The Warsaw girls basketball team opened their season Saturday night, but I want to relate to you something that happened before the game.
The Lady Tigers were playing at Norwell, which other than the hour-plus driving time to get there is a really enjoyable place to broadcast a game from. The people are extra friendly, they fall all over us to get us whatever we need, they invite us to the hospitality room (even though Rob Reneker and I don’t eat before games) and they stop by or catch us on the way out to make sure everything went well with the broadcast.
I was dusting off my checklist of pre-broadcast duties for girls basketball games Saturday night, and a 40-something-aged woman with a giant “N” on her sweatshirt stopped me on the edge of the gym floor to ask me a question.
She said to me “Can you do me a favor?”
I responded, “I will do my best … what can I do for you?”
“Well we have been following what happened … that terrible bus accident … and I just wondered if you would take a message back to them,” she said.
“Please just let them know people here are praying for those families and everyone at Tippecanoe Valley.”
I put my hand on her shoulder and said that I’d be honored to do that for her.
Norwell people can relate. They, like Tippecanoe Valley, are a rural 3A-sized school district without an anchor town in which the high school is located. Virtually every student who attends Norwell either drives or rides a bus to get there. They know what happened recently on SR 25, and it’s collectively kept them up at night because it could just as easily have happened on US 224.
I was in Syracuse on Friday, and a gas station had posted a message that they were #valleystrong.
Triton students wore green and gold to class last week.
Warsaw students and staff signed a huge banner to be delivered to Mentone Elementary.
I say all that with the purpose of doing two things: I want to relay this woman’s message to the people of the Valley Community, and I want to point out something about people – specifically people in small towns.
Let’s start with the latter.
Most of you know that I grew up in Argos, which at the time (I graduated in 1986) was a high school of around 200 students in a town of 1,500. No McDonald’s then, a pizza place that rotated owners but always made pizza that tasted the same as before (which was good by the way) and a grocery store with a meat counter and a man behind it who knew your name and how you liked your ham prepared.
And in Argos, you have neighbors who care.
Sure, living in cities and bigger towns appeals to a lot of people for obvious reasons. Brighter lights, bigger paydays, more opportunities and more things to do.
But when times get tough, there is no better place to be than in a small community.
No matter what the situation, we pitch in and get done what needs to be done. Unfortunately, there are some things we can’t ‘fix.’ But we can, and do, hold the hands of those who are hurting. We find money to put into a bucket or a bowl, or we make our way to chicken suppers and spaghetti dinners, and now we visit “Go Fund Me” pages.
Farmers will plant another farmer’s fields, so he can focus on his chemotherapy treatments. Teachers will take personal days to visit their sick student in a hospital a hundred miles away. People donate coats and cans of food and whatever else anyone might need without having ever met them or expecting anything in return … other than the peace of mind that they could expect the same thing to happen for them if they needed it.
In small towns, school colors don’t matter when the chips get shoved to the middle of the table. Forest green looks more like kelly green, and you can’t tell the difference between yellow at Triton and Valley.
I am sure you’re as frustrated as I am with political ads and the general sense of discourse in America today. But when you are certain that our country has gone beyond all chance of a return to civility, spend a little time in a small town – towns like Bourbon and Etna Green, or North Webster and Milford, or Akron and Mentone. You will come to understand the difference.
And people in places like Ossian and Uniondale and Markle want you to know that they are with you, Tippecanoe Valley. They hurt with you and they stand with you.
