We met this one fellow in Bay St. Louis, Charles Gray. He is the local
self-appointed historian. His current residence is a trailer adjacent to
his ruin with a concrete slab with a mint Rolls Royce parked on it. He
told us about his building that he had years of accumulated materials,
antique furniture that had belonged to his Aunt's or whatever, stuff
that came over w/ the French settlers, Van Gogh's, the accumulated
remembrances of relationship with his deceased male partner... told us
how his partner had once been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He asked
his partner what he wanted to do with the remainder of his life to which
his partner responded a world cruise. So they went on a world cruise.
Twenty-nine world cruises later his partner finally died.

Mr. Gray stands in the rubble of Bay St. Louis and tells us all about
this, waving his hands and telling the story of the place and the
people... and here and there his eyes wet up and his throat siezes and
he stops and bends over very slightly to grab himself inside. Then he
perks up and he smiles and he tells us that his Aunt used to irritate
his mother by saying, "Charles, if you are not in bed by midnight then
come home." Here we were a bunch of tradespeople teamed up with students
from the Univ. of Florida Preservation Program and we are going to try
to save a timber frame built possibly 1790 - 1810 that looks nearly like
rubbish all crunched up and blown about the property, and Mr. Gray just
sort of shows up and talks to us for an hour and a half in the morning
Mississippi sun near the beach near the now calmed water.

This story continues...

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