[StBernard] Let's Keep the Momentum Going

[Westley Annis]

What is this crock of s***?

The outspoken homosexual, DiFatta with buddy, Herty is trying to erase the
parish citizens and parish-loved homeland refugees memories with a
"funeral"? There has already been a funeral and it was for those who grieved
for their homeland loss and those who perished. Holding a "mock" funeral to
persuade all St. Bernardian lovers to forget what is a life-long
post-traumatic event is ludicrous and a mock to those who grieve in their
own way, in their own time. You can hold a million mocked "funerals" (aka
the Negro event of second-lining, and memorializing) is a forced unholy
event to the memory of those who still suffer and will for the rest of their
lives caused by the largest sickening calamity event in the history of
America.
And "Herty-Gerty" is "sick of talking about Katrina"??

Then if he's not talking about it, perhaps he should shut up about it!

And to make matters worse, instead of memorializing, there are those who
want to "celebrate" with ball games and revelry!

What???

This idea seems to be a token suggested by a psychologist with symbolic
throwing of paper into a casket and all will be forgotten?

If anyone follows this trend, I wouldn't negate the idea that when they hold
your funeral, people are going to throw trash and paper over your face in
your coffin, because it's the equivalent to minimize the  impact of tragedy
with the celebratory "forgetting of the event".

I doubt if anyone in our era will hold a mocked, blasphemous event over
those who died in Pearly Harbor, or all our wars where brave people and
heroes like parish residents lost their lives and fortunes.  ..nor the
holocaust victims, nor the Christians who were sacrificed to animals at the
pleasure of the elitists; nor the slaves who lost their lives and homeland
to slavery. 

"MY God, I'm sick (and tired, we suppose) of talking about Katrina". 

Oh, yeah?? --then take an extended DisneyWorld Vacation. You've got the
moolah.

You commemorate, then in the near future, you commemorate again, then in the
distant future, you continue on and never forget the hurt and painful
memories that will stick with this generation until a generation has passed,
then there is history that will/should remain until they learn of the plight
and horror of the worse that ever happened to St. Bernard parish (and other
areas).

August 29th, 2005.

Burn it into your memory, but don’t write it down, tear it into strips and
toss it into an empty coffin and believe it's buried forever. That won't
happen.

“But we can’t keep blaming it for every misfortune in our lives.’’ (Herty).

Then Herty-Gerty should go on with life as he should if he, as an individual
feels that's what makes him feel like a hero, or wants to forget the event
ever happened by changing history, or exploit his "bravery" before the
masses.

For when people heal, they'll know it, not because parish officials (along
with those with Psychological training or have kept/made their fortunes
which replace their grief) make the calls!

Folks, take life as God gives it to you. He's the strength to make it
through life-time scars. Not a metal or wooden monument filled with trash
and garbage. Shame comes in many forms and it's shameful to the majority and
by the minority to us.

You won't find my piece of paper (vis-à-vis, the movie, Surviving Christmas
where he's told by his shrink to go home and kneel under his birth home's
lawn tree and burn all his fears in a piece of paper and he'll be healed) in
my coffin, as I'll reject it from the grave.

"It was conceived, as so many projects are, during a simple conversation."

It should have remained a private, simple conversation, then say a
confession for having wronged the deceased, and those who lost their loved
ones, those who lost everything. 

Shame.

Btw, if anyone goes to this mock funeral remember the rest of us who refused
to go, or wish to remember our loss in an appropriate commemoration, away
from buffoonery. Pitiful exhibition and excuse to shake handkerchiefs and
break out in revelry and pleasure. This event is neither and considerate
folks should remember the impact of it all to us.

Otherwise, Mardi Gras is the appropriate place to be a clown, Joey and
Herty-Gerty. Not on the anniversary of our loss.

This isn't leadership. It's sickness and a deplorable action because no
matter how you slice it, life WILL go on for many. But we cannot excuse our
actions against those who heal slower than ourselves.

--jer--


_______________________________________________________

Bob Warren, The Times-Picayune
It was conceived, as so many projects are, during a simple conversation.

“Joey DiFatta was here for a funeral’’ last May, says Floyd Herty,
operations director of St. Bernard Memorial Garden and Funeral, ‘‘and he
stopped into the office to say ‘hello’ like he always does.

“We got to talking and as it always does for people from St. Bernard Parish,
the conversation turned to Hurricane Katrina. It doesn’t matter where you
are or what’s going on — with people from St. Bernard the conversation
always turns to Katrina.
“I said, “My God — I’m so sick of talking about Katrina,’’ Herty, a St.
Bernard Parish native, recalls. “Then Joey said, ‘We ought to have a funeral
for it.’’

Herty jotted the idea on his desk calendar, came back to it again and again,
and now, three months later, he’s one of the driving forces behind a fifth
anniversary event aimed at laying Katrina’s grief to rest.

Next Saturday, one day before the killer storm’s five-year mark, Herty and a
handful of religious and community leaders will host a funeral and burial in
Chalmette for the community’s collective Katrina grief. The event includes a
funeral service at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church, complete with
a casket, followed by a jazz processional through St. Bernard Memorial
Gardens and burial in a vault at a newly-built Katrina memorial. Archbishop
Gregory Aymond and the Revs. Jesse Boyd of Praise Temple Fellowship in
Violet and John Jeffries of First Baptist Church in Chalmette will preside
over the service. DiFatta, who as a St. Bernard Parish Council at the time
spent several nights stranded atop the government building in Chalmette
while the parish soaked in Katrina’s floodwaters, and current Parish
President Craig Taffaro, who was also on the council in 2005, will also
speak.

Herty said mourners will be invited to write their feelings on strips of
paper and toss them into the casket. For those who cannot make the funeral
service, the coffin will lie in state at the funeral home Thursday and
Friday.

The funeral service is one of several events planned in the coming days to
mark the fifth year since Katrina’s floodwaters made a cruel joke of the
region’s inadequate levee and flood protection system and plunged south
Louisiana into its greatest modern crisis. In New Orleans, the city will
host an event, “Commemoration and Determination: Katrina V,’’ on Aug. 29.
And in St. Bernard, the parish’s school system will host its annual Day of
Reflection Friday; parish government will commemorate the disaster the
morning of Aug. 29 at its Katrina memorial in the Mississippi River Gulf
Outlet at Shell Beach, where the parish’s 163 hurricane victims will be
remembered.

At each event, the speakers’ messages will no doubt center on what’s been
accomplished in the last five years — thousands of homes and businesses
rebuilt, hundreds of millions spent on government buildings and
infrastructure and, perhaps for the first time ever, levees and flood
protection rebuilt to adequate strength. But even with the many positives,
the loss will resonate.

Funeral directors are probably as able as barbers and bartenders to assess a
community’s collective psyche. And Herty’s assessment of St. Bernard is one
of lingering grief.

“Katrina will always be a defining moment in our lives,’’ Herty said. “But
we can’t keep blaming it for every misfortune in our lives.’’

Maybe, just maybe, the funeral will help. “Funerals do serve a purpose,’’
Herty said.
After mourners leave the church there will be a processional to the
cemetery, where the casket will be loaded into a horse-drawn caisson. The
jazz band from Chalmette High School will provide the music for a
traditional jazz funeral as the procession makes its way to a Katrina
monument that includes the vault in which it will be placed.

Herty hopes the mourners take to heart the epitaph inscribed on the granite
monument.
“In remembrance of all that was lost, in anticipation of all that is yet to
be gained. May our future be bright and our spirits stay strong.’’

Bob Warren is St. Bernard Parish bureau chief. He can be reached at
bwarren at timespicayune.com or 504.826.3363.