Family and friends who live away continue to come home. One after another they come and they want to see, see the places they fondly remember, the homes where they grew up, their favorite restaurants. We tell them how bad it is, we try to prepare them. They tell us they know, they undstand, they have watched the news, they have read the accounts. There is no way to prepare someone for these sites that draw us all back like a magnet. There is no way for them to understand until they see it first hand for themselves. Until they wind up with the same lump in their chest that we all share. It is the same everytime, you can't understand the emptines of the city of New Orleans until you experience it. You can't understand the pain, until you feel it. It is the same everytime I go down there, the pain never lessons.