Trixie's trip to Baton Rouge

Trixie the Clown & Friends
Journal of Katrina Relief Trip to Baton Rouge
September 12-16, 2005
Troupe Members:
Charmaine Miron - Trixie the Clown
Nelly Keating – Nilly the Clown
Neil Wood – Flobo the Hobo
Denise Miron – Charmaine’s sister and the “mother hen” of the troupe.

Jan. 2006
To begin, I want to thank the following people for their generous and loving support which made this trip possible. Know that I made sure to tell everyone in Baton Rouge about the support and prayers that we were sent with for them. I hope that in the following pages you find something that puts a smile in your heart!
Thanks for financial support goes to (in alphabetical order): Alex and Sharon Harper, Archie Robertson - HEIR, CAW Local 200, Christine Morton, Dolly Digou, Evan and Lori Clark, Frank and Rena Agocs, Glen and Doreen Ferguson, Grondin Automotive, Jane and Murray Dresser, Janice Dresser, Jeff Beach, Jim and Wendy Wood, John D’Allessandro, Johnathan Roung, Kim Whaley, Lisa Chisholme, Marg and Doug Mitchell, Margaret Neves and her volunteers, Mike Donelly, Ted and Judy Wheeler, Theresa Slack, Tom Bonneau and the Knights of Columbus Holy Name Council 3305 of Essex, Tom Brophy, and Tony Visocchi,. We also received donations of crayons, red noses, balloons and squeakers from Fools For Health, Motions 1, and the Party Warehouse.

I’d also like to thank Pat Clemens for covering cell phone bills and other incidentals; The Woods, Sean Desalliers and Phil Miron for help with transportation – (especially Sean for his patience at the border); Chantelle Matthews, an awesome face painter who donated time at the truck; Tamara and Susan Murray for editing my journal; my neighbour Amy for lending me a suitcase; Kristin McLaren for her help with picture files, and all the people who sent their best wishes. Thanks also to my trip companions, for being who they are and bringing their unique gifts and talents to the trip, and to my family and friends for being so supportive and loving.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank Les and Connie Lanford, and Sheila (aka Bubbles) for taking such good care of us; the people of New Orleans for having such an amazing spirit; and the people of Baton Rouge for opening their doors and hearts to the evacuees. You are an inspiration!

May each and every one of you receive blessings a hundred fold for your kindnesses!

Peace and Love!
Charmaine Miron (aka Trixie the Clown)


This is my journal from the trip we made to Baton Rouge, a city larger than Windsor about 1 ½ hours North of New Orleans, in Sept. of 2005. I went with my friends Nellie Keating, a talented artist, singer and clown, and a student at the University of Windsor, Neil Wood, a fellow Clown Doctor (Dr. Fuzzy Wuzzy) with Fools for Health and also a student at the U of W, and my sister, Denise Miron, who is a visual arts student at Fanshawe College in London ON.

The story of our trip begins with a feeling I had every time I saw, heard or thought of the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. I’ve always supported financial efforts to help in disaster relief but, maybe because this felt like it was in my backyard, I just HAD TO go down to help - to CLOWN for them, specifically. Maybe life as Trixie the Clown and (Clown) Doctor Tilly Tom-Tom has influenced my interpretation of things, but I believe that humour is an excellent salve for wounded spirits.

So on that Tuesday I said a prayer, that if I was meant to go, the way would be made clear. Well, the next day this wonderful woman named Margaret Neves, who was organizing a donation drive at the college, called me to come out that Sunday night for a send-off party for the truck. Right away I said yes, then we got to talking and it turned out that her mother Teresa Slack was back and forth between here and Baton Rouge. To make a long story short, Teresa asked around down there and said we’d be more than welcome, and that someone would find a place for us somewhere, so I set the date of departure for Monday Sept. 12th.

Just a note: Since then I found out that the last of the 5 trucks was denied entry into the U.S. It seems they became paranoid of terrorist activity and closed the borders to any “unofficial” help. Alternately, the truckload of stuff was donated to Value Village.

