Day 4: Two Houses

Thursday would bring new changes. It would be the first day that the group would leave 510 Division St., but it would also be Chuck’s last day. The day began with Amardeep Singh leading the group in the daily Ardas. After setting off, the crew got a look at class differences in Biloxi. While the first house was a tongue-in-groove home, the new home had weak foundations. The hurricane's devastation had been complete.



After taking out the carpets and woodpaneling, the team got started on the drywall. Some of the members got to use the chainsaw and remove some tree debris.










Daredevils Mrigender “Unnecessary Roughness” and Deep “Aren’t You Too Old to Be Doing Dumb Things” Singh climbed the beams to kick out the roof. What seemed like a good idea, quickly degenerated into a waste of time and effort.


Focused on their task, the crew amazed the Grassroots staff and had finished the bulk of the task by lunch. On their competitive high, the j.Korps started taunting the rival esteemed Hands-On America. The so-called “Varsity A-Team” of house-destruction seemed a rather weak match. While they had T-shirts, sweatshirts, and Darth Vader-like N-95s, the members of the j.Korps were sure that we could challenge them in a house destroying contest. During the lunch, Gurjit “The Chor” Singh wanted a souvenir from Hands-On. He helped himself to a broken stereo-player and thus shamed his name. At least he could have taken one that worked. Instead he helped himself to a broken one.



After lunch, Chuck was able to secure a “ripe” house. This house at 256 had not been entered since the Hurricane and still had all the homeowners’ belongings, including molding refrigerator contents. The crew set out to work removing the goods of the house. This was the first house that the magnanimity of the hurricane was brought to life. The group understood the human impact as they shuffled through pictures, documents, and mementos. Despite the human tragedy, the Korps members remained focused in their work.


Jarjeet "I can bust through a O-line faster than Ray-Ray" Singh opened the session by rushing through the door. The crew marveled at Chuck’s destructive abilities with the crow bar, the power of the double Hs (Harjinder and Harinder) ability to take down the bathroom wall, and the piñata festivities as Sukhjiven tried to take out the final drywall pieces above the windows. In what could only have been accomplished through a team effort, the house was taken down in record-time and the j.Korps earned the accolades of their hosts.

The crew returned to the Biloxi Sports Complex and watched the feats of Chuck that would have made his Sigma Xi brothers proud. Chuck soon left to cut down some firewood and find the answer to the perennial question “how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” While Amandeep and Jarjeet would return to the festivities, the rest of the crew would start with their evening Rehraas Paath and Kirtan Sohila.

Following tha Paath, Sanjeev “Is He Done Yet?” Singh would get a riveting lecture about the differences between the armed forces from Jasdeep “I like Aliens” Singh.

Jarjeet, Amandeep, Harjinder, Amardeep, and Mrigender would get the craving for waffles and after appeasing their hunger with disgusting food from their big-toothed calculator-wielding waitress would remember that they were indeed south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the “dirty, dirty.” The other two mini-vans would also go on a bathroom excursion that seemed to lead to annoyance and irritation. After the eventful night, the crew went to sleep and prepared for what would be their last day.