Another antique postcard from my collection, a vision from the past, of what people wanted to see in old New Orleans.

(Last night I was talking to Mom about FEMA, and disaster relief… since she had Dad had been on the recieving end of a national disaster when the Valley Center fire took their house nearly two years ago, they have had some experience of coming away from the disaster zone in just the clothes they stood up in. Mom said it did take FEMA and the Red Cross about a week to get everything really effeciently set up, and processing all the people who had lost homes to the fire. And she and Dad had sufficient resources, and good friends close by (and some who were from farther away, some who only knew them through this blog!) who were quite marvellous with help, they were not entirely dependent whatever official help was offered. But, there were some local community charity drives that got up to speed in the first few days, who made direct cash grants to people who had lost houses— not very much, really, a hundred dollars or so here, fifty there. Mom said it was enormously touching, because it came right away, without strings, or having to fill out complicated claims. Those little cash grants beat out the first of the insurance claim payments by weeks, and let them feel that, yes, they could bounce back from the loss of the house and practically everything in it.
The new house is nearly finished, by the way— just another inspection or two, and they will be offically moving in from the RV.)