Hearing about my plans, Nellie, Neil and Denise soon volunteered to come with me, and our “troupe” was born! We made a bunch of calls and put the word out there, and within days (including what we brought in after the trip) we raised $1799! (*See the end of the journal for an accounting of the money.)

And with that, we were off!

DAY 1 Monday September 12, 2005
Getting to the airport didn’t go so smoothly. We had to split up into two vehicles and, with all of the large, heavy luggage in the van, (we brought extra stuff to give away,) and me in the car that got stopped at the border, we ended up having to pay a fee for the extra weight while I almost missed the plane! But we took it in stride…
Once on board, we met a Gospel Choir called the Heritage Singers. They were returning from a trip to Rome, and were very friendly. Denise tried to get them to sing for us at one point, but they all deferred to the choir master who seemed very weary. It would have been a treat for sure!

Once landed, as soon as we retrieved our luggage, we decided to get ‘into clown’ right away. The fun started when we girls got to change in a “lactation room” in the women’s washroom. (“Anyone feel like lactating?”) Being in clown in the airport drew a good response; pretty much everyone going by smiled at us or cracked jokes. The strain of the situation was still quite evident however, and some people were just too stressed or harried to react to us.

We waited for four hours before scoring a ride into town. During our wait, we met a lot of interesting people with interesting stories. One New Orleans man told us of his experience with Hurricane Katrina. He had just returned from his shed when he looked out the window and saw the oak tree fall on it, not from the wind, but from the ground being so soggy wet: "Them roots came right up out of the ground!"

We also met a group of doctors, lots of Red Cross workers, and a volunteer Veterinarian Assistant who had lost her bag of personal belongings along with some medicine. About that same time we happened to meet a man from an animal rights organization who was lost himself, so we hooked the two up and they were able to help each other! It was really inspiring to see so many volunteers coming from all over, with such a willingness to help however they could!

The most interesting person we met at the airport during our wait was Brady. We nicknamed him our River Rat. You see, he and his buddy had spent four months living on a raft, floating down the Mississippi. For a joke they had put a Pirate flag on their raft. When an Exxon tanker spotted the two darkly-tanned men and their flag, they called the police, and they were swept off to jail for a month as possible terrorists! It turned into a blessing in disguise, saving them from Katrina! Brady had been living in the airport for 5 days, waiting for his friend to get out too so they could head down to New Orleans to help clean up.

Ironically enough, it was this homeless drifter that fed us our first meal in Baton Rouge: army rations. The military had dropped off a large supply for the hoards of volunteers arriving, and they were complete with self-heating pasta dinners and desserts! Well, he became a fast friend, and quickly graduated to a red nose. He told us that after a month spent in the company of rapists and murderers, we were a breath of fresh air, and that we had renewed his faith in humanity.

After four hours of waiting, having called around to different churches for a ride and a possible place to stay, Nilly approached a Red Cross worker named Cheryl, and she agreed to give us a ride. Cheryl is from New Hampshire, and a sweet-natured angel! We managed to fit all of our stuff into her car (!) and proceeded to head into town. We still weren’t sure WHERE we were going, but we had spoken with a couple of people at the Bethany World Prayer Center, so we decided to go there first.

The woman at the front desk giggled when she saw us, and loved the balloon flower ring I made for her. She was kind enough to give Denise a bunch of phone numbers to call for a possible place to stay, so we left Denise in charge of the phone calls and the luggage, and went into the Shelter area of the building.

The Bethany Center is HUGE! It takes up a good-sized city block; it houses a school and three gym/auditoriums. All three gyms were housing evacuees. (They were insulted at the term refugees.) We only went into two of the gyms. There were wall-to-wall mattresses, with a separated cafeteria area. In the second gym, they had made an attempt to create some privacy by using piping and sheets to divide up the cold, impersonal room. Apparently, in the third gym, the evacuees had taken charge of the shelter and were cooking, cleaning and organizing things for themselves!

