"Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the Ninth Ward?"

I can't tell you how many times I heard people say "it's one thing to see the devastation on television, but it's something altogether different seeing it up close and personal."

Well... I can't believe that it's been more than two years and I'm seeing what I'm seeing! I felt like I was in a Stephen King novel. I was just waiting for the strange creatures to emerge from the huge piles of trash in front of the abandoned houses. I knew at any second, haunting figures would squeeze out from under the numerous family rooms covered in moldy couches, carpets and table tops or climb out of the rusted washing machines, refrigerators and ovens. Every ceiling fan looked like stylized tear drops as the blades all drooped downward in warped sadness.

Many parts of the Ninth Ward felt like a ghost town, with only two sounds; Buzzing dragonflies and the slow crawl of my car tires over broken glass and rusty nails. Judging by the amount of overgrown grass, weeds and shrubbery, it looks as if all of the abandoned homes in America were dropped off in this one spot of New Orleans, LA.

This is not to say that I didn't find homes that have been rebuilt or were at least works in progress, I just didn't find that many. But there are definitely people who have fought their way back; who with great grit, determination and good old fashioned stubbornness said "this is my home and I ain't goin' nowhere!" I spoke with "Mike" who said that "it's been like heaven because the wild wild west is gone." He was referring to some of his neighbors from the past who engaged in nightly cussin' and fussin', but did not come back after the storm. He said "heaven" with such passion! It was as if he had just taken a sip from a cool mint julep. He pointed out the other three homes that had occupants (as opposed to the twenty that remained empty) who maintained standards for clean and quiet living. "Yea I took a big hit comin' back here, but I didn't like Houston. I'm 57 years old; I wasn't about to start over."

"Ms. Simone," who is in her late eighties, told me how she has been washing her laundry in the bathtub and waiting for one of her four neighbors to remove the trash from her lawn because FEMA never delivered the new washer and dryer that they had promised and they stopped collecting the refuse from renovation months ago. I asked her if she felt like the area had gotten a fair shake. "No" she said. "There's just a lot that never got done, but it don't do no good to talk about it. I'm doin' just fine. There's no grocery store nearby, but I just count my blessings and keep on goin."

There was a man in his late forties who passed by several times on his bike as I spoke with "Ms. Simone." He struck me as a bit of a character because he had a baby pit bull that ran along side him and he wore an over sized white t-shirt with caulking stains, jeans, white sneakers and sun glasses. His head was shaved and every time he rode by he said "good morning good people!" I definitely had to talk to him. He reminded me of the stuttering guy from Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." I got in my car and caught up to him. "How's it been for you?" I asked. "Do you think this area has gotten a fair shake?" He chuckled the way a man would if he were laying on a bed of nails and you asked him his shoe size. "What's fair? You know? I mean all this is temporary. It's just stuff. We spend such a short amount of time in this life." His words disarmed and inspired me. "What wisdom" I thought. Then he said, "You know the thing that bothered me the most was how people acted after the storm. The things they did man, I mean we were all goin' through some stuff, but man the things people did... the way they acted..." He paused and stared silently through his sun glasses as if they were mini movie screens playing back the horror he remembered. "I'm more concerned with the next life though. That one's a lot longer!" He laughed again. It was a painful laugh, a laugh that acknowledged all he had lost and would never find. The tone of his laugh rattled my spine. I wanted to cry, but instead I thanked him for his time. I didn't get his name.

"God bless you brother," he said as I got back into my car. "God bless you too."