Man of LaMancha
Tornado in Our Town May 4
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- Can’t Circle the Square Today Miles 3370-3390 May 9
- A Ride By Greeting Miles 3390-3410 May 11
Tornado in Our Town May 4The sky grows dark and angry this Sunday afternoon. Sirens wail and everyone takes shelter. A tornado touches down and hurts our town. Roofs take flight. Walls fall down. Trees twist and uproot. Our town square and our college are hit. The square is cordoned off with police tape. Finals are cancelled at the college. But not a single person is killed, no one even seriously injured. Exits from all highways into our town are temporarily closed by the police. Power lines are down. Streets are littered with debris. Gawkers come. Then legions of good samaritans descend with chain saws and trucks and the full armament of disaster relief. Hardly has the funnel disappeared before residents of our town rally round each other. Those the tornado missed help their unfortunate neighbors. This terrible thing that came so brazenly upon us has grabbed our full attention. The path the tornado took through our town is a wasteland of scattered possessions, violated homes and splintered trees. Giant trees centuries old will grow no older. The space they occupied is wrenchingly vacant. The shade they gave is forever gone. Now, though, is not the time to count our loses. Now is the time we attack the ruin about us. When that is done and all is as much like before as we can make it, then we can tell each other stories of the hellish storm that came over us and the Herculean response that made everything right again. When all the buildings have been restored and a first time visitor comes to our town, he or she might never know what we have just been through. Majestic trees when they are missing make no impression until their absence forces itself upon our unconscious mind as a queer sensation that something we can’t name is wrong. The May 4, 2003 tornado that struck Liberty will morph in time from a terrible fright into a benchmark by which we measure our life as a community. A storm that claims no life is a storm we will always conquer. We will be stronger for having come through the storm. If all a storm can do is destroy things we have made, we can make more. And we always will. Books will be written, movies will be made. And the story will not be the storm. The story will be our response. It will not be a tragic story. It will be a story to inspire those of us who lived through it and those who come to live here in the future. It will be a story of victory. A story of heroes. It will be our story. Part of that story is already circulating in our town and drawing praise. Our college has long had a plan in place for when the sirens go off. Just as the sirens sounded, dorm leaders at our college hurried to every door to pound on it and shepherd those inside to prearranged places of safety. And when it was safe, all students were gathered in one place to plan for the night and the days ahead. Can’t Circle the Square Today Miles 3370-3390 May 9“How many miles so far?” I am pedaling south on Moss and passing the Mathis’s house when the question comes. I glance to my left. Amy Mathis is sitting beneath a tree in her front yard on this warm May afternoon. “Thirty-three hundred.” I yell. “Way to go,” she says. Last week in Lawson, the other day in Excelsior Springs, recently in Leon and Pella, Iowa and two days ago in Conception, Missouri—in all these places people have heard about my Greater Liberty Ride and have asked me about it when I was there. Now today in my hometown a long-time friend tells me she knows and is pulling for me. When everywhere you go people call you by the name friends use, can life possibly get better or can the reason for your living ever be more affirmed? I think not. Certainly not for me. For years my daily practice has been to end my ride with a lazy loop around our town square, pedaling only fast enough to remain upright, giving me ample time to check out our town, making sure everything and everybody is in place for another day. I want to rest easy each night, knowing that all is right in our town. I also want to be seen. Every day. In all seasons and weather. Our small town has been good to me and to those I love. By appearing regularly on my bike around our square, I long to become part of the ambiance of our town, a piece of the security blanket we pull around our hearts and minds when we reflect on this little piece of God’s good earth we call home. Today my entry to our square is blocked. I have turned off Mill and toward the square on the street between our county jail and our city hall and have pulled to a stop opposite the fountains on my right and the Commerce Bank on my left. Directly in front of me is a barricade and long stretches of yellow tape with bold black letters: POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS. That tape is everywhere. Blocking every street I try. I get as close on every street as I can. I see nothing amiss. But I can’t go there. Police cars are everywhere. I think briefly of pushing my bike under the tape and circling the square. I want to. But I promised myself when I first began to ride that I would always observe every traffic regulation. As a biker I want to be a good citizen. If I am to expect drivers to respect my right to the road, I must never be seen to disobey the laws they must observe. And when I teach bike safety in our public