A Personal Connection

As I am sure you saw on Justin's blog, we worked with some friends and colleagues to feed about 30 evacuees at the Knights Inn here in Columbia. One of the people that clearly stood out to me was Mr. Sterling, which Justin mentioned. He also shared Thomas' article that was in the LA Times.

Well, we also met another man, Arnold Learson. Although we did not talk to him much we did witness a long conversation between Beth (the coordinator at the Knights Inn) and Arnold. In that conversation he talked about how he as very thankful because the doctors and dentists he had seen that day were very kind. He also talked about how good his lunch was at the W. Columbia Tony's Pizza. I also vaguely remember that they mentioned some of his family was still missing...

Reunited
(Knoxville, Tennessee) - For Arnold Learson, things have improved over the last week. It was just a few days ago that he was trapped in New Orleans.

“For the most part, I am feeling much better now,” he said.

But even though he was out of harms way, and into a comfortable Columbia hotel room, he was far from being ok.

“My mother and I, we're real tight, as well as my son,” he said. “It's a close-knit family, the three of us."

He hasn't seen or heard from them since he put them on a boat in New Orleans.

“I said, ‘you can take my mother,’ said Arnold of the day he sent his mother and son away for protection from the floods. “And that was the last I'd seen of her, and that was the day after the storm."

But Thursday afternoon, he got a phone call.

His son and mother were in Knoxville, Tennessee. Columbia pilot Jim Hamilton offered to fly him there, and the moments that followed were priceless.

Little Arnold was being interviewed at a Knoxville TV station about being an evacuee. He was talking about his missing father … when the remarkable happened.

His father was brought on set during the telecast. With tears rolling from his eyes, Arnold Learson, III, leaped up from the set, ran into Arnold, Jr’s arms, and didn’t let go for a full minute.

When asked what they would do first together, Arnold said “probably play some basketball, shoot some hoops.”

Dad said simply, “I'm up for whatever.”

Later on, Arnold, Jr. was also re-united with his mother. Now that he's with his family, he doesn't think he'll be coming back to Columbia. He says he's happy with them in Knoxville.

I am really at a loss for words when it comes to describing how I feel about all this. If you have not taken the time to volunteer, donate items, or give money - I encourage it. And, if you can take the time to visit with any evacuees in your area - DO IT! It is easy to remove yourself from this situation, but they have nothing...and most of us have too much.

This personal connection really goes further now though. Last night Justin and I were fortunate enough to get some tickets to the WCOS Loyal Listener's Concert from Ben. Now, we all know Justin hates country music, but he was sweet and went with me. I will be honest, at fisrt I was not so hip to go. I knew a few of the names of the artist's playing, but knew few of their songs by name. The concert was at Ft. Jackson and the lineup included Josh Gracin, Trick Poney, Jamie O'Neal, and Andy Griggs (forgive me for my spelling). The place was packed, like 11K at Hilton Field, and Justin and I were still able to find some pretty sweet spots to plop our chairs. We got there right when things were starting up, and it was still light out, around 7:15pm. The people watcher I am, I was drawn to all the "men and women" in uniform - camo to be specific. The thing is that these people look like kids. Some of these guys could - no lie - be like 15yrs old, but I know they had to be at least 18. Just made me think about who it really is over there in Iraq and around the world fighting that war. Again, I really cannot put into words how it changed the way I think.

Apart from that the concert was fantastic. Instead of each artist playing a set, they lined up across the stage, all acoustic, and took turns playing songs. They each played 4 numbers and concluded with "May the Circle Be Unbroken." I knew about but 2 songs. Thank you again Ben. I appreciate you sharing that with us.