babies. So that night my grandbaby told my husband, 'Pa Pa I miss my Mama.' And Pa Pa went to crying. He said, 'Don't cry, Pa Pa. I didn't mean to make you cry. But I just miss my mama.' So he said, 'Well, come on, Pa Pa, let's pray.' So he prayed for us, he prayed for the bad people. 'God, bless the bad people, too,' he said. 'Bless them so they could stop being bad so we can get out of here. Because the people don't wanna come in to get us because of the bad people.'

So he prayed that prayer Thursday night. Friday morning God let us out of there. He led us to the Riverwalk which was [at] the end of the Convention Center, around the corner.

That morning, a guy passed with boxes and boxes of fruits on his roller cart. So I hollered out to him, 'Mister! Would you please give the kids some fruits'' And he said, 'This is for my family.' I said, 'We all are family.' So another guy that was with him, I guess, he came up and I rectify what the guy said. 'No, it don't go like that.' I said. 'The Lord said, 'Take care of my babies, the afflicted, and the elderly.' So you go. You go in the name of Jesus.'

I went back and sat down, and I was telling my husband about it. Some people passed, a young man named Michelob and a young lady named Ashley, that was uncle and niece. I hollered out to them, 'Where you going'' And they said 'We're going to get some fruit.' I said, 'Bring us some back.' And they said, 'Okay.' But a little soft voice said, 'Go get it yourself.' And I said, 'Okay, yeah.' So I jumped up to find them. They was half way the block by then.

AIT: Did you both go?

FERDINAND: No, I just stayed with my grandbaby. And I was sick.

EARTHERINE: I went. He wouldn't have done it anyway. I knew it.

FERDINAND: I don't steal. I don't monkey hustle. I'm a survivor, but I don't monkey hustle.

EARTHERINE: He wouldn't a done it. You know, well, I thought of that. I didn't want to either, I really didn't. But when I saw those kids just dying because they had no nourishment...

I went. I asked God to forgive me for that. I went off, I picked a bag on my way. Then I saw a crate. I picked up the crate, and when I got off a little bit further, I seen a half a apron what the waiters use and I picked that up. I was going to use the apron to tie on the cart if I had got too much fruit to carry. As I got up to the Riverwalk, we went up, oh, maybe 30 flights of stairs. The escalator stairs, it wasn't working. You had to walk up.

I got up there and I said, 'Ain't no fruits up here.' So I went on in, and [there were] oh, I guess about 20, 30 people, and I spoke to them. I said 'How y'all doing'' 'Good morning.' I spoke to everybody as I passed, not knowing who they were. When we got to the door that was where the clothes was Godchaux and Saks Fifth Avenue, you know, souvenirs. Somebody hollered along and said, 'We gotta get out of here!' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'The guards out there. If they catch us in here they gonna shoot us and kill us.' So I dropped what I had and I ran back through the same door. I was just crying out to God, 'Lord, what we gonna do' Help us! We gonna die here!'

So, the camera man--I think they were from New York--they just stopped me, asked me what was the matter. But I didn't know they was news people. When I went to speak was when they put the camera on. And I told them what was going on.

So a lady came up and she said, 'What's the matter'' She listened awhile and said, 'Come here, baby. I heard what you was telling the news people. Up here,' she said, 'it's nice and clean, these are God's people up here. We are Christians up here. These are the tourists that got stuck in New Orleans. So go get your family. You just missed the prayer service.'

She said, 'The National Guards are taking care of us. They're protecting us. Because the looters will come up here and bully us, too. Since the National Guards are watching us and protecting us.' She said, 'So go get your family, and you come back.'

So I rushed down. She said, 'Hurry, hurry, go get them, because I can't tell nobody they can't come up here.' She said, 'Go get them while we have space.'

I rushed back down. I had to go at least about six blocks, I think, to where my husband was. I had met a girlfriend of mine the night before. So I asked her to come. I said, 'Come on, I found a nice place we can go, get out of this mess.' She kept saying, 'No, I don't wanna go, I gotta wait on the bus. Bus coming 11 o'clock.' I said, 'No, Po, come now! Please come, Po! I said we gonna be safe!' So I convinced her to come.

