Breakfast 3 —Laura Milles aka Kill O

     Laura remembered once that the first time we met. I came over to her as a freshmen at Cor Jesu. I thought she had played a good game, but she had not played that many minutes and was upset with her performance.  I told her that as the coach of the opposing team, she had impressed me and there was plenty of good basketball left in high school for her.  Who knew she would win several state titles and make it to Final 4 In basketball.

       There was a player like Laura at Nerinx, Kelly M.  She would have never left the floor if I had been her coach.  They were both players who played all out all the time and always gave an effort.  You can have your cross over dribblers and 3 point shooters.  Give me 5 hustlers and I will be very happy.  Now who knew these two who were a lot of like would meet in Biloxi.  Call it the old Back Bay magic (or maybe the grace of Mary Bryant from above).  These two were soon best friends pitting down 2’ x 2’ ceramic tiles in a brand new house. They are also both weirdos, so soon they told me that they were going to start a tile business after school. It was going to be called Trials and Biles Tiles because Laura was going to be a doctor and Kelly was going to be a lawyer, but they would devote their free time to installing tile.  I asked Laura why Biles as it was kind of a disgusting term, she patiently explained to me that it rhymed like I did not understand.

        I have not seen Kelly for several years, but Laura is now in PA school and well on her way to a career in medicine.  She told me that PA school is intense and she is spending most of her hours studying.   It is amazing how hard all of the Biloxi volunteers work.  They come into this trip as good students who do a lot of homework, but just as Kelly and Laura learned how to tile like pros (that floor went in fast),  the experience at Back Bay Mission teaches them new skills and new achievements.  Kill O (Laura) is her Biloxi nickname. Her last name is one extra l to “miles” so we just added an l to Kilometer and voila.  Kill O insists she will come back to Biloxi and Back Bay as soon as her school is over.  One week from now, a new 15 will be in cars headed south.  I cannot Wait to see what they can do.