By Pierre Fontenot
If you want to appreciate the best of Southwest Louisiana, it’s not nature and climate, it’s the people. Sometimes crusty and rusty, occasionally ahead, occasionally behind, but where they really shine, is how they come together when they get The Squeeze.
SWLA favorite son, John Bridges introduces
his friend and co-worker, Ben Terry,
to an adoring crowd in Burton Coliseum.
If anything can put a squeeze on a people, it’s a hurricane. In the aftermath of a hurricane we come together, with order, and common sense. We can’t wait around for Uncle Fed in DC, and Uncle Gov in Baton Rouge.
We, who are right here, right now, we look about, see a need, try to help out, and like ants and bees, little by little, a lot gets done.
That same kind of thinking was behind the recent Ben Terry Benefit.
Ben Terry – Weather Caller – Cancer Fighter
Ben’s not from here, but he’s southern, in the good ways, and he fits here. He’s come into our homes, via the TV, long enough for us to get a serious like on him, and when he was diagnosed with cancer, the community took it personal, like cancer had come after family.
Cancer is entirely individual. Steps might be similar, but the feel is each to their each. Here Ben is, in the thick of a battle undecided. I imagine he’s had many moments, where he felt small, vulnerable, lonely by effect.
And then Southwest Louisiana people, who may not even be near ‘n dears, they begin something, and it gets bigger, and bigger, until here it is, an event, that appeals to the goodness of people, asking them to share something everyone has a little of, money, to lighten Ben’s load.
The Day Of
The word would be “leverage.” You take a crew of dissimilar people, one good at one thing, another good at something else, everyone works their best traits, for the good of the group, for the meeting of the goal.
The Team: You take a crew of dissimilar people, one good at one thing, another good at something else, everyone works their best traits, for the good of the group for the meeting of the goal. Little things, big things, detail things, they’ve been done, and now, here comes the crowd…
Little things, big things, detail things, they’ve been done, and now, here comes the crowd…
Everyone is here for giving, and because the giving is clean, it cleans the givers ever the more. We were gathered in Burton Coliseum, a place big enough for big things to happen. There we were, knowns and unknowns, unified by purpose, cleaned by good intentions.
As morning becomes noon, as the first 200 people are diluted by the 1000 after them, I keep asking myself, “Is this church, or not?”
The event has no pretense, but by sincerity, it becomes what church is supposed to be.
Were God visible in this giant room, His eyes would show delight, at everyday people, rising up, on their do-right side.
The Best Of SWLA
Wasn’t it just the other day, when we were so divided? The right was mad at the left, the left was mad at the right, those in the middle were uncomfortable on either elbow.
Fine music, and lots of it, Sean Ardoin, Charlie Wayne Band, Gyth Rigdon, Geno Delafose, but in the middle was the live auction, which made a different kind of music, the cash registers sound.
This event was the antidote to that. Strangers all around, but not once did it occur to me that they were different from me. That we were all in this place, at this appointed time, said all you needed to know, about character, quality, sincerity, kindness, compassion, unselfishness… the good fruit…
Good music, and more good music, and then to the stage came Ben Terry.
After all those days, one after the other, one day, no news, next day, bad news… all those quiet nights, where questions float above the pillow, in unanswered sleep, what must it be like, to be standing up there on the stage, all eyes upon you, knowing that on this day, in this moment, you are the center of the orbit, of all these people…
…were it me, I don’t know if I could have kept from weeping…
“Able To Bid, Able To Buy”
The auctioneer is a guy named Hal. He’s forgotten more people than I know. Days earlier, I asked what his goal for the live auction was, he mentioned a hundred thousand. I thought that was a big number.
First item, $5000. I lost track after we crossed $25,000. When finally, they announced the total, it was over $130,000, pushing towards $140,000, and that wasn’t counting everything.
It must be incredibly satisfying, to do good, with what you’re good at. “How’s it feel, to be you, right now?” I asked him.
First answer wasn’t an answer, just a shake of his head. I took that for humility. Part of aging is the chasing of our place of contribution. Hal is very good at this, not just the auctioneering, but the people connecting, knowing how to read people, and call out their better angels.
The One
If I had to pick one conversation as The One, it would be with Ben Terry’s mother.
I feel a great empathy for her. Though her son is a grown man, we all know the ways of mothers, that the child is always the child. She’s on an inner, sacred orbit, around her son, with this cancer battle. I imagine, all the waiting and awaiting, the fatigue of stress, the false ups and the deeper downs.
She lives in Mississippi. I’ve never met her. We’ve messaged, once or twice. And then suddenly, there she was, beside me…
Instead of saying this and saying that, we did what southerners do, we hugged, and said our saying that way.
The first hug was me to her.
We unclench, for a moment, and then I pull her in again.
The second hug, I was the surrogate, on behalf of angels.
Our Father,
With the great, big heart,
Whose Son was known to cry…
Give us this day
Our daily bread.
If not by the slice,
Then we’ll trust You for it
By the bite,
By the moment.
We fight for our lives
Out of respect for the gift of being alive.
And when,
In our earthly inevitability,
We go from to dust to dust
Let us go in trust,
Faith, that to be absent the body
Is to be present with the Lord.
We pray these things
In the name of Your Son…
And Southwest Louisiana said,
Amen…
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