Terrorists, You’d Better Stick with Big Cities

This past week I’ve seen two really good examples of why I live in Southwest Oklahoma while I don’t think Southwest Oklahoma has a corner on this market maybe its just small town America in general but I like it. The first example was the refuge fire that started near Meers and moved around the mountains and headed for Indiahoma. The original command center was at the Meers fire department and by the end of the Labor Day weekend the command center was moved to the Indiahoma School. Having already seen first hand the destructive power of this fire I made my way out there Monday evening like I usually do when there is an incident, to check in with the civil defense director just to make sure that the state resources were where they need to be, because if I don’t and they’re not, I get the call. As I arrived at the Indiahoma School it was a flurry of activity, firefighters coming and going FFA kids carrying ice chests and water jugs and when you walked in the door you noticed the piles and piles of food, sandwiches, chips, homemade pies, Gatorade, water by the pallet load and enough help to float a battleship. Nobody looking for credit just pulling together as a community to make sure no firefighters were hungry or not well cared for. After all, the town of Indiahoma has a volunteer fire department and they “get it.” These guys are not getting paid, many of them are missing work or at the very least their Labor Day weekend to come to the driest corner of the state, the epicenter of the drought to fight a very dangerous wildfire. There is no way that a town like Indiahoma is not gonna’ show their gratitude to these guys and that’s how it should be. The funny part is, and I hate to use the term funny because it really might not have been, but the FFA moms kind of got sideways with the Red Cross. Now before you start saying that Armes was bad mouthing the Red Cross, as my daughter used to say “you better check yourself before you wreck yourself” my mother was and still is a Red Cross nurse and I’ve been given strict instructions on what is to happen to her Red Cross pin upon her death. It is a wonderful organization that does good things in times of disaster but there was no way that the Red Cross lady was any way, shape or form ready for the Indiahoma FFA moms. Those FFA moms are used to putting on feeds and having fund raisers and all that and really, in essence I’m not sure they needed the Red Cross. The Red Cross is good at helping in times of disaster but they don’t have the man power and in this instance the Indiahoma FFA provided the man power. Actually there was quite a little rub between the two. The Red Cross has guidelines on how to take care of the situation and how to get resources to the right place. The Indiahoma FFA moms DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ GUIDELINES, their guideline is “git-r-done.” And they did, they “got-r-done” and in good order I might add. One of the funniest incidents and I know you want me to name names and I’m not going to, was when a couple of five gallon igloo water jugs showed up from a local retailer out of Lawton. Team mom immediately grabbed the jugs and started filling them with water and ice. The lady from team Red Cross said “wait, wait, don’t do that” team mom says “what do you mean?” Team Red Cross says “those are supposed to go to the fire fighters” team moms flippant response back to the Red Cross was “well, don’t you think they want something in them?” The reason I use this illustration is not only to brag on the town of Indiahoma for their rapid response to a very real need but just to try to show how well a small town pulls together at a moments notice to get a job done or to help defend against a natural disaster, in this case fire. As I said in last weeks column a lot of people deserve lots of credit for a lot of things. This was the kind of fire we only read about and we had one here and lots of people helped at every level.

The second illustration that I saw this week was the cohesiveness of a small community when the town of Chattanooga rallied around the family of their police chief Tommy Reed who died last week in a motorcycle accident. I knew Tommy fairly well and he was a really, really good man. In fact he’d been the police chief for over 25 years and in that length of time he’d raised an entire community from the knot head stage to adulthood. Tommy loved his community and as the law of the town he was an authority figure to a couple of generations of kids. Tommy, I think ,in his mild mannered way as story after story were told at his funeral, sort of lovingly jerked a knot in the tail of many a young person growing up in Chattanooga that might’ve had a lead foot or some other ailment of youth and I guess in essence he kind a’ raised the whole town. As the residents of Chattanooga can attest, Tommy watched over that tight knit community not like an employee but like a father. After all, he was no outsider, it was his community too. He was always trying to help by working on peoples’ vehicles and never charging enough, he drove the afternoon school bus and just sort of cobbled together a living so that he could remain in the hometown that he loved. Tommy was a good one and he loved Chattanooga and Chattanooga loved him and it was very evident as the whole community surrounded his family with love and support at his passing.

Yeah, I think if I were a terrorist I’d probably steer clear of the small towns because in our community when you take on one you take on the whole bunch.

If you would like to contact me while I am at the Capitol, please do not hesitate to call 1-800-522-8502 or send an email to donarmes@okhouse.gov

And here’s a little something to think about as you go down the road:
Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable. ~Kenyan Proverb