Home Field Advantage

By Ed Thomas, Parkersburg, Iowa

To me, there’s not a patch of God’s earth more beautiful than a high school football field. And the one here in Parkersburg, the small Iowa farm town where I live, is the loveliest of all.

Sometimes on summer mornings I park my pickup on the hill overlooking our field and just sit for a while gazing out the window at the thick green grass, the bright limed lines, the bleachers that on Friday nights in the fall fill with fans cheering on our Falcons.

I admit, I’m a little biased about our field. After all, I’ve been coaching football and teaching history and economics at Aplington-Parkersburg High for 33 years.

But it means almost as much to the other 1,900 people who call Parkersburg home. Our football field is like our town square, the place where we connect with each other and with something greater than ourselves. It’s kind of like church that way. There’s a reason folks have nicknamed the field “The Sacred Acre.”

After church one Sunday last May, I bypassed the field to drop by my classroom. Yes, Sunday. The school, three blocks from my house, is like my second home. “Not 'like,'” my wife, Jan, says. “It is your second home.”

I’m one of those coaches who believes it’s my responsibility to be there for my players—my students—any way I can. One of my returning seniors had asked for the key to the weight room so he could get a head start on his summer training program.

I opened my desk drawer to get the key, thinking what a hardworking young man he was. He epitomized the all-for-one, one-for-all spirit of our team. That’s when the town’s emergency siren went off.

Anyone who’s lived in rural Iowa for any length of time has heard the wail of a town siren. Here in Tornado Alley, it’s the soundtrack of our summers—our early warning system for an approaching twister. I’d heard that sound often enough that it no longer alarmed me. No tornado had ever struck Parkersburg as long as I’d lived here.

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Still, I stuck the key in my pocket and headed home. Jan was an EMT and took these things seriously. “Hi, honey,” I called as I walked in the house.

“I’m in the basement,” she yelled. “Get down here right now!” Years ago we’d built a basement—our safe room in case of a tornado. It wasn’t much, just a cubbyhole dug out beneath the stairs. I went down.

Jan had carried in bottled water and some pillows. “Do you think we’ll need those?” I asked. Before she could answer the wind picked up big time, like a freight train rushing toward us. The house shook. Then came a tremendous roar, like nothing I’d ever heard. The air felt charged.

We crawled under the steps and pulled the pillows over our heads. I took Jan’s hand and held it tight. “Lord, have mercy,” we prayed. “Protect us from harm.”

The roar lasted probably less than a minute, though it seemed forever. Then it was quiet again, eerily quiet. I crawled out and climbed the stairs, stood at the top and looked all around me, turning in a complete circle. In the cloudless sky, the sun was shining, strangely bright.

“Jan, our house…” I said. “It’s gone.” One bedroom wall was partly standing. The kitchen wall sagged against the car in the garage. The rest had collapsed or blown away. It was like a bomb had fallen on our house.

We’d lived there three decades, raised our two sons, planted deep roots. Virtually all we owned was in shambles. Jan climbed the stairs and looked around. She threw her arms around me, took a deep breath. “We can rebuild,” she said.

“We will,” I agreed. “Right here.”