Although not everyone was at the shelter when we arrived, we were told the shelter had gone from housing 800 people to its current count of 600, through people finding places to go or being placed in volunteer homes. Even as we were there, there were volunteers coming through: "Are you here with family? Would you like to go to Texas? We have placements in Texas". There were a number of mothers huddled over babies, kids and teens of all ages in groups, looking for something to do, men hanging outside smoking, and old people sitting or laying down, looking drawn and exhausted. Most of the evacuees were African American, but there were also some Caucasians and a couple of East Indian families, huddled in a corner. We were told that the people in the shelters were basically the poorest of the poor of New Orleans who had nowhere to go.

When we arrived we picked a spot for Nilly to do face painting, while Flobo and I wandered a bit with balloon animals, and were soon surrounded with kids wanting this or that. We quickly realized that we had to set a limit of two balloons each or we would run out before too long. The adults mostly watched from a distance, some of them smiling at us, and some inviting us to come over to chat. One woman came to me and, when she learned we were from Canada, told me she used to live in London Ontario for 6 years. Apparently, she got her Canadian citizenship while she was there. She asked if she would be able to go to Canada and I said yes, if you have your citizenship, then Canada is your home. Then she asked about her husband and kids, and I said that they would be welcome too, being the family of a Canadian Citizen. She brightened up, thanked me, and took off somewhere.

Finally, when all the kids had been ‘ballooned’, I rounded them up to play some parachute games while Flobo moved on to do magic tricks and play checkers with some of the older boys. I have to say, I’ve played parachute games with many a group of kids, but I’ve never seen ANYTHING like this before! I had gathered together about 35-40 kids, ranging in age from 4-16yrs old, and explained the game of keeping the beach ball off the ground and away from the alligators. I told them that we had to work as a team to do this, as we bounced the ball on the parachute and count all together. Typically I’m the only one calling out the numbers, and we might get up to 25. WELL, these kids IMMEDIATELY began calling out the numbers in unison and working together to keep the ball in the parachute. The game grew as more kids came and grabbed on, so I just let go and bounced around the circle, cheering them on and telling them how amazing they were! They got to 100 - a record high in my books!!! We all cheered at the end! I was nearly moved to tears!

If only Denise had been available to get it on tape! But she was still on the phone. We still had no idea at this point where we were going to sleep that night, but incredibly, none of us were anxious about it. We knew we would be provided for somehow.

I headed outside with the kids and played a game of cat and mouse. It was going well until, at the end of the round, one boy accidentally kicked another and was being pinned down by the unintended victim. I quickly intervened and managed to calm the situation some, when the first boy’s mother came screaming out of the building and began to bully her child about. In the meantime, some kind of scuff broke out between two young teen girls and they were busily talking tough. At this point I felt totally overwhelmed; I had no idea what to do. I remembered to act in character and I was fed up with all this, so I blurted out: “I’VE HAD IT! If everyone is going to fight, I’m taking my parachute and I’m going home!” I gathered up my stuff and headed back into the building. A bunch of kids followed me, hugging me and asking me to play some more, but in truth, I was completely drained and needed water, (it was hot and humid out, like Windsor on a hot, humid day,) so I declined and the group broke up.

It turns out that it was during this time that Lina had come around to watch Nilly paint faces. Denise says that her first memory of Lina, a 40-something single mother of two, was seeing her walk into the room, her whole body language expressing her despair, restlessness and anger. But when Lina noticed the painted faces, her expression started to change. She traced them back to Nilly, painting on a set of stairs in the middle of all the mattresses, watched for awhile, then started asking questions. The seed was being planted…

Around this time, I was approached by Les Lanford, a baby in his arms and a 3 year old girl by his side. He asked me where we were from and if we had anywhere to stay. When I told him we had nowhere as of yet, he immediately ran off to call his wife, and quickly came back saying yes, we were welcome to stay with his family of eight kids! Well sure, it sounded homey, so we accepted, and he went to get his van to pick us up with. That’s when I met Lina and learned of her interest in the face painting. We talked a bit, and I promised to return the next day with some extra paints I had instinctively brought.

