Aug. 27--MILLBURY, Ohio -- Thursday morning, 13-year-old Byron Swartz grabbed his backpack, got in the car with his dad, and made the trip to Lake Middle School in Millbury for his first day of eighth grade.
He met his new teachers, chatted with friends, and walked the familiar corridors of his hometown school.
It felt good to be back.
"It's nice getting back into a routine," Byron said. "I thought I was going to have a pretty hard time, with the circumstances and everything, but it's been pretty easy."
After a summer filled with drama and upheaval, routine is what Byron craves. The middle school student and his parents -- Scott and Beth Swartz -- were among dozens of people who lost their homes when a tornado swept through Lake Township and the surrounding area on June 5.
Since then, the Swartz family has moved three times, grappled with replacing a lifetime's worth of possessions, and spent countless days and hours coordinating construction of a house on the site of their old home in Millbury. At the same time, the Swartzes have wrestled with the loss of their neighbors and close friends, Mary and Ryan Walters, who perished in the storm with their 4-year-old son, Hayden.
Much to Byron's relief, neither his friends nor his teachers made reference to his summertime ordeal. Allusions to the tornado in general were few and fleeting, he said.
"That's good," Byron said, maintaining a casual expression as he finished up his lunch in the school gym. "I don't like to ask for sympathy."
In many ways, Thursday was a school day like any other: Byron began with study hall, followed by home economics, math -- his favorite subject -- and art class. At lunch hour, he dug into a Subway sandwich, the usual meal on the first day of school, he said.
As the students ate, Principal Lee Herman went over the specifics of the school dress code -- no holes, no short shorts, no sleeveless shirts -- and reminded them to clean up after their midday meal. If anyone chose not to comply, "you can join me for lunch in my office," the principal said.
But behind the veil of normalcy, evidence of tornado-caused chaos remained.
At lunch, students gathered on the bleachers in the middle school gym instead of eating in the high school cafeteria. They wrote down their lunch choices on scraps of paper rather than keying them into a computer system, which was lost in the storm.
Next door, the smashed-out shell of Lake High School offered a grim reminder of the damage.
"Seeing that there is a little awkward, a little different," Byron said.
Because of the high school's temporary move to the grounds of Owens Community College, the middle school starts and finishes later to accommodate changes in the bus schedule. That means Byron begins school about half an hour later than before, and must wait around for class after his father drops him off on the way to work.
He also gets the bus back to his grandmother's house in Lake Township, instead of going home to Millbury as before.
"It's not the same bus, not the same place to get dropped off. It's just not the same situation," he said.
Although the middle school was spared major damage, the roof needed patching, many windows were broken, and the doors to the back entrance were sucked out, Mr. Herman said. Some work to the roof remains.
Mr. Herman, who is also the high school principal, said he and other teachers are trying not to make a big deal of the tornado. He said he brought it up briefly during a talk with high school students Thursday morning, but he did not spend long on the subject.
"We didn't want to dwell on it," Mr. Herman said. "They've already been living it the last two months."
At least three middle school students lost their homes and many others experienced damage to their homes.
School counselor Lennie Zunk said counselors have been working with some of the affected students over the summer, so he wasn't too concerned about their first day back at school. He didn't rule out possible problems down the road, though.
"So far, so good," Mr. Zunk said. "The first time we get a set of storms that go through, I'm sure we'll have some anxious kids."
Byron could be among those children. He's developed a fear of storms, and goes online to check the weather report whenever it rains. He's especially worried about bad weather occurring while he's at school.
"I'm still terrified. If I don't know what's going on with the weather...." he trailed off. "It's just knowing there's no basement here. I mean, the basement's what saved our lives last time. It gives you that feeling of, 'What if?'-- "
For now though, Byron said school gives him a reason to be hopeful as he and his family wait for their new house to be finished in November.
"That's the best part about school coming," Byron said. "It means we're one step closer to the house being done."
Contact Claudia Boyd-Barrett at:
cbarrett@theblade.com
or 419-724-6272.
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