The New Normal

Well, I've had a few hours' sleep, anyway, and I think I'm coherent enough to write for real. :)

When Julie and I arrived on Wednesday, we had no idea what we would do while we were out here. As you've seen from the pictures I've posted, Lori and Jeff's house site and the church site are already dozed and cleaned up. There's still debris (or as some person wrote on a work order form, debree) scattered everywhere, but the digging sort of work was done before we arrived. So here's an idea of some of the things we've done and seen since we arrived. These things, I call the new normal.

We helped Lori spend the second half of her voucher at Wal Mart. I learned that the Wal Mart out here doesn't make me nearly so crazy as the one at home. My job was to run the calculator, so it was a lot like my normal grocery shopping adventure. She had a designated amount of money she was allowed to spend, and whatever she didn't spend, she lost. We came within seven cents, I believe. As we walked around and shopped, we also looked for things they used to have in their house so we could write down brand names and replacement value costs for the insurance papers.

Lori and Jeff do have a new (to them) car, and Cassie does too. But because of the mess in town, they're still using the loaner cars when they drive over there. Good thing, too, because the loaner van got a flat tire our first day here. Lori said it's weird to see everyone in new and borrowed cars. This is a town where everyone knew everyone by what they drove, and now nobody is recognizable anymore.

The town businesses had a meeting the other night in which they had to declare whether they were staying, leaving, or unsure. I think Lori indicated most planned to stay and rebuild. The co-op/grain elevator is already rebuilding, since wheat harvest is in a month.

When we drove through town yesterday, new poles had been set up and the electricity guys were up at the top putting up new wires. The water guys were testing water at hydrants. So life is rebuilding, some.

Like I said, we did get to tour their property, and I think we're going back today. I took a picture, which I'll post when I get home, that shows the basement of the church. It is the official storm shelter in town now, because it still has a roof - or rather the church upstairs still had a cement slab floor. I think it has yet to be inspected, but for now, in a flattened town, it's the best they have. The basement is damaged, but it is still there!

While pilfering around the property, I found a single page from a hymnal. It's the song Be Still My Soul. I thought that was pretty appropriate. I took it for my scrapbook.

Yesterday, Julie and I went with Cassie to Dodge City, about 50 miles away, to watch Cassie's boyfriend in a golf tournament. We only watched the last 3 holes, I think, because we didn't go until the end, but he did pretty well! Titlelist (not sure I spelled that right...golf is so not my thing) donated new clubs to the team, since theirs were blown away. I thought that was really nice! Anyway, that was my first and last time on a golf course. Nice experience, but no thank you.

When we came home, we helped Lori work on the cleaning of salvaged treasures. They washed stuffed animals and dishes, and my job was to pull pictures from album sleeves and determine which ones could be saved and which ones could not. I took pictures of all that, too. I'll post them later.

I'm not quite sure what we're doing today, besides going back over to tour/take more pictures. Tomorrow is the rescheduled graduation, and I think we're going before we fly home. I could be wrong.

So that is life here...in the new normal.