Hello Mayberry friends, Things are looking brighter in Joplin. Hundreds of big dump trucks have been hauling away rubble, mostly from the business districts for now. It will be a very long cleanup process, probably a year or more, but definite progress has already been made. Electrical crews have been working around the clock, and new poles and power lines have been installed throughout the tornado zone, so the street lights and traffic lights are working now, even though the damaged houses are still without utilities. Local churches and charity groups continue to provide help to anyone in need, in the form of groceries, toiletries, yard work, medical needs, taxi service, day care, and just about everything else.
Several schools including the high school were destroyed, but the school district has come up with plans to temporarily hold classes in many various places all around town, including a large store at the local mall which has been vacant for a number of years. I think the plan is for the kids to have lunch at the mall's food court every day. I mentioned shortly after the storm that I was planning to sell off the greater part of what's left of my Mayberry collection in order to raise funds to help other tornado victims. I do still plan to do this, but right now most everything is still packed away in boxes and not easy to get to. I will probably put some of the items on eBay, and the fine folks at TAGSRWC headquarters in Nashville have also offered to help sell some of the items through Weaver's and/or the eBullet. More news on this later. For starters, I have a matched, undamaged pair of the Andy and Barney bobble-head (nodder) statues, if anyone might be interested in those. As I recall they date from the mid-1990s. I figure they're worth at least $100 apiece, but I could be off. I have not heard of a pair of these being offered for sale for many years now. I will send pics to anybody upon request. Cindee and I have decided that rebuilding on our existing lot would take far too long, what with every building crew completely booked solid right now (except maybe for Goldbrick Wheeler), so we opted to just buy a new house -- new to us, anyway -- instead. We've signed a contract on a great house in the northern part of Joplin, where there was no storm damage. Remember that scene in "Andy Forecloses" where Mrs. Scoby breaks down when mean old Sheriff Taylor tells her that her grandmother's old cupboard is no longer her property, because it is attached to the structure? I was reminded of that scene after reading all of the fine print in the contract. It seems that one of the TAGS writers must have once had a contract similar to this one, because according to our contract anything affixed to the house (curtain rods, mirrors, window blinds, rugs, BBQ grills etc.) "stays right where it is." 10-4, Paul Mulik _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