We decided to change out of clown before going to the Lanford home, being worn out from being “on” all day. When we arrived, we were greeted by most of the kids (the oldest two were doing dishes,) and were immediately impressed with how well-behaved they all were. I pulled out the balloons right away and gave them each a balloon animal. They were THRILLED! I don’t know if they had ever seen anything like that before. They are very sheltered, being home-schooled by their mother and in a very religious home, (although it seemed everyone down South is very religious.) I noticed that all of the children’s books in their library are bible stories, and they have bible quotes in every room. After eating an awesome meal and spending some time singing and dancing with the family, (what was that about being “on”?) we stretched out on couches and mattresses on the living room floor and passed out. I know I slept like a log!

DAY 2 - Tuesday Sept. 13
In the morning the kids were very careful not to wake us. We were served a breakfast of crushed cereal grains, mashed fruit and yogurt. (I think Flobo’s stomach was in shock!) We learned that the kids all participated in making the food and cleaning the house; to see them act as a team in their chores was remarkable. We spent a bit of time with the bunch of them, painting their faces and playing in the huge backyard. Ever seen a clown on a trampoline?) They even showed us their chicken coop and the huge hole they’re digging. We got some video footage of the bunch of us hanging out, and then we headed back to the Bethany shelter to play with the kids and find Lina.

When we arrived at the Center, we found out that most of the kids were off at school. The Lanfords had come along, and they made up a full half of the kids we were able to pull together to play with. First I, then Denise, led them in some song and movement games, then in a round of music with the percussion instruments we brought along. We realized very quickly that there were a couple of particularly musically gifted kids in the group. Denise later had a chance to connect more one-on-one with one little boy, Eric. We found out he didn’t go to school because he didn’t have clothes to wear, as was evident by his need to constantly pull up his oversized pants. (The next day we would quickly drop by with a bag of clothes from Mrs. Lanford and leave it on his bed for him.)

I skipped out while Denise was leading the circle and found Lina and Nilly, practicing different face paint designs on a few teens. I joined in and gave her the paints, some brushes and sponges, and a bunch of tips on how to get a face painting business up and running, writing them down for her on a sketchbook Denise gave her. Lina told us how she used to sketch and paint when she was younger, and how her mother, before she died in 2001, had encouraged her to reconnect with her art. Immediately I was reminded of my own mother who also died in 2001, and felt a kinship with her.

Lina had dismissed her mother’s encouragement years earlier, but now here she was learning a means to put her artistic talent to work for her, potentially earning a decent living for her and her two sons, one in college, and the other fourteen years old and at the shelter with her. It wasn’t until later that I realized, in the hours we spent with Lina, we never talked about her old life. The energy was entirely focused on the present and the future. She kept getting teary-eyed and saying that we were sent there for HER, and that "I had NO IDEA how I was going to make money! THANK YOU!!!" We all grew very fond of Lina, and we hugged her tight a whole bunch! She said she wanted to be a clown like us, and she liked Nilly’s name, so she chose the name Silly Lilly as her clown name. To “crown” her we gave her a red rose and a couple of squeakers, and Eskimo kissed her. Thankfully, we got some of that stuff on film!

That night, I wrote: "today was all about Lina! If we never have any other special thing happen while we are here, we know we made a HUGE difference in this one woman’s life!! Amen!"

Miraculously, during our last hour at Bethany, before Les Lanford was to pick us up, and while I was taking a break, laying in the shady grass and getting bitten by ants(!), a woman named Sheila came to the Center to look for a couple of evacuees to work at her son’s house. She saw the clowns and wondered who we were. It turns out that she is the president of the Baton Rouge Clown Alley! Right away she asked where we were staying, and we told her for our second night anyway, we were at the Lanford’s. She insisted we stay the next two nights at her house. How could we refuse? We felt very welcome at the Lanford’s but we didn’t want to impose on them for too long, so we said yes to Sheila. After much hugging and goodbye-ing with Lina and the shelter kids, we returned to the Lanford home for an evening of food, singing and relaxing.


