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Show Twisters . . . 105 Furthermore, what do you do when you don't have clothes to wear except the ones on your back, food to eat or a place to go to the bathroom? Things can get hairy! You find yourself swapping a perfectly good wrist watch you found in the trash heap for a candy bar because you need the energy. Then the girl with the watch swaps it off for a T-shirt that's cleaner than the one she's wearing. After a couple of days, the meat begins to rot and stink in the grocery stores because there's no electricity. Strange dogs and horses start hanging around--who need food and water as much as you do. By and by there's talk of looters coming in at night to steal whatever's left. And every day, with the humidity soaring and the hot sun beating down, you wonder how you'll get rid of the tons and tons of debris piling up everywhere. Like Dad said, you just raise up your head and yell, "Help!" That's when the miracle happens. Suddenly, everyone became our neighbor. The National Guard, REACT, the Red Cross, volunteers whose own homes were untouched. Neighbors were coming out of the woodwork, as the saying goes. The Mennonites arrived in droves, rolled up their sleeves, and dug in. A disaster team from as far away as Wichita Falls, Texas, showed up without having to be asked. One ancient farmer brought fifteen milk cans full of water Nebraska all the way from Broken Bow, / -every noon!-in heat you wouldn't believe, so people could quench their thirst. In our own neighborhood, Mrs. Smiley was the shining example. She got the Mennonites to move her two big tables out on the grass, then conned those young men into passing eighty-seven jars of canned goods outside through the basement window. Every day she served applesauce, plums, cherries, and lukewarm stewed tomatoes to anyone who |
