aftermaths

              Rough day in the field. Prattsville is like some bad post-apocalyptic movie, but there are no movie stars and no cuts and Tina Turner is not going to sing at the Thunderdome. I was okay for the most part, working, and driving around a bit afterwards taking some photos and video. 

              I went home and had a shower, and walked to the farmers market where I met a man who was standing on the corner with a cooler full of water bottles on ice. In scrawly hand he'd written, "Help Yourself" and next to it was a jar for giving a donation to Prattsville. There was a posterboard with photos from the town in which his parents had grown up. His father died three months ago, his mom last year. He was a cancer survivor. Because of health issues he is unable to go there and work physically, but he called Verizon and they have been donating throwaway phones. With the money he collects he purchases cards with minutes on them, drives it all up to Prattsville, and walks door to door asking people if they need a phone.

              He asked me if I knew Prattsville at all. I pointed to one of the pictures, of a church, and said I'd spent some time there yesterday pulling carpet nails out of the floor. He told me he spent the afternoon outside the church, praying as hard as he could. And he told me it was the church his parents were married in. I pointed to the photo of the yellow house you see in the video; the one that fell into a 20-foot hole with the residents inside it. (All of them are okay.) That house was where his parents lived, many years ago. He asked me if I knew about the cemetery, if it was still there. His family was asking about it and he hadn't checked. It was old, he said. Graves from the 1700s. I didn't know.

              I wanted to stay and talk with him, hear about the Prattsville he remembered, the one before the terrible storm that ripped the guts out of a community, but I knew that if I did I'd never be able to hold back the tears I'd been on the brink of all day. I shook his hand and thanked him for all he's doing, and he thanked me back. Tonight's the first night I've cried about all of this.