CHAPTER FIVE
Tornado Devastates Limon, Colorado

It will be hard to forget the first time I went out with the old Food For Life van to feed the homeless in front of a Catholic shelter—about five miles from the Denver temple. Three of us were crouched over in the back, trying to keep warm against a cold rain. In fact, the rain was being blown sideways through the doors, getting us all wet.

Regardless of the weather, as I would soon discover, the line of social outcasts that stood waiting for our hot prasadam never failed to appear. My first trip out proved this. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience. This was especially emphasized when one of the more intoxicated men fell forward on top of me, spilling everything as we collided.

Knowing that there had to be a better way, I bought a 1963 Ford stepvan and converted it into a mobile kitchen. One of my complaints against the old maroon van was how its only Food For Life sign was facing away from traffic as we handed out our meals. Sad but true, I think our overall appearance looked more like a drug deal going down, rather than the Hare Krishnas feeding the homeless.

Our new stepvan certainly took care of that problem. Its brightly painted Food For Life signs were highly visible on three sides and we even played the beautiful maha-mantra over an outside speaker. Everyone loved our music. Once I started going out in our new kitchen, we could all detect a much friendlier response from the passing cars.

It was during my early involvement with Food For Life that the tornado I mentioned struck. I first heard about it on the news but really didn’t make much of an effort to help. Then I listened to a live interview with this one fellow who just dropped everything, rented a truck, got a bunch of supplies together, and was out there feeding everyone.

This was quite inspiring so I decided to load up some watermelons and cold tea and drive to Limon, myself. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that this was by far the biggest story to hit Denver since I had been there.

Eventually, as I got close to the area damaged by the tornado, I was stopped by a roadblock. A highway patrol officer motioned me to pull over.