goodbye greensburg

As a child, I spent summers on a lake outside of Medicine Lodge, Kansas. It was called 99 Springs and was a private club with 100 members and half that many cabins scattered around the lake, most of which dated back to the '20s. My mother grew up on that lake and lived there in the '20s and '30s when there was a dance pavillion built out over the water. Big bands from Wichita and Kansas City and Denver would stop in and play as they traveled from one booking to the next.

It wasn't a fancy place, but I loved it and still do. It was so beautiful, nestled in the flint hills of western Kansas, spring fed and surrounded by immense cottonwoods. Summers spent at 99 Springs had a positive impact on my childhood and the experience of growing up in that place we called "the cabin" grounds me more than any other.

So my heart broke a little to read that Greensburg, Kansas, a short distance from our lake at 99 Springs, was wiped out by a tornado. Greensburg lies between the cabin and Dodge City, where the majority of my kin still reside. Greensburg was the destination for summer outings, for picnics next to the World's Largest Hand Dug Well! and the incredible Pallasite Meteorite! It was a pretty place of small, tidy homes, a grand main street that held its charm despite the modernization that afflicted nearly all small communities in the '60s.

On the western plains of Kansas, one has to look a long while before finding anything of note. The horizon must be the flattest on earth, trees are evidence of farm houses or the occasional rare trickling spring. The only variation in the landscape is found in the colored coats of the cattle and the soft green of winter wheat.

From the news reports, 95% of Greensburg is gone. I can't imagine it. That sweet little town of good Kansas people completely destroyed. We live here ~ tornado alley ~ with an uneasy awareness of the power of those funnel clouds and the humbling knowledge there's not a thing we can do about them. I always wonder why it couldn't have just gone around? Kansas is practically empty out there. Why run right over the town?

In my home town, the tornadoes invariably wiped out Blackwell, 20 miles away, and skipped right over Ponca City. We'd watch them swirling overhead with amazement, then hear on the news that Blackwell got hit again. Strange things and fascinating, until they kill people and destroy whole towns. It's a sad day and my heart goes out to the people of Greensburg.