DAY 3 Wednesday Sept. 14
The last morning at the Lanford house, no one wanted us to leave. But I had called a church at the end of the street that was acting as a shelter for about 75 people and made arrangements to help them serve lunch - in clown, of course. It was very hard to get away, so when we got to the shelter, they had already eaten and were in the middle of a baby shower for one of the evacuees. There weren’t many kids, having gone to school, but the women at the shower LOVED the balloons and having their faces painted and eagerly joined in. We made sure to get some pictures. While there, I talked to a man from New York City who had come to help, and he reflected on some interesting similarities and differences between Katrina’s devastation and 9-11. Pretty deep stuff for a clown!

We stopped off at the Lanford’s again to pick up the toilet paper we brought (two 12 packs) to find it a good home. Connie Lanford had offered us the use of their van to do some sight-seeing, but before we headed downtown we wanted to stop at a neighbour’s house three doors down, the Journey family. The Lanfords had told us about their situation; at one point this four bedroom house had 40 people living there, but it was now down to 25. Crowded yes, but all of the family was accounted for, and that was the important thing.

When we got there, again the kids were away at school, but the adults, who were sitting in the shade under a very large carport, were very happy to see us. They laughed when we came up the driveway saying "we thought you might need this", bearing the packages of toilet paper! We introduced ourselves and proceeded to ‘balloon’ everyone, with extras for the kids when they got home. We took pictures, then sat and talked with a few of them for about an hour.

Denise and I talked in depth with one of the women, named Mary. She talked about her life as a physiotherapist and how she was 10 years away from retiring. She had just gotten her house to where she wanted it, and now it was all gone, completely submerged in water. She didn’t know if she was going to go back. She didn’t know WHERE she was going to go. She said she tried to keep praying every time she thought about it, but that it sometimes got the best of her and she’d get depressed. At one point Mary was giving Denise some advice on stretches for Fibromyalgia, and I noticed her light up a bit. It reminded me of old people in nursing homes when they feel needed again, and made me aware of the mental and spiritual effects of suddenly having NOTHING to do!

It was a great visit! Everyone at the house hugged us and thanked us a bunch for coming out and brightening up the day.

After that visit, we felt really good. We decided to take a break and find a coffee shop downtown somewhere. It took about an hour to navigate our way around the one-ways and find a parking spot in a reasonable-looking part of downtown. We looked for the most likely horizon and started walking in that direction. We ended up passing through an Art Museum and meeting a male receptionist who was in a Canadian KIA commercial. We did an interview with him on video, and he willingly and playfully spoke into my turkey leg microphone. Wow, a celebrity!!!

Outside the museum there was this fountain, or rather rows of fountains, small ones like holes in the ground, about twelve in each row, and the rows formed like jagged equal signs, (like this: -_-_-_ ). There were two boys in school uniforms running barefoot and bare-chested through the fountain as it spit up water in different patterns and rhythms. Their mothers sat along the side wall watching and laughing.

Well, you can imagine how good that water looked in that hot, humid weather! So Nilly and I stripped off our socks and shoes, and went to play in the water, teasing it and running away as it shot up. At one point, after having observed its pattern some, I pretended to be conducting the fountains with my hands leading the water streams up and down, and getting it perfectly in sync for a few minutes! We got a great picture of Flobo holding a tattered umbrella over him with the fountain shooting up in front of him! Very cute!!

We finally made our way to a coffee shop around the corner and sat shivering in the air conditioning, drinking Chai Tea. While we were there we met a few more evacuees, who seemed to be of a ‘different class’, talking about the upcoming real estate opportunities in New Orleans. We couldn’t help but notice the stark contrast between these evacuees and the others we had met.

We skipped over to the bar and grill next door and had an awesome and very inexpensive dinner, (tones of seafood!) then scooted to get back to the Lanford’s before dark. There we joined up with Sheila, aka Bubbles the Clown, and she drove us out to her home. On the way, we stopped at the Bethany Center to drop off some clothes from the Lanfords for Eric. I ran in with the garbage bag full of clothing and shoes, and left it on his bed, then looked around for Lina - she was set up in the middle of the room with her face paints and surrounded by kids. I ran over to hug her and introduced her to Sheila, who had come in to meet her. They exchanged a few words, Sheila gave Lina her Baton Rouge Clown Alley card, and we had to be off. But before leaving I gave Lina a huge hug and told her I love her, (“I love you too!”) and to call me as soon as possible! All the way to Sheila’s a large part of me was still back hugging Lina, and I hardly heard what everyone was talking about.

