Greensburg with thrive again

By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

It was one of those catastrophic events that leaves our minds groping for the right words to describe it -- and to describe how we feel. We try to make sense of it and we can’t. It’s just too much. Way too much.

When I heard the news about Greensburg I was in Denver getting ready to take my parents out for their anniversary dinner. We sat there quietly in the restaurant as I tried to summon up an apatite. It was a crowded cafeteria style restaurant. Coming from southwest Kansas, I’m not used to crowds any more. It was so crowded that somebody spilled gravy on the back of my mom’s coat and we didn’t even know about it until we got home. Either that or he mistook it for a pork chop. There were a lot of big eaters there. I’m glad he didn’t try to eat it.

Children raced to the dessert line; very well-fed people excused themselves as they barely squeezed in between tables; and I couldn’t stop thinking about the town that I had driven through dozens of times.

What of the old drug store where an elderly man with a huge grin I had met worked as a soda jerk for some 50 years? “Gone,” my neighbor would tell me the next day.

What of the church turned antique store that I once threatened to move into, so much did I enjoy the trip down memory lane? “Gone.” And the Big Well where I recently shared a picnic lunch? “Gone.”

“Greensburg isn’t there any more.”

I didn’t return immediately; I stayed in Denver for my dad’s community band concert, an orchestra made up of about 75 people, young and old, of all levels. It was particularly important to me at that point.

There is something about a community band that seems to take you to another time, a time when the whole town -- a town very much like Greensburg -- might have gathered at that “big gazebo” at the end of Main Street to honor the “paper boy turned hero” (thanks to a small electrical fire he noticed while on duty), and applaud vigorously as the rotund mayor shakes his hand.

Behind the mayor and other dignitaries would be the community brass band, including new town council members Roy and Beth, and five or six people whose names didn’t require introduction, playing as if it were for the pope himself. “If you’re not playing to suit the pope,” I can hear Roy telling the others, “you might as well be playing Canasta.” Which meant a lot, considering Roy was Methodist.

I’ve been to many of Dad’s concerts over the years, even way back when my sister was a member (before she moved to California to live amongst the orange groves). Back then it was a family affair; I’d feel a tap on my shoulder, and my little niece would suddenly be sitting next to me with an unstoppable grin on her face, as her grandpa’s clarinet blew melodically in the background.

I guess I stayed home that day in Denver because “family” suddenly meant something a little different than it had the previous day.

When I returned to work, Tim Wenzl was hard at it, directing callers from Catholic News Service and other media outlets. As the count of those who had died mercifully stopped rising, Tim was in Greensburg with members of the Knights of Columbus, whose gallantry was apparent as they handed out $100 vouchers to anyone in need.

As I began piecing the issue together, I found myself struggling with the knowledge that I had made a stupid mistake in the last issue; my computer was behaving badly; and the program I use to update the web wasn’t working properly. And to top it off, my truck broke down.

As my anxiety rose, I wondered how on earth I’d ever get the issue finished.

Then, on Thursday, I went with Bishop Gilmore and a few others to Greensburg. Suddenly my problems meant nothing. When we first pulled within sight, I saw that the trees had been sheered off at nearly the same level, stripped of their leaves and bark, creating a seascape not unlike that of a forest fire, but interspersed with hundreds of houses that had been torn to shreds.

The phrase “sensory overload” came to mind. It was just too much to take in.

But within this storm ravaged city that saw 10 souls brought Home, were stories of hope and faith; stories of prayer that brought terrified residents through the night; stories of humor that embraces survival; stories that will be told again and again and again, long after the day when Greensburg is once more a thriving community.