In Heartland, a Small Town Tries ‘to Press On’

They thought, of course, of the dead, of the dying, of the grieving. Images would flash through their minds: The plane slicing through the World Trade Center tower. The bodies hurtling. The fire. The smoke.

But this is a small town in the heartland, many miles and many mind-sets from New York. It was gorgeous outside Wednesday, sunny and warm. Terror seemed far removed. And life does have a way of going on. So practical concerns, personal concerns, kept nudging out the horror:

Is it safe to go to the baseball game this weekend? How long can this stock market slump last? Can you believe how bad my hair looks?

The barbershop played country music, not news. Professors at Westminster College resumed their lectures. People went about their business, did their errands, did their work--no longer glued to the television. They were drained. Wrung out. They sought relief in the routine.

“You have to press on,” said James Marshall, a college freshman, shrugging as he settled in the student lounge to take notes on a political science text. The TV behind him was tuned to CNN. Nobody was watching. Students instead were eating burgers, shooting pool, reading, talking, laughing. “You can’t stop doing the normal things of everyday life,” Marshall said.

This quiet, rural town in the center of America was the backdrop for Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech 55 years ago. Accepting an honorary degree at Westminster College at the end of World War II, Churchill spoke of “these anxious and baffling times,” of “this sad and breathless moment.” He spoke of a new era of fear and tyranny. He warned of perils ahead.

Those words seemed to resonate here Wednesday. But only in the background. The construction workers were out hammering. The gardeners were out trimming. The insurance agents were working in a briskly quiet office: Just the tap of computer keys and the shuffle of paper. No news bulletins from Manhattan. There was work to be done. Folks here did it.

That was only practical.

It was also a statement of sorts: Evil cannot shake us off course.

“The world still spins the same way,” said Robert Fleming, 40, a barber giving a toddler one last summer buzz cut.

“You don’t forget what happened, but you try to go on,” added Fletcher M. Lamkin, president of Westminster. “It’s painful, though,” he said. “It’s so painful.”

For some in this town of 10,000--a graceful place with cobblestone streets and old brick buildings--turning away from the news seemed the only way to cope. Susan McCormack, a reference specialist at the state historical society, went out to dinner with two friends to celebrate her 31st birthday. There were two TVs in the bar tuned to CNN, albeit with the sound off. McCormack and her friends sat instead under a third television tuned to ESPN. They had seen too much of “America under attack,” they said. They wanted to get back to real life, if that were possible.

“On the news, they keep running the same sound bites of the people who are the most emotional, asking [them]: ‘Where were you, what do you feel,’ when it’s obvious what they must feel,” McCormack said.

Her friend Anita Ford put down her burger and added: “There’s only so much you can keep in your head, because it’s just so horrifying.”

At a table outside, 13-year-old Jordyn Boland said she too was haunted by the images of terror. She saw them in school Tuesday. The TV was on in every class. In most, they did nothing but watch. Math and spelling and gym were back as usual Wednesday, but the routines did not reassure Jordyn. Not completely. “We just hope they [the terrorists] don’t come back,” she said.

As in towns across America, there was a prayer vigil here Tuesday and another one Wednesday night. And there were a few easy-to-spot reactions to the terrorist attacks: Gas prices jumped. American flags were pulled from storage. Some students wore Army or Navy shirts--in solidarity, they said, with a nation now at war.

Most of the reaction, however, was more subtle, more personal, slipped in among the everyday.

Edna Moss, for instance, spent her spare moments trying to account for all the wrongs she had done in her 41 years. Then, she vowed, she would go about setting them right.

She called her mother in Arkansas to say, “I love you.” She apologized to people she had somehow miffed. She even promised herself she would sign up for adult education classes and get that diploma she had wanted since dropping out of high school decades ago.

“This just changed the way you look at life,” she explained. “You realize you never know what’s going to happen next.”

She was flipping burgers for students in the Westminster cafeteria. She was thinking about those planes. She toasted bread. She plopped the fries in oil. She was back to work as usual. But she would never be the same.