NEW ORLEANS Residents still find reasons to be thankful

Some people who lost a lot say they're trying to keep everything in perspective.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- With her apron on, Nelle Hill looked the part of the Thanksgiving Day cook, but with no power, no refrigerator and few ingredients, all she could come up with were grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon.
Sandwich in hand, she stood on the front porch of her home with her husband, Charlie, and brother Rus Moore, who helped the retired couple get back to their home on a debris-lined street recently flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
There wasn't a complaint among them.
"We're home," Nelle Hill said.
"We didn't have it as bad off as a lot of people. We have a lot to be thankful for," her husband said, chomping on his sandwich.
The picture of scarcity, making do and thankfulness could be found throughout this battered and hard-luck city Thursday as the few residents left lived through one of the oddest holidays they could recall.
'A lot of heart'
"This city has a lot of heart," said Robert Tourres, a captain with the New Orleans Fire Department. "I think a lot of people are thankful."
Tourres and his wife were among the hundreds of first-responders and city workers who lost their homes and are living aboard a cruise ship docked along the Mississippi River.
The couple ate Thanksgiving at a fire station downtown, far from the big family dinner they had envisioned hosting. But Tourres kept it in perspective.
"That's all it is -- possessions. You can replace that kind of stuff," he said. "We've been through worse."
Many Gulf Coast residents who found post-hurricane refuge across the country also found plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
In the devastate town of Long Beach, Miss., lunch was cooked one dish at a time for area residents in the miniature kitchen of a trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Hattie Mills, 72, made her famous gumbo for Thanksgiving, but she cooked it in a kitchen in Milton, Mass., rather than at her home in Slidell.
"I just thank God I'm alive," said Mills, who has been living with her son ever since her home of 50 years was destroyed by the storm. "I miss home very much, and I'm planning to go back, but there's not a whole lot I can do."
Still struggling
For many displaced by the season of record hurricanes, it wasn't easy to find joy.
Gloria Oliver, 63, spent Thanksgiving gutting her New Orleans home along with her husband, a cousin and friends.
"This is the first Thanksgiving in 40 years that I've not cooked at home," she said, downcast and discouraged about the comeback of her beloved city. "I'm very depressed. I'm very, very tired of being away from home. Stressed, very stressed."
Mike Tann and a co-worker ended up at pub on Thanksgiving so they could at least continue the Thanksgiving tradition of watching football.
With his family dispersed around the country by the storm, the 61-year-old Tann said he was living in the appliance warehouse where he works.
"The closest thing I've got to family right now is my friend here," he said, pointing to co-worker Ronald Magee.
While the city remains ghostly in its emptiness, the Thanksgiving spirit was not dead.
Christine Blaine was among a crew of AmeriCorps members in a van driving through dilapidated neighborhoods looking for needy people to hand food to.
"A lot of folks are clearing out their houses and don't have the means to make Thanksgiving meals," she said.
Despite being homeless and seeing his family and friends get flooded out of their neighborhoods, Frank Ray beamed as he helped carry boxes of donated food to feed his fellow storm-weary New Orleans residents at a downtown rehabilitation center.
"It's a wonderful Thanksgiving," said Ray, 43. "It's a new day by the grace of God."
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