My husband toted all our baggages up there. We found a hand truck. We packed it on there. He brought mine's and then he went back, and he brought hers. Her and her family. I was doing something. And when I turn around, they were gone. I said, 'Where they went?' He said, 'They left. They was gonna catch the bus. The bus was coming 11 o'clock.' I said, 'Yeah, but they keep telling us the bus is coming and the bus never got here. I'm not going back down there. I'm gonna stay here.' So, we get in there and they fed us. They had nurses. This was a nurse's station.

AIT: This was for the tourists? And you just happened to get in to the place where the tourists were?

Yes. But that wasn't for them, either. They found that space, too. Yeah, they found the space and they took it. And they went and got tables and chairs. No, not chairs. They had tables and benches. Each section was two benches and maybe two tables. Some had two benches and one table. They had cold drinks. I mean they had water, Gatorade, drinks -- cold drinks -- and they welcomed us to it. They set our table.

AIT: How did it feel when you drank that water?

Aw, man! I was so thankful for that water. I prayed and prayed. I said, 'God, I would never take for granted again water.' Water, I would never. 'Cause when I was at home all I drank was Pepsi. I didn't want no water. You know when you drink water.'

I could say that Thursday night after my grandson prayed and the Lord opened the doors for us to get to the tourists, the next evening the soldiers came up and told us that we had to leave, that we had to come to the bus. But we knew no busses wasn't out there. The tourists had already told us not to go because those people down there was already mad because we were up there. So we wouldn't leave.

The person that was in charge of upstairs of where we were, they made a deal with the soldiers. They told the soldiers, 'If you bring us a truck or a bus to get out of here, then you can have this space.' They kept promising us, promising us, but no bus. No truck. At the last minute we demanded that they get us a ride out of there. So some people left. My people were leaving too. My husband went to the escalators to get down. I backed up. I said, 'I'm not going.' He said, 'Come on, baby, we got to go.' He said the soldiers gonna do this and that. I said, 'I'm not going. The Lord put me here, I'm gonna stay. When God get ready for us to leave, He gonna find a way for us to get out of here.' I said, 'I'm not leaving.'

AIT: You knew you were safe there?

Yes. And I knew God put me there.

AIT: [To Ferdinand] Was it hard for you to believe her?

FERDINAND: No, it wasn't hard for me to believe her because we been together for so long, you know. I always followed what my wife said because sometimes she could see things that I can't see. But when we got to the truck, they brought us to the helicopter. We got to Louis Armstrong Airport.

EARTHERINE: The soldiers led us down. They helped us with our bags, they helped the old people. They got us to this truck. Well, the truck wasn't there, but when it came it wasn't long. The truck came, they loaded us on the truck, then they got us on the helicopter. Then the helicopter got us to the airport.

Out to the airport...it was a mess. That was another mess. Arguing and fussing and madness. But they had the guards around, so I wasn't too afraid because I knew we had a little protection. We wasn't so afraid of the looters or nothing. We stood in the line. We met a guy, an older guy, he was pushing a wheelchair. My husband asked him, could we put our bags on his wagon? He had a little wagon -- a big wagon, yeah. And he told him yes. So my husband told him, 'Well, I'll pull the wagon for us. You pull the wheelchair.'

When I was able to relax my arms from the bags a little something came to me and I knew it was the Holy Spirit. Said, 'Go give the people some water.' So I just start giving water. I was going to the bin, filling my arms up and just bringing water to the elderly people. And [to] the young people too because some of them were sick and were out of energy. I was too, but I did that until it was, I guess, was two hours. I did that. Walk back and forth, back and forth with the water.

My grandbaby come call me, 'Come on, Ma Ma, Pa Pa, come on. The line moving!' And I said, 'That line ain't moving that fast.' So I continued to talk. One of the ladies I had first given water to, she was sitting -- she had got out of the line. I said, 'What's a matter, ma'am, you okay?' She said, 'Yeah, I'm just kinda hot and tired, weak a little bit.' I said, 'You want more water?' She said, 'Yeah, I would appreciate that.' So I went got her another bottle of water. Then I was able to get me a bottle of water, and so I sat there drinking, talking with her. My grandbaby come again. Said, 'Ma Ma, Pa Pa, come on.'

