I remember riding down Banford Road two days after the twisters. The heat was blistering as Gary Cosby and I rode in the back of a volunteer fire department pickup through the destruction zone. I was still working as a reporter then. At the end of Banford Road, we saw a lone woman sitting on an Igloo cooler. To her left, vehicles were piled as high as the crumbling remains of a home. She must of been a neighbor to the Harbins. No home on that road was unscathed.
Nearly 9 months later, the community gathered for a groundbreaking for the Harbins new home that is being built through Habitat for Humanity and United Way. Students from Notre Dame were in town to help get the home started. Other new homes have been built in the area, but the landscape still looks scarred by Mother Nature.
United Way Director Kaye McFarlan said "hands in pockets and hands on the ground" are giving the Harbins their new home. The couple fought tears as Kaye talked of them having their first supper in their new house. How easy it is for us to take for granted those simple things, like supper at our dining room table, the view of the backyard from a kitchen window or crayon scribbles left behind on walls by young hands.
Those at the groundbreaking took time to be thankful for the simple things, thankful for a caring community and thankful to be Lovin' in it Limestone.