schools, I need a clear conscience when I urge students to obey all rules of the road. So I turn toward home. No one will see me on the square today. I will go to sleep with a heavy heart. All is not right in our town. That Sunday afternoon tornado came down and hurt our town. Amy’s cheerful question to me as I ride past her house lifts my spirits. We are all sad today. But the sun will come up tomorrow. Our town will be right again. We care about and for each other. Thanks, Amy, for reminding me. A Ride By Greeting Miles 3390-3410 May 11Our college is being repaired, and we have moved graduation off campus to a nearby church. While on campus yesterday I heard that Fred Phelps was threatening to picket our graduation ceremonies. He has threatened before. Sometimes he has come. Fred is a disbarred Topeka lawyer who fancies himself an Old Testament prophet. He is pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, a church with no standing with any association of churches. Fred started the church. They are small in number. Their sole ministry is picketing. They picket anyplace and anybody they can in anyway tie to the issue of homosexuality. And following a logic only they can understand, they can tie most anybody to this theme. I have encountered Fred before. He carries a bullhorn. He uses strong language. Lately, though, he has not come in person. He sent his pickets to Central Baptist Seminary several years ago at graduation time. He sent them a few months ago to Second Baptist Church in Liberty. This morning I’ve ridden my bike from home to Pleasant Valley Baptist Church to see if Fred keeps his promise. William Jewell’s graduation is scheduled for 11:30. I arrive at 9:30 and ride big circles around the church. Police officers stand watch nearby. A red van pulls up about 10:30. Fred didn’t come. He sent the kids. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts, they could have been holding car wash signs. That’s what their peers are doing in small towns like ours across America on this May morning. The tornado that blasted through our town and our college just six days ago did great damage to our homes and our buildings. But today is graduation day for our college seniors. We have put aside our pain and sadness for the day while we celebrate. Now the red van discharges its passengers and their signs. The police escort them up the hill and across the street where they take up their posts and hold up their signs. They are standing at the place where cars coming to graduation make a left turn off 291 and onto church property. Everyone coming to see a child or a friend graduate passes directly in front of each sign: GOD HATES AMERICA, GOD BLEW UP THE SHUTTLE, FAGS DOOM AMERICA, IT’S THE FAGS STUPID, THANK GOD FOR SEPT. 11, MATT 4 YRS IN HELL, WM JEWELL FAGS. Some drivers slow to offer blunt response to these provocative signs. Some look away. I ride from the church and up the hill, coming almost within arms length of the picketers who stand between the curb and the sidewalk on the strip of grass that is public property. As I pass each picketer, I make eye contact and call a greeting in a friendly voice. “Good morning, welcome to Liberty.” The half-dozen picketers stretch in a line about 30 yards long around the corner onto 291 Highway. Some of them return my greeting on my first pass. I ride to the light at 291 and Church Road and make a right. Then several hundred yards to the long winding drive back to the church, where a right turn brings me down the hill and up again through the parking lot and out the main entrance past the picketers again. Four times around I go, calling greetings each time to every picketer. More respond each time. None are unkind. Chances are they have never received a ride by greeting. I dismount my bike across the road from the picketers, lay my bike on its side and sit on the curb to write. A policeman approaches. “Ed, if I let you sit on the curb with your feet in the street, they will demand to be in the street. I know you have to write, but would you move down the hill and around the corner?” “You bet. No problem.” The location is not far away. But now I’m on private property, a place where the picketers are not welcome and have no right. I’m sitting there at 11:30 when the picketers leave their posts and come back down the hill toward their van. Two police officers lead the way. One comes behind. As the picketers pass me, their signs have been lowered to their sides. “You be careful, now.” So long.” “Goodbye.” “Come back to see us.” I greet them all. I’m wearing my bright yellow HateBusters T-shirt. They have all read what it says on the back when I rode past them: BUSTIN’ HATE SURE FEELS GREAT. As they pass me on their way to their van I’m sitting beside my bike. They smile and return my greeting. When the policeman trailing them comes abreast of me, he says softly, “These are two hours I will never get back.” I understand precisely what he means, but I hope desperately that few of those who came here today leave this place with that feeling. I want us to be jubilant and joyous today. We survived a tornado. We picked ourselves up and put ourselves together again. Not fully yet, but past what anyone could reasonably have expected so quickly. We are marking a milestone in the passage of young lives with us. We vanquished the dark cloud that came from last Sunday. We didn’t deserve rude treatment from our Topeka visitors today. On the other hand, it’s good to know that