Yes; Here I am again, with another blog for all of you. I have no clue how many readers I ever get, or how many of you ever read any of them, let alone all of them... However, keeping-up with the comments left on all of them (which I do my human best with) shows me that even those of you who have pretended to my face to care about me for my entire life, right on down to those of you who've only known me since I was 18 (if that long) &, despite lack of a criminal record, continue to decide I don't deserve to be treated like a human, let alone an adult... Anyway, seems you love these blogs, as it gives you a chance to comment. (Sorry; I passed Latin in high school, but was unaware :"comment" was from the older-language word-origin for "rip the author to shreds like you were running a cheese-grater on his face".)
Sorry; That was there for all of you to see, but actually directed at the vast minority of you. (No need to name them, or write further things I considered posting that would've been rather personal; They know who they are.) Instead, let me get past that, & refer to what this blog is meant to be about... Let me mention what happened on September 11th.
Now, I'm not going to mention what happened on September 11th some 13 years ago; Yes, I was alive, & very-much recall it. However, if you don't, odds are you're trying not to, or you're too young to know. (In that case, I will treat you like my nephews, who have never heard a word on a list of them my sister instructed me not to use around "my kids".) I'm referring to what happened on the 11th of this month this year.
I woke up relatively-early. (I had no appointments, but I had some things I wanted to accomplish over much of last week.) The show I started watching first bored me, but being my father's son (which may mean nothing to anyone in 49 states), I turned-on "Mike & Mike" on one of the ESPN channels. They were both there, as was a third man I thought might have been one of the channel's "NFL analysts". Therefore, I was all set to hear them talk about the upcoming/recently-passed Steelers-Ravens game.
Instead, however, the camera did a close-up on "Greenie" (what Golic often calls Greenberg). As I alluded to earlier in this blog, I literally grew up around sporting venues, so I was prepared to hear him talk about any sport (even some we don't play in the States). Instead, he went into a long, spoken piece about the events of that day over a dozen years ago.
Needless to say, this upset me. I now don't care to relive any of the Ravens-Steelers game, & would bet any fellow Steelers fan would agree. I also don't care to relive much of the year 2001 (the year I graduated high school & was diagnosed Diabetic, & some connection to Kubrick that I've never read/heard/seen), & I feel safe to bet nobody would disagree with me on that one, especially when it comes to that specific day.
It got to the point that the camera went wide again, showing all 3 men. I recalled the old movie “Airheads”, most of which happens in a radio station while the DJ is on the air, & kept waiting for someone to enter the room or speak into his headset, telling Mike G. nobody was in the mood to talk-or-hear about this… I won’t say it never happened, but I will say that if it did, I never saw it.
Instead, I sat there, jaw literally dropped, wondering why Greenberg (who I’ve honestly felt was the smarter of the 2) would decide to talk about that for as long as he did, continuing to make that choice each time he paused. I furthermore wondered why everyone in/on that staff would choose to allow him. (Dad’s done a lot on radio & TV, so I know they have “powers that be” telling them if-&-when they can/can’t say things.)
Finally, I mentally corrected myself… I’m not aware of anyone I knew through “Six Degrees Of” anyone or anything that was killed or even hurt that day. But what if I had been?! What if I was related to the guy once famous for his “Let’s roll” line that I once saw plastered on hats after that day? Wouldn’t I want to know that he wasn’t forgotten since then? For every bit what the ESPN guy said upset me, it may have made someone in his family feel better.
Eventually deciding I didn’t want to think about that day, or even anything connected to it (again using the famous “Six Degrees…” bit), I thought about something else, something I think about a ton: “When is the next one?” I don’t have a clue when the next strike by a terrorist “cell” or anything is (nor do I want to), & I know my next doctor’s appointment isn’t for another two weeks (even if you’re counting it as Monday now, it’s 2 weeks from tomorrow).
But I wasn’t thinking about either of those; I wondered when the next big, national anniversary is.
I remember 1996 or 1997, I was a Freshman in high school. Columbus Day was approaching, & we were all in “Homeroom”. My Homeroom teacher was a great guy named Mr. Andrews. He was never my Science teacher, but he had taught my best friend & my sister. That day, he taught me something my alma mater may not want you to know about: We were (at the time) supposed to get a day off each for Columbus Day & the upcoming “Teacher In-Service”, but the school District was being sneaky & giving us “1 as 2”…
Anyway, I tried to remember when the next big holiday is. I thought of a bunch of them in no special order, but it made me think of something else. (I keep wishing my neuro- guys could tell me why/how my brain does things like this.) Non-specific, I know we have some holidays we celebrate on a famous person’s birthday. Others, we celebrate on the day they died, or the day they made their first big contribution to “the world at large”. Others, we celebrate/remember the day they died. (In the words of Billy Joel, “JFK. Blown away…”.) Then there’s those 2 Presidents in February, neither of whom get their own individual day, & the day they share is within 2 weeks of a day set aside for groundhogs!!! [If you ask me, that’s just not ferret!! :)]
Briefly mentioning the people/stuff I wrote about at the start of this (about the things others wrote at the end of the last one), I’ve written it a million times, & said it to the other 3 members of my oft-referred-to “family of 4”: You’ll find no bigger defender of one’s right to their opinion than me. The only requirements I have are you have to admit that’s all it is, & return the favor by giving me the same rights/freedoms.
With that, I’m off until if/when I feel like writing again… Remember, on- or offline, I have the (“right”? or “freedom”? Call it both) to be silent any time I want.
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