How about some good news, for a change? Dateline: Balltown, Iowa. Last Christmas, the landmark local restaurant, Breitbach's Country Dining, blew to smithereens in an explosion that appears to have been accidental. The place had been there serving farmers breakfast since before the Civil War. The current owner, Mike Breitbach, thought this might be the end of the road.
And then his neighbors showed up. He has a lot of neighbors:
Then the volunteers began showing up. They poured the concrete foundation, hoisted the roof and built all the furniture by hand (For the first time in 156 years, Breitbach's will have matching chairs.)Children carried buckets of nails. Amish carpenters carpooled 40 miles to frame the walls. Those too old for physical labor baked pies.
Thanks to the volunteers, Breitbach's Country Dining will reopen Saturday, four months ahead of schedule.
"I've been inspecting buildings for 39 years, and I've never seen a building this big go up so fast," said an Iowa state health inspector, Dean Siems, 59, "Without all of these volunteers, they never could have done it."
Mr. Breitbach said simply, "This kind of thing don't happen no more nowhere."
The rebuilding was not only an expression of support for a local landmark and its owner, but also for the ethos of hard work and communal effort that some residents feared was being lost to the steady tugs of television, the Internet and jobs in big cities.
"I never realized this place had so many friends," said Mikey Breitbach, 19, Mike's son who works in the restaurant. "This fire jolted us back into a community again."
At 5 feet 3 with a shiny bald head and more energy than a high school football team, Mr. Breitbach is not your ordinary businessman. Seven or eight of his customers have keys to the restaurant. The first person to arrive in the morning opens the doors and starts the coffee.
One early-morning regular, Jerry Sahm, spent two weeks in the hospital last winter. While he was away, Mr. Breitbach and his sons shoveled Mr. Sahm's driveway every day. "That's why so many people came to help," said Mr. Sahm, 64. "They feel like they are just paying Mike back."
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I'm sure you're right about that, Brierrabbit. Here's a post I put up last year about how my hometown responded when my brother-in-law got his deployment orders to Iraq. They've all been as good as their word.
I grew in a house my father and his neighbors built in the Hill Country of Texas, and when I faced a financial castastrophe 50 years later, some businessmen in slick suits and fancy cars in Marina del Rey saved my....solvency when they absolutely had nothing to gain from doing it. So kindness shows up in all kinds of places. Thanks, Crunchy Con, for reminding us of it.
In the Times' extended article, the reporter wrote:
"Some people who volunteered did so because they feared that without the restaurant, their town, a cluster of 22 houses and the [local church], might surrender its long war against the Iowa wind and blow away."
Doers of the word give meaning and expression.
This just goes to prove, once again, the wisdom of Marge Simpson: "Ooh, the Amish are so industrious, not like those shiftless Mennonites…"
A few years ago, I was hospitalized and then put on what I ultimately started calling "bed arrest" for a month. My husband is disabled, so my congregation surrounded me with visits, food, household help, and prayers. It was great.
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