Tag: Ben Montgomery

Slabbed remembers Katrina Plus 5: Determination Billows Along Mississippi Road. By Ben Montgomery of the Tampa

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

KILN, Miss. – Along Highway 603, Bruno’s Bar, with the spray-painted rebel flag on the concrete-block wall out front, is closed. So is the Cajun Connection, the Broke Spoke and just about every other dive on this stretch of sleepy Mississippi country road touched and tangled by Hurricane Katrina.

Even the catfish are belly-up in the farm ponds.

But rising above cattle fields and swampland and this ruined, rugged little town is Roddie Bilbo’s bedsheet tribute to the spirit of the people of Kiln. The effortless homage hangs from power lines, stretched taught with two bottles of spring water, for all of Highway 603 to see.

They do. Folks honk or whistle when they pass, a half-dozen of them by the hour. There goes a family in a Chevrolet Suburban stopping to take a picture. There’s a “woo-hoo!” from a pickup window.

“See, that’s what it does to people,” says Bilbo, eating jambalaya and green beans in his driveway a few nights ago. “It’s been like that since I put it up.” Continue reading “Slabbed remembers Katrina Plus 5: Determination Billows Along Mississippi Road. By Ben Montgomery of the Tampa”

through many dangers, toils and snares

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. — When the saltwater receded and the people of this little town came out from attics and down from trees, they began to notice the peculiarities.

Hurricane Katrina, people noticed, had been mysteriously selective.

…But no peculiarity — or miracle, as some here are saying — was as remarkable, as chilling, as what was found inside St. Paul’s Church on Scenic Drive…

There in the wasted church, suspended over blocks upon blocks of rubble in all directions, was an untouched statue of Jesus on a cross.

The giant crucifix was attached to the ceiling by two thin wires that were visible up close. To the left and right were stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross. None was broken, though half the windows surrounding them were. Word spread quickly through Pass Christian of the miracle at St. Paul’s Catholic Church.

Yesterday, while searching looking for photographs from Pass Christian for a post on the Spansel property, I discovered one of the untouched statue of Jesus on a cross.  Call it a “peculiarity”  or a “miracle” but the news story quoted above was written by  Ben Montgomery who just happened to share the story with our reader Shirley late today.  This remarkable story, this remarkable coincidence, is a timely reminder of the faith that SLABBED has in the truth of the stories of the slabbed that others doubt.

With permission secured by Shirley – thank you – Ben’s story in total follows: Continue reading “through many dangers, toils and snares”