I couldn’t believe how huge Sheila’s house was - this big Victorian house on seven acres of land, with a pond and a workshop the size of half a city block! Apparently we had landed in the lap of luxury! We even each got our own rooms with big comfy beds! My room belonged to the ten year old daughter and was painted like the ocean, complete with a ship coming toward you on the ceiling and Nemo and his friends swimming around. After the day, I slept like a baby, and was surprised at my own exhaustion.


DAY 4 Thursday Sept. 15
The day was rather lazy, hanging around Bubbles’ house, comparing notes and materials for clowning, and playing with her two dogs. It was a needed rest. Late in the afternoon, once the kids had returned from school, we got into clown and headed down to another shelter at Cornerstone Church, which Bubbles goes to. This time we dressed my sister Denise up like a clown too! As soon as we walked into the shelter, two little girls came running up to Nilly and jumped up into her arms!!! Pretty soon she was busy painting both of them up just like herself!

We spent the next few hours there, Nilly, Bubbles and I painting both kids and adults, while Flobo hung out with the kids, making balloon animals for them, playing and being silly. Everyone was enjoying themselves so much that even the Presidential Address on TV regarding the hurricane disaster didn’t catch anyone’s attention! Denise got lots of great pictures. Before we left, I stopped to talk with an old woman sitting quietly by herself. She asked me to pray for her because all she had was her son. I was really glad to find out later that Nilly had taken a picture of us together. It was a special moment that I will always remember.

When we got back to Bubbles’ house, we got cleaned up then watched Finding Nemo. I was glad to get away from reality for a bit.


DAY 5 Friday Sept. 16
Nellie had to leave on the early plane, so we drove her to the airport, made sure she was all set, checked in our own luggage as well, and then Bubbles took us out for lunch. After lunch, we went to the nearest Wal-Mart and got pictures printed up for Bubbles and her church from the night before. While there, Flobo and I shopped around for some thank you gifts for the Lanfords and for Sheila (Bubbles) and her girls. We got the adults some candles, the Lanford children a tie-dye kit with t-shirts, and beading sets for Sheila’s girls. Then, on our way back to the airport, we stopped off quickly at the Lanford’s and dropped off their gifts. The kids were thrilled, and Mrs. Lanford said that, as soon as we had gone, it felt like all the light had left the house. It was really great to see them and to give them all one more hug before we left.

Then it was off to the airport, where we had to wait in a huge line-up at the security gate, and almost missed our plane! The ride home was quiet, but we got some interesting stories from some of the volunteers on the plane with us, including one woman who had helped a family reunite with the use of her cell phone - about which she was on cloud nine!

And it was over! After all that, coming back home felt kind of weird, like everything had changed, and yet like nothing had changed at all…

*****************************************************


Feb. 17, 2006

***Since returning from Baton Rouge, I’ve been in touch with the Lanfords and Bubbles the Clown a few times, and the last I heard, they are fine. The Director of the Shelter told me when I called that Lina had found somewhere to go soon after we left, and that he has no record of where that may be. I’m still waiting for her to call me.

Donations: (Donations under $100 are included in “Individual donations”.)
Home Equity Investment Rewards $500
CAW Local 200, Windsor 250
Knights of Columbus Holy Name Council 3305 of Essex 100
Johnathan Roung, CI Investments 100
Theresa Slack (after conversion to Can. $.) 115
Individual donations 734
Total Donations: $1799

Expenses:
Airfare $1532
Food, Gas & Misc. 125
Gifts for Hosts 59
Extra Luggage Charge 50
Photo Developing 33
$1799*

*Receipts are available upon request.

Many evacuees are still homeless today and recently, President Bush has ordered thousands of families out of government-paid hotels. With their neighborhoods still not cleaned up, most have nowhere to go. If you would like to contribute to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, please donate to the Red Cross Society, specifying the destination of your funds.