I hope you all will be wiling to indulge me a bit with a serious post here. It qualifies as drama without HW, and frankly I wasn't sure where else to put it, so here it is. I find myself in a deeply reflective place this weekend and especially today. It is long, so if you're not interested, of course please do feel free to pass it by.
What with Easter and Passover this weekend, and several other very significant events that happened on April 19 and 20 in the past (aside from the 420 movement/meme), I am very aware of the themes of life, death, and rebirth.
A few of these are the Waco massacre and the Oklahoma City bombings on the 19th (different years), and the deepwater horizon rig explosion, Hitler's birthday, and the school massacre at Columbine all on the 20th (different years).
It is this last one that is most on my mind today, the 20th anniversary of the horrible mass shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. As it happens, exactly 20 years ago today, the host of a live nationwide TV show that I was a regular guest expert on called me on the phone and kept talking to me about what was appropriate to say while the Columbine events were happening live. I was not on the air, but I was in the background with the host and staff for much of the afternoon.
The next day, the day after Columbine I had been scheduled to do a live appearance with them discussing some personality/behavioral-related things in controversial trial going on at the time (I did this about every three weeks or so), and they asked me to come in early as they knew they'd also be talking about Columbine if there were any live press conferences during our time slot.
I did and there were. What I recall vividly from that day was the Sheriff (I think, maybe a higher official) holding a press conference which we cut to live... and he was answering questions about why the school safety officer did not enter the school to go after the shooters right when the first shots were fired. There had been a few school shootings prior to this but nothing on the scale of Columbine to that point. They called for a SWAT team, which took 45 minutes to get there iirc, and in the meantime many kids and some adults were being killed and wounded, with the two shooters having free reign all over the school, using bombs, flammable liquids, hand guns, and long guns. In fact they didn't actually enter the school till about three hours later, after the shooting had stopped for quite a while, again iirc. There were a lot of intense arguments on all sides about whether this was the best way to deal with the situation or not (creepy shades of Stoneman High in Parkland last year?).
The sheriff was saying that it was their standard protocol for school shootings, this was they way they normally would handle such a situation. My comment live on the air following the press conference was that I found it shocking and deeply upsetting that he was able to use the words "standard protocol" and "normal procedure" for such a horrifying event... that in fact this kind of mass killing was happening more and more that those words could even be put together in the same sentence. The host, whose show it was, agreed with me, and we had a short but profound discussion about how our society was changing, and not for the better, and that we really needed to do some deep introspection about how and why this was occurring.
I hadn't planned to say that, it was a spontaneous and heartfelt reaction to what I heard live as I was sitting there in the studio with the host talking live on the air again (this was a national show, btw). To my great surprise later that day, the network got more emails, faxes and phone calls (this was 1999, remember, email was not as upbiquitous as it is today) than they had gotten in any recent show because of that comment. A very few said I was naive, or responded negatively (of course, someone always will!), but the pile of responses were overwhelmingly positive and added comments of their own, indicating that I had touched a real nerve in the audience's hearts.
This clear memory popped up for me several times today as I went about my errands, etc. It was a beautiful day today where I live now and the contrast to my memories of 20 years ago felt very stark and very sad. I don't even have words to express how sad and distressed I feel that there have been so many more mass shootings since then, at schools and other public gatherings.
My prayers for this weekend, as so many people observe their various religious practices around the world (and including those who don't) is that somehow, some way, we find a way as human beings to begin to talk to each other again, heart to heart, and to find some way to begin to work together again to make this world a better place for everyone. If we don't remember we are all one species and have to get it together to stop destroying each other and the earth, there'll be nothing left for our children and our children's children, never mind for our own short-term futures.
In that spirit, I send you all my heartfelt wishes for a blessed and peaceful holiday weekend, regardless of how you are spending your time. May we all be uplifted somehow... and soon.
Thanks for reading and indulging me if you hung in there to get here.
