One year later

 Barbecue season starts tonight.  I’ll bet you didn’t know there was a season for barbecue.  Heck, if you’re like me, barbecue is in season year round!  But the competition season starts tonight with the ancillary judging at the South Mississippi Boucherie. It’s a relatively new contest but it’s become one of the biggest and best contests of the year.  

I was a judge for the first Boucherie in 2019. In 2020, because of covid, it was canceled.  I was back in 2021, 2022, and last year.  Last year is what I want to talk about today.  I’ll never forget that morning.  

The Boucherie (French for butcher) is held the last Saturday in March.  Last year was a beautiful, sunny spring day after a night of heavy rain and strong storms. On the way there, I heard on the radio that a tornado had hit the town of Rolling Fork in the Mississippi Delta causing widespread damage.  My son works in Rolling Fork as a service technician for the John Deere farm equipment dealership. While I was concerned for the people there, I was glad my son was safe at home 30 miles away.  But he was still affected.  

He called me about 10 that morning and was so upset and distraught he could barely talk.  He’d been called into work at 5:30 that morning to bring his service truck, which had a crane, to help with search and rescue.  His workplace wasn’t heavily damaged and was being used as a triage area and temporary morgue.  He spent the first hour helping load  bodies into a refrigerated truck.  Then he was called out to take his crane to move beams and debris from a dollar store where there had been people trapped.  They found 4 more bodies there.  Then he went with the state troopers and game wardens to move trees and debris from several roads so that rescuers could get in.  He worked until 10 that night.  When I talked to him the next morning, he was like a soldier who’d been in a terrible battle.  Shell shocked. PTSD. Whatever you want to call it.  He was 38 years old at the time, a grown man, but right then he needed to talk to Dad to get advice and comfort. He’s still not over it a year later, and he probably never will be.

There’s good that comes from every tragedy. He said that it was unbelievable how the people came together to help each other.  So many volunteers came to help.  Restaurants and churches came and served food to the victims and the volunteers.  And kept coming for months. So many churches and organizations sent water and cleaning supplies, they had to ask them to stop because they had no place to store it.  It showed that there’s still good in the world.  

Sunday will be the first anniversary of that terrible storm.  If you’re inclined, please say a prayer for the people of Rolling Fork, MS. And please say one for Lee too.  

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