even though we have been physically assaulted by impersonal natural forces and are at this moment at less than full strength, we still arouse the ire of those who close minds and harden hearts. We never want to be on the side of those who came today. We are glad they see us as a threat to the world as they would have it. We promise never to be unkind or impolite to them when they come among us. We promise also to oppose what they stand for at every opportunity they give us. We had rather they had not chosen this day. But they did. And we were ready. We will always be ready. So those who graduate today have even more reason to rejoice. Four years they have spent with us, allowing us to teach them and to mold them into competent, compassionate, committed persons, equipped with cutting edge intellectual skills and the spiritual strength to stride forth into a contentious world assured of their ability to be a good neighbor to everyone while turning their back on no one. Thank you, Fred. Even though you could not be personally present when your folks helped us see this truth, we thank you for sending them to help us understand our own strengths. Though that was probably not the intended outcome you envisioned, we all know how God uses things to good purpose. Our Town Miles 3490-3530 May 15 Little things mean a lot. That was the title of Kitty Kallen’s hit song back in the 1950s. It came to mind today when I was riding out on Old 210 and saw Irvin on his bike. Irvin Williams and his wife, Alice, live at the top of the hill on the eastside of State Road EE. From 210 on a bike it’s a long and twisting uphill climb to their house. In the pasture off to my right just before I come to the house I see and hear the sheep Irvin raises. Just past the house Irvin plants a garden every year, adorned with a scarecrow and noisemakers to keep the birds away. Today Irvin is on his bike collecting aluminum cans. He has a basket mounted on the back of his bike. He rides up and down Old 210 on a schedule of his own design and keeps the roadside clean. Sometimes we pause to exchange a few words when we encounter each other. I come upon him from behind today. As I draw near, Irvin is dismounting to reclaim a can. He turns and sees me and says hello. I return his greeting and keep on pedaling. We each are on a mission. We go to church together. We had a Sunday School party in the barn beside his house several years ago, not long before a light plane crashed into it and destroyed it. I like to think that Irvin gets the same warm feeling when we chance to come upon another on our bikes as I do. The chances are not good that on any given day we will meet, but it’s an absolute certainty that sometime somewhere on the road we will. Today is such a day. And on such days the simple pleasures of small town life come abundantly clear to me. Thorton Wilder’s Our Town is without a doubt the simplest play ever performed. The only stage prop is a step ladder. This story of everyday life of one family in a little town took up lodging deep in my soul long ago when I first saw it. Together with Brigadoon, Camelot, Man of LaMancha and Les Miserables, Our Town has taken up permanent residence as the five-play repertoire from which I constantly quote and daily draw inspiration and direction for my life. As I come upon Irvin today, Emily’s question from Our Town comes to mind, “Does anyone ever realize life as they live it, every single minute?” The simple rhythms of everyday small town life carry no high drama and no great tensions. These things we need at times in our lives. Magical places that appear every hundred years, places where rain comes only after sundown, impossible dreams and knights in armor, amazing grace never explained and life changing—these we crave with a soul-thirst never quenched. But the bulk of everybody’s life is lived between these dramatic moments, in the downtime best found in the repetitive and usually unrecorded little things that take place on back roads and small towns. For example, I was biking back from Orrick on Old 210 the other day when I spotted a pickup stopped in the road ahead, blinkers flashing. As I rode by, I heard the motor running. The truck was empty. .Or was it? Maybe the driver had passed out and slumped over. I wheeled around to take a look. Then I saw him, climbing up out of the ditch and through the weeds just in front of the truck, cradling a rabbit on his left arm and stroking its back with his right hand. “I hit this little fella, and I went to find him. Would you get that grey jacket out of the front seat of my truck?” When I am back with it, he says, “Put the grey side up. When I have his confidence, I’ll wrap him in my jacket and take him home to see what I can do for him.” He tells me his name is Jerry Sharp. He lives in the red brick house at the west end of the ultra-light airport just up the road from where we stand. His tending to the hurt of a wounded rabbit did not make the evening news. But it made my day. When Irvin and I will come upon each other again I do not know. I do know that he will be out on his bike again looking for cans. I will be out again to see our town and to tease the MS that my doctor said would make me inactive. Our town in some mysterious and magical way draws hope and pleasure from noticing the two of us out on our bikes. Little things mean a lot. Download 0.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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