As of 20 July 2006, we have sold our lot in Waveland, Mississippi, and decided that we will not return to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, except to visit family who are re-building.  This was not an easy decision.  We spent 28 years in the Army, moving around the country and the world.  In 1996 we moved to Bristol, TN, where we lived for eight years before moving to Bay Saint Louis, MS, in January 2005.  We can say without qualification that Bay Saint Louis was the best place we ever lived and we were totally happy with our decision to move and settle there.

This decision was not easy -- we made friends on the Gulf Coast; the lifestyle was comfortable and welcoming; and, we were building the house we had dreamed of for 20 years or more.  We took a serious financial loss -- insurance paid for our lost household goods but the building materials and other items we had purchased for the new home were not covered by builder's risk insurance (which excludes hurricanes from coverage) and we lost close to $60,000 of materials we had pre-paid -- that's $60,000 cash that we cannot recover.

Our decision was based on two concerns:  (1)  The Gulf Coast -- even with a maximum effort and all the luck in the world -- will never again be what it was when we moved there; and, (2) there is no certainty that another Katrina will not take the rest of what we have -- and we are too old to start over a second time.

So -- as of June 2007 we are still living in an apartment in Knoxville, TN.  We have decided to settle either in coastal northeastern North Carolina, or, in the upper Shenandoah Valley near New Market, VA.  We plan to travel to these areas several times during the summer of 2007 and look for property.

This is the latest installment in the saga of our wanderings after being wiped out by Hurricane Katrina.  After Katrina -- 29 August 2005 -- we moved (fled, actually) to Knoxville, TN, where Joe's parents lived.  Shortly after we arrived in Knoxville, Joe's father had a stroke and died after a month, in November 2005.  A few months later Joe's mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  She lived for seven months and died in March 2007.  We then set about cleaning and renovating her house and settling her estate.  By the first of June 2007 the house was sold and the estate was in probate -- we then started looking for place to settle.

In the fall of 2007 we decided to settle on the Virginia Northern Neck.  We purchased a lot between the villages of Heathsville and Burgess, Virginia, and rented a house in Wicomico Church, VA.  As of the end of December 2007, we are working with a builder to develop a house plan and we hope to start building in March 2008.

Update:  May 2008:  We are moving right along with construction on our new home on the Virginia Northern Neck.  Click on this link to follow our progress.

Read these books -- they are important

Thy Kingdom Come:  How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America, by Randall Balmer.   This is an important book.  Blamer is an evangelical Christian and a historian of the Christian faith.  For several years he was in the inner circles of the "religious right" until he realized that the goals of the "religious right" had nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus and everything to do with political power.

The Radical Center:  The Future of American Politics, by Ted Halstead and Michael Lind.  This is a revolutionary book that every citizen needs to read.  Lind and Halstead argue that "Our nation's politics are dominated by two feuding dinosaurs that have outlived the world in which they involved."  The authors describe the three revolutions that have occurred in the U.S. and then detail how conditions now demand a fourth revolution.  Read this book and its companion The Real State of the Union.

The Real State of the Union, edited by Ted Halstead, President, New America Foundation.  This book is a collection of 32 thoughtful, reasoned essays by talented and capable people.  The essays address every facet of life in America today.  Taking its title from the President's annual speech to Congress, the book starts by pointing out that the Presidential "State of the Union" message has gone from being a real assessment of the state of the union to being an hour-long photo-op -- and both parties are guilty of trivializing the SOTU speech.  The book's tone is set in the second essay by Ted Halstead in which he points out that there have been three major "social contracts" in our history -- and a fourth may be in the making.  This essay alone is worth the price of the book.  These essays do not bash right or left, do not call anyone names, and are not partisan.  You really need to read this book -- it is important.