PhotoDude.com

Thu. Nov 03, 2005

East of Eden

There are days that I really need a good story. A hopeful development. If not a happy ending, at least the end of a sad beginning. Yesterday, I got one.

You may recall me pointing you to Operation Eden, “A personal chronicle of what hurricane Katrina has done to my poor proud people.” Last we heard, Clayton had managed to personally evacuate his mother and younger brother from Pearlington, Mississippi … to Las Vegas. While feeling that Las Vegas “was going to eat them alive in short time,” a new opportunity arose.

“I have to tell you this amazing story, a single one in this huge hum, about a small family in North Carolina that was touched by the plight of a little Cajun woman light years away, and yet right next door. It’s a story of hope in dark times, of absolute strangers caring like family, of renewal and love and the power of art in the internet age. My mom says it’s the strangest thing that’s ever happened to her, and that’s really saying something.”

You really need to go read the whole thing, but it all started with a simple e-mail from strangers. A couple in Carteret County, North Carolina, had a rental home they were willing to offer to Clayton’s mom and brother for a year, rent free.

“I was given a whirlwind tour of their small community, Kenny called it the nickel tour, and I soon realized it wasn’t just their family that was reaching out to mine, it was the whole little town. It was the mayor, who’s office was a golf cart under an oak tree at his nursery business. It was the local water company executive, it was the real estate agent, the insurance agent, and long-time family friends. They’d all pitched in for the effort.”

I “know” these people. North Carolina is my home state, and Carteret County contains communities like Morehead City, Beaufort, Salter Path, Emerald Isle, and Atlantic Beach … where I spent many summers of my youth, visiting my grandparents. It’s a place filled marshes, inlets, pine forests, rural roads, beaches, the ocean … and the people who thrive in that environment. A lot like Southern Mississippi and Louisiana.

Clayton’s mom and brother have found a new home, for now. Before they even arrived, their benefactors had taken to calling it “East of Eden.” And it all came about because of the connections made over the Internet.

“And there it is, for now. The internet saved my family. My camera saved my family. I’m a high school dropout, but my writing saved my family. If this had happened ten years ago, my photos, my writing, wouldn’t have saved anybody, because nobody would have seen it. It wasn’t on CNN. It wasn’t on the broadcast networks. It wasn’t even on PBS. It was on a plain, small, free website, and that’s the only reason Elizabeth saw it, and brought her family into the effort.”

This is all very true. But when Clayton calls it “a plain, small” web site, he sells himself short. It was the purity and heart of the words and pictures he was putting on that site that drew people to care. And act.