Since we were able-bodied and in town, it seemed as though we ought to pitch in on the flood relief work. Cedar Rapids seems like it must be a vibrant community with a good sense of humor, but as you should have heard by now, the place is devastated.
We spent Saturday gutting a couple houses with crowbars and hammers. The second house wasn’t as badly damaged as the first and it was off the main street in a more residential area. The owner is a single woman and the water line is six feet high on the wall. Her wedding dress and a yearbook were the only signs leftover from her old life— needless to say, the city is eerie and the amount of work left to be done is overwhelming. The experience has me thinking back to two events from my first year at Beloit:
1. Matt Tedesco's FYI discussions about our responsibility to aid distant persons in the face of disaster. My seminar was entitled "Natural Disasters: Questions of Faith, Morality & Science" and we spent a lot of time discussing situations much like this one.
2. Down on the level of muscle memory, tearing down soft walls of sheet rock brought my mind back to the walls I cut and put up with the Beloit chapter of Habitat for Humanity during that spring semester two years ago.
Draw your own conclusions from that list. I'm too wiped out to fill in the blanks for you. But here, I'll tie this up: played cribbage, caught up, and returned to
(*If you don't understand this title, it's not your fault. It just means you're not from Iowa. Click this link and check out the city motto: it reeks of Iowa and I'm not talking about cows.)
