Local fire, and charity.

The other week before Christmas, me and my one old neighbor who went through Katrina in New Orleans went to go pick out toys for a toy drive, to take to the local police station.

While we were at the local drug store picking out toys, she told me about this four building fire that had happened the previous night, and how the fire skipped houses, and how some people lost everything, just before the holidays.

"I don't think anybody was hurt," she was like, "But damage was bad."

She then got a bit distant and said how hard it was to start over when you lost everything, and then she came to a bit and said that she was going to ask at the police station, if they were collecting for the people who lost homes.

There, the (black) (female) officer on duty said she'd get someone to talk to us, and she called these (older) (Italian-American) townies out of the back community liaison office, and the guys said that one of the fire victims was an officer and that they weren't sure if they were collecting for the fire victims, but if she wanted to bring in stuff, they'd take it anyways, and they'd make sure it got to someone who needed it even if there wasn't a collection taken up for the people who were affected by that specific fire.

It was so natural for her to go and ask that, and the way they responded was so natural, too.

She's told me before, that she comes from the (Italian-American) section of New Orleans and a lot of locals remind her of people she knows from there, and I could tell that from the way she was interacting with them...

She's (Italian-American), too.

Also, back when she was discussing the fire, she said it's horrible that it had to happen to anyone, but at least it happened to people with nicer homes who were more likely to have insurance.