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Monday / overwriting / video — Comments Off
15
Apr 13

“We’ve had an attack”

I was in the car when my phone buzzed. I had a few minutes in the office to read some of the early summaries, sketchy things that were trying to make sense of the senseless.

We took about a half hour and talked about this in class — How would you feel? How would you cover it? What is the public relations approach just now? — and so on.

At the end of class, and after a brief conversation here and a meeting there, the folks in Boston had more to go on, more to share with us.

I don’t know what you see in this video …

… but I see the best of humanity running to the sound of danger, running into the worst of settings, death and the unknown. Police officers, fire, EMTs, civilians and troopers in full utilities destroying a barricade that was intended to keep people safe, but was now preventing the safe care of people.

The smoke hadn’t cleared, all of the glass hadn’t fallen, but people rushed in, did their jobs, did beyond their jobs and maybe helped preserve the world of many others just a little bit, like Carlos Arredondo, who became a peace activist after losing his son in Iraq, who perhaps saved a life today.

You don’t see it in this video, because it focuses on that scene at the blast site, but you can envision the race’s health tent, which turned into trauma triage. And you don’t see, but you can’t not see in your mind’s eye, the marathoners who just never stopped running and went straight to a nearby hospital to donate blood.

And may those things never cease to move you.

At its center the random variables are too chaotic to understand or to interpret in any way beyond divine providence or the absurd. Beyond the spectators, and among the runners, there were many there from Alabama. This is the most comprehensive list of Alabama runners in the marathon. There was a Samford student and her father, who had just finished the race moments before. So far I’ve not found a report of any of them being hurt.

Today could all change some things domestically, I’m afraid. But one thing is certain: the honor and strength and courage of those who rushed to the sound of danger.

Auburn / baseball / cycling / Friday / Samford / video — Comments Off
5
Apr 13

“Even though we’re presidents, can we still hug?”

Late in the day, just before the sun gives way to dusk. My shoulder has been bothering me a bit this week, and so I found the opportunity to treat it with the foam roller, where you take a hard piece of cylindrical as big as a small melon and roll it between your body and the floor, using your mass as the therapeutic engine. (Even though doing so with shoulders can be tricky, because you are not, under pain of all holistic devices, supposed to use the foam roller on bone. And your shoulder has lots of those.)

Allie grew indignant. Because I was in her sun. So I scooted over two feet.

So everything here is fine this lovely day.

I spent the day reading news and students’ work and grading things and writing stuff. I got in a little time on the bicycle, too, feeling like I was going nowhere fast until I would glance down at my computer and see that I was pulling off a remarkable (for me) pace. I have many questions I need to ask of someone who knows things about bikes and gears and pace.

We listened to the Auburn baseball game — they beat somebody! — over the app on my phone. I pretended like it was an AM feed, and that there was constant bleed from nearby stations. In my mind it was a gospel station, a bit of sermon, a bit of choir, mixed with a station blaring Jerry Lee Lewis and the occasional crackle of someone broadcasting farm reports.

Pretty sure I’m the only 30-something in the 21st century imagining things like that.

Anyway, Auburn downed Texas A&M 6-4 in 10 innings. All of the things that have happened to that team didn’t happen tonight. All of the things they’ve been waiting for finally showed up. On the season they are stranding eight runners a game and have lost four by two runs or less, plating people being the big problem so far this year. No wonder teams say they take it one game at a time. You’d go mad trying to find reason in the aggregate.

But, tonight, they are 18-12, 2-8, and could win a conference series on a Saturday.

One of my students shared this, President Obama meeting Kid President. It is a great tour of the Oval Office, and a nice moment all politics aside. Boy meets hero! Hero shares time and message! Everyone is thrilled!

Also, there’s the Emancipation Proclamation, just hanging on the wall. Remarkable.