I wouldn't call M.T. "personable." He's gruff and rather forbidding looking. He converses in bursts separated by silences that are long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I think he likes to have visitors. He mentions all the press coverage he has gotten and from all of the top papers in the country.
After our visit in 2004, I sent M.T. two coffee mugs to add to his "World's Largest" collection.
He was genuinely distressed that he couldn't find where he had hung
them. He looked through the rooms of his workshop for ten or
fifteen minutes.
He asked me where I was heading and when he heard Greensburg, he said:
"Those guys are so stupid! I told them, 'Leave it the way it is!' You want tourists? Leave it the way it is -- people would come to see a town destroyed by a tornado. That's something people want to see. Instead they built all this green shit over there!"
I had no idea what he was talking about until I got to Greensburg.
