[StBernard] Deadline to Schedule Road Home Initial Appointment is December 1

[Westley Annis]

We had our initial appointment here in B'ham this past Sunday.  Road Home
had contacted us the week before to advise they would be in the area and
wanted to know if we could come to a meeting.  I was awfully relieved
because I was dreading the idea of trying to do all this on the phone.

The rep told me they realized they had a significant number of folks up here
who had not had their first interview and were trying to do outreach.  They
were only here for the one day and then were leaving for Memphis.

I was quite surprised by the process.  Everyone was extremely courteous and
each step in the process was explained thoroughly.  Perhaps it was because
this wasn't such a cattle call that it went that well.  We were offered
beverages and even a snack!  As I say, the rep that worked with us was very
thorough.  I thought I had everything needed, but I found out that I had not
brought all the receipts needed from back home.  That was a shock because I
hadn't opened the box with those until a couple of days before the meeting.
He gave me the contact numbers I needed for the documentation so that's
being worked on.

I asked the guy if he had had a chanced to try the barbeque up here and also
what he thought of the local drivers.  He said as they were driving up and
crossed into Alabama, when they had a pit stop he asked a couple of the
other folks "When did we pass the sign where it said 'Okay, start driving
like a bat out of hell.'  "  I laughed and said NASCAR was just down the
road in Talladega and everyone thought they were IN a nascar race when they
hit the interstate.  I also told the guy that's why I learned to navigate on
the surface streets here and avoided the interstate as much as possible.

He also asked how we were doing in the area and I said the worst thing was
not having "our food" here.  No Camellia red beans but they can be ordered
and the same for Blue Runner.  I said seafood was the worst.  I said we
could get shrimp but was just appalled when at a grocery store I saw they
had shrimp out which were already turning pink!  And of course no satsumas
or creole tomatoes.

All in all, it was not a bad experience and of course this is the first
step.  I have no idea how the rest of this will go.

Also, I was quite amazed in that looking at the other folks there
(applicants) they were majority Caucasian.  I had assumed that since this
was Birmingham the majority of the applicants or refugees in this area would
have been black.  I guess they all went to Atlanta, Houston or Dallas.
Birmingham *does* have an inferiority complex due to the fact that Atlanta
is about 2 hours away.  If you want to *do* anything, see a sporting event
or do "good" shopping, folks here drive to Atlanta.  There are good
department stores here, a la Macys.  There was also a local department store
chain, Parisians, that was bought out by Kohls.  The locals went nuts much
as we did with the loss of D.H. Holmes and Maison Blanche.

Jim