Mark and I spent 7 hours yesterday cleaning up the yard from an ice storm that struck central Kentucky in February. Seems a little late, I know, but I’ve been in Montana all winter and just got back east to face the mess. And it was quite the mess, the whole town, still when I got back last Monday to host a Benefit for Kids Arts Activities. FEMA trucks were scheduled to come through weeks ago. Limbs and branches piled eight feet tall and half again as wide lined most of the streets. It was like driving through a gauntlet. I heard people describe the storm and the subsequent loss of power, for some as long as two weeks, as a “catastrophe”. It did earn a rating of disaster and the hardest hit areas received federal emergency relief. But Mark and I toured New Orleans three months after Katrina and in all due respect, what happened to Kentucky in comparison was an inconvenience. Still, I admire the community for springing into action and getting the clean-up under control. The pick-up trucks started rolling several days after I returned and by yesterday most of the walls of broken limbs had been hauled away and lawns raked clean of the remaining sticks and branches too short to stack. Damaged roofs were repaired or replaced or in the process of replacing. A crushed porch or swingset here or there remained, primarily to the left and back of my property where my fallen trees graced my neighbors’ yards. But other than that, it’s almost back to normal sans a number of trees that will be sorely missed. Whether it’s an ice storm or a hurricane or a national financial crisis, action becomes the necessary course to survival and recovery. Nothing is accomplished by sitting back. And although it’s neither necessary nor required nor a catastrophe or national disaster if you don’t do it, now is a great time to finish your scripts and get them in to us for consideration. We’re looking forward to more action this spring from all you playwrights out there. So lets get busy!
