That Colts sweatshirt isn't about Super Bowl

Buy photo reprints

EUNICE, La. -- People hereabouts look at me a little funny as I walk around in a Colts sweatshirt these days.
They want to ask, but usually don’t, why I’m for the Colts and not the beloved Saints as the Super Bowl draws nigh.
I’ve no great allegiance to the Colts, and surely don’t favor them over the home boys.
But the Colts and their city scored a touchdown with me during one of my darkest hours.
Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast left many living and working there with little in the way of personal belongings.
Homes and their contents disappeared in the path of the storm, a lifetime’s accumulation gone in the blink of an eye.
Many of my cohorts at the Gulfport newspaper lost all that they had, and some lost loved ones.
Covering Katrina’s aftermath was an emotional task for every journalist involved as they tried to report a story that they were as much a part of as all their friends and neighbors.
Everything, as most of you know from experience, is in short supply in the wake of such storms.
Food and water got to us within three days. Gasoline was available by the end of the first week.
Insurance adjusters were on the streets by the second week.
Order was being restored on a daily basis. But two weeks into recovery, some of my cohorts and their families were without basic clothing.
And then arrived care packages gathered by newspapers across the country and sent to aid us and our community.
The first box I opened was from Indianapolis and the item on top was a Size XL Colts sweatshirt.
Someone had parted with something near and dear to them, hoping it would help us.
Though it was still September, I put the sweatshirt on, establishing, I suppose, an unspoken link with the Colts’ city.
And I wear it still when I need something to ward off the chill or just knock around in it, a reminder for me of how we as a society reach out to others.
Go Saints.

Jim Butler can be reached at jimenews@bellsouth.net.