AIT: [To Ferdinand] You were waiting for her?

 FERDINAND: Yes. A man named Booker T.

EARTHERINE: The guy that let us put our bags on his wagon. He had got on in there because he had that wheelchair. Had his wife in there, and the wheelchair people they was letting them go on in. He turned around and said, 'That's my family too.' So he got us in there.

We got on in. As we going they kept asking us who we was with and we kept saying Mr. Booker T., the guy with the wheelchair. They said, 'Well the wheelchair going this-away, and we had to go the other way.' We said, 'But we with him.' [They said,] 'You gonna meet up at the front.'

So we got in there, and no Mr. Booker T. Then they were saying, 'Who ya'll with, how'd you get in here, did you sign in?' We said, 'No.' They was trying to send us back over [to] the line to sign in. But we just hung around, talking to different people. I just hung around, kept going to this person, that person. Then the guard said, 'Go over there to the person with the tablet and let him sign y'all in.' So we went and got signed in.

We still didn't know, we just hanging around, hanging around. I asked the guard, 'What we need to do?' 'Cause everywhere we sit, it seemed to be the wheelchair section. He said, 'Come on, let me get y'all to the plane.' He took us to this little table and he registered us up. I asked him, 'Do you know where we going?' He said, 'No, we don't know. We don't know until you get on the plane. Wherever the plane take you, that's where you go.' And I said, 'Well, okay.' I went and sat down and I prayed, 'Well, Lord, it's up to you. Wherever you lead me, I'll go, and I'll stay.'

So, we boarded...he took us immediately to board the plane. We kept telling him, we looking for Booker T. Guard couldn't find him.

FERDINAND: Couldn't be found nowhere in the airport. Him, the wheelchair or his wife, couldn't be found nowhere.

AIT: Like a mystery angel?

EARTHERINE: Exactly.

FERDINAND: I don't know. He said 'You going to Austin, Texas,' that was the last thing to me. And he said, 'I'm gonna see you there.' That's what Booker T. said and then he disappeared. Wasn't nowhere in the airport, nowhere in the men's room, but he knew we was coming here.

AIT: So how has it been here? Tell me about it.

FERDINAND: They sweet.

EARTHERINE: I can't believe, I really...I have to just keep hitting myself..'Is this for real?' You know?

AIT: Any one little thing that has been best for you here, that you've liked?

I like the hospitality. They are really, really sweet. When we got in that building the first night, I knew that this was where God sent us. 'Cause it would be impossible for everybody to just be so loving. I mean everybody, on the streets, wherever we go. I said, 'God, you sent us here.'

AIT: People are so glad that you made it here, that you survived.

Yes. Yes. That's right. And God let us know in that line up. To help those people with the water. And I have some Ziploc bags. I don't know why I had Ziploc bags, but I did. After I was giving water, some people was saying the water was hurting them, they couldn't drink more water. They were just so exhausted. So I just started putting ice in the Ziploc bags, putting it on they necks. You know, so, I was just aiding them any kind of way I could. The minute I did all that, that's when the airport doors opened for us to get in, 'cause Mr. Booker T. let us in. I said, 'God, you let me aid your people.' And then when I was exhausted and tired, He opened the door and let me rest. He did.

AIT: What would you like to happen here in Austin?

FERDINAND: Well, we like to find a house, and a church home.

EARTHERINE: We only have one income.

FERDINAND: And that's mine. We get that once a month.

AIT: Social Security?

Yeah. And that wasn't much.

I was the warehouse manager for Galaca for 19 years. I was in record management, I was doing files. I got tired of that. I went out on the dock and then into another warehouse. They gave me another warehouse I was running. I was running three warehouses for Galaca. I had the keys to all the warehouses. I had a lot of guys make fun of me. Some people, that's gonna be their way. So I overlooked some of those things, up until after Galaca move off the field they were on in Kenner. After that, I took sick after about three months. Then after that I been out about a year and some months now.

EARTHERINE: But I would like to live here in Austin.

FERDINAND: And thank Bush.

EARTHERINE: And thank Bush. Because he did open the doors for us. And I would like to find me a good church home.

FERDINAND: And we're happy to be here.

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