Tragedy Again

(February 2, 2003)

At Carroll High School in Dayton, Ohio the band room was set far off from the main building, towards the back end of the gym, and if you were coming from, say, the men's locker room, you would have to traverse completely around the gym and down a long, separate corridor to get there. And that's where I was headed, having just finished Coach Sporel's phys ed class (which was much more akin to basic training than high school phys ed). Now, I don't want you to get the wrong impression - I was NOT going to the band room because I was in the band - please.

I was in Chorus class.

And I was a freshman. A Frosh. A newbie. And I was late. So as I quickly half-walked, half-jogged down the corridor, trying not to start sweating again. I pushed open the door just after the bell rang to see my fellow singers staring at the TV above the door (and thereby, my head) in shock and dismay. "What?" I casually inquired, but the chorus teacher (who was also the band director - but I was not in the band) only motioned me to sit down and look up. On the screen I could see two curving trails of smoke against a beautiful clear blue backdrop. It took another couple seconds of watching and listening to discover what I was seeing.

The space shuttle Challenger had exploded just after lift-off. January 28, 1986.

Flash-forward to a warm, summer Saturday morning at our Newnan home, slept in late, woke up and moved to the couch for a little TV, and for some reason every station was showing the same picture of the ocean (you know it's bad when all the TV stations are showing the same thing). Boats were floating around, and then they changed to a shot of a map, with a little plane on it, traveling with a red line behind it to indicate the route, Indiana Jones style. The line abruptly ended over the Atlantic Ocean, where John Kennedy Jr.'s real plane lost contact.

He had crashed, with his wife and his sister-in-law, killing all three. July 16, 1999.

Flash-forward to a more recent fall work day at Newnan Utilities. I was running back and forth between the Network Operations Center (we call it 'the wall') and the tech support area, no doubt heavily involved in some problem or another having to do with the network. As I stuck my head in the System Engineer's office, I noticed that his eyes were glued to the TV set in the corner. Following his glance I noticed on the screen a live video feed from New York City.

One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire. September 11th, 2001.

This past Saturday, a cool Saturday morning at home, slept in late, woke up to the sound of the phone ringing. My wife's mother told her to turn on the TV. We moved to the couch, and for some reason every station was showing the same picture of the sky (you know it's bad when all the TV stations are showing the same thing). One white trail of smoke in the sky became two, then four, then five trails.

The space shuttle Columbia had broken up into pieces over Texas on her way to land in Florida. February 1st, 2003

No doubt you have your own personal recollections of where you were, what you were doing during these events. There are more. National tragedies, brought to us in living color with up-to-the-minute reports, catchy segment titles and flashy graphics by CNN, FOX and MSNBC. So what can you say? What is there to say? Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and victims' families of this latest disaster? Of course they do. But may our hearts and prayers also go out to our nation, our world, and our society, as we keep bouncing back and coming back for more like the proverbial punching clown. Sometimes I wonder just how much more we can actually take, until I remember that the whole of our collective consciousness is more than the sum of the individuals of whom it is comprised (and thank God it is, when some of those individuals would attempt to profit from this grave misfortune by snatching up and listing on Ebay the shuttle debris!). So we will mourn the loss of Columbia and her crew, as we mourned the loss of the twin towers and their occupants before her. And we will gather together, and we will bounce back, just like we always do…

ready for the next time.