Tuscaloosa Runs This
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my elementary school from the first tornado. Dodging debris, trees, roofs, bricks, crushed cars. Emergency vehicles can’t even get into our neighborhood. Walking around the school, the roof gone in parts. The second floor exposed with school desks lined up facing a blackboard. 10. The next few days a blur. Strangers, friends, youth groups – all cutting up trees and helping us haul them out. The neighborhood overwhelmed with dogooders. Their anonymous faces and hands, their tireless labor. It’s a feat of generosity I selfishly attribute to the South, but the truth is maybe it’s like this everywhere. Maybe people aren’t bad. Maybe we would all be good people all the time if a tornado was just there to wipe us out every minute of our lives. THE FUTURE The future is just as obscure as the past. But unlike the past, we don’t have stories about the future to help us make sense of it. Tentatively, some of us are starting to tell stories about the future of Tuscaloosa. My friend Gaines was living on Forest Drive and all the trees in his neighborhood fell – one squarely on his garage. Now his neighbors want to rename the street Deforest Drive. That’s a story about the future. But it’s too early for me to tell stories about the future. So I’ll tell you one last story about the very recent past.