When We Had to Move Forward

As we converse about where were we when the attacks happened, we’ve also reflecting back to find out what have we discovered in these 3,652 days since.

It’s an exercise I’ve performed countless times in recent days; deciding if talking about it was worthwhile to give readers that connection to 9/11. Those of us who witnessed it will never forget it. And though truthfully, everyone but New York City forgot about February 26^th, 1993, what happened ten years ago today in NY, in the DMV area, in western Pennsylvania will be seared into our minds forever.

It’s unquestionably difficult to stomach all these remembrances, especially for those who watched from afar and witnessed other senseless tragedies in the last decade. Yet, because extremists on all sides of this war put truly innocent people in harm’s way for the world to see, we are here today to think back.

This field will never be forgotten.

There continues to be countless misfortunes in our daily existence that don’t need excitable words like ‘terrorism’, ‘extremist ideologue’ and ‘Michele Bachmann’. Turn on the news or check out your bookmarks and we’re reminded of the struggle to co-exist peacefully in the same neighborhood or workplace. Think about something equally, if not more devastating than 9/11; how ‘Katrina’ comes to mind as we are forced to HOPE that the federal government can respond in a timely manner to a natural disaster. Consider how frayed we have become because of The Great Recession That Isn’t Over, No Matter How Economists Define a Recession. Consider anything that reminds you about when you mourned the loss of someone or something that set a purpose in your life.

However, though we’re being somewhat forced to reflect on this day, we remember it because outside of New York – where it’s happened before – Americans never believed that an outside threat would successfully strike us again. The United States of America has never, ever, ever been innocent, despite the contrast some media members offer to their audience. Yet, it also hadn’t been this vulnerable since the Civil War created a geographical and cultural crevasse within the nation. Something else that it had never been; and not ever since, was so momentarily connected than it had been for those subsequent months after the attacks.

The thing about these ten years since is that as a society, we’ve become far more fractured than connected, despite the flattening of the world through our current technologies. The vitriol that has been spewed from all sides of the political spectrum has managed to create a larger and more apathetic middle that is raising a middle finger to the dissention. Many of you certainly agree with that, but in some ways, we unconsciously participate in the rage. The best of us keep such moments as mere blips or accidents, but too many embrace such venom – story manipulation, ‘truth-telling’, snark and sarcasm, shock humor – as an identity. 9/11 may not be THE culprit, but it was unquestionably the accelerant to this new ‘normal’ where we don’t know how to talk to each other without cynicism or outright hate in our hearts.

It’s easy to opine about "what we've learned" in these ten years since, but the truth is that outside of learning how to hate in more nuanced ways than ever, we’re still figuring it all out. After all, though society is a collective of individuals practicing accepted (and expected) behaviors for one another, we’re still individuals trying to navigate our own lives with as little pain as possible.

via the Pentagon Memorial

I can tell you about where I was when the attacks took place, but the only thing that can truly resonate in telling that story was the helplessness felt. Having already lost a parent three months prior – dad helped develop the modern Battery Park City that was born from the construction of the Twin Towers in the 60s and 70s – there was an incomprehensible emotion as several family members were either next door to the Towers or in the vicinity. Yet, there are many who have told their harrowing tales to give gravity to this day beyond what this college sophomore (at the time) away from home felt so long before.

What I can tell you is that every one of us had a role in moving forward. It wasn’t moving on or healing as society at large has become increasingly angry in the years since. We all had to take a step back and think about one another, if only for a moment.

The roles of the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NCAA have been reflected to the point of ad nauseum, but they were important as only sports can provide such frequent large scale public gatherings. Eventually when the NBA, NHL and other sporting organizations around North America got going, we were able to prove that even with frayed nerves, most of us can go out and try to live as close to the old normal as possible.

via NYT

I didn’t come home Columbus Day weekend. This was sophomore year at Babson College; a place I’ve come to love over the years, but one I was hoping to leave at the time. It was hard enough being up there, seemingly mourning alone while family and friends were missing ‘Bobby’ together back home. Yet, what eventually brought me back to the Boroughs about two weeks after that holiday weekend was the birth of one of my nephews. He was the first boy in the family since yours truly and just about everyone close to us had the chance to see him except for me.

He was just about a month old when I finally got on that bus from Newton, MA to the Port Authority. It may have very well been the case that none of us on that Greyhound had been back to the metropolitan area since the attacks, but I certainly hadn’t. With all that silent, but simmering anxiety within the bus, it was hard to imagine what the City itself felt like.

Getting off the bus was surreal in so many ways. Rush hour was slower than the “New York minute” all of us natives grew up on, but it was still a New York rush hour. People weren’t bursting through the doors with that ‘get there yesterday’ attitude they normally carried, but rather, they were forging ahead with each step or swing of a briefcase.

In the subsequent visits between Thanksgiving 2001 and March 2002, I never loved my City more. Not in that stereotypically arrogant and hackneyed way that makes others ‘hate’ us, but in that earnest way that only natives recognize. With all of the geographic, socioeconomic and generational divisions within these Five Boroughs, people truly did look out for one another for a while. Though the outpouring of support and respect from all over the world was appreciated, the recurring theme from within was “but we LIVE here”. Though millions of us here couldn’t fathom what the victims’ families had to endure, we still felt as if a piece of us was taken away. [Certainly all of you in the DMV and western Pennsylvania felt the same way.]

It was strangely comforting, even though the air was thick and full of loss.

That weekend told me that with or without anyone’s help – even significant federal help as 1993 taught us – the millions of people who make the City work were resilient beyond measure. That weekend told me that my family, weighed down from the loss of our patriarch and the attacks on the Towers he had a hand in building, were somehow going to be okay.

That weekend told me that it was safe to come home.

via NYT

Why We Care More About Quarterbacks than Senators

“People care more about their quarterbacks than their elected officials.”

Yeah. And?

It’s Election Day on even-numbered year which means all of the disgusting, condescending, willfully ignorant political ads once again culminate to an evening of poll watching, seat counting and levels of bloviating that make Monday Night Countdown seem like an elaborated game of Telephone.

It’s also a day where people have piled on those who either vote differently or abstain from voting at all. They’ve said things like “don’t let other people decide your future”; though It’ll happen anyway, regardless of if you vote or not. They’ve used phrases such as “vote or die”, “friends don’t let friends vote [insert opposition here]” and attacked the educational backgrounds of the people whose ballots disagree with their own.

Apparently Democrats are full of super-liberal,  elitist, cloaked racists with their fancy degrees in Pig Latin. Apparently, Republicans are mostly white (or whitewashed) redneck, uneducated buffoons who think wanting to have a drink with their elected official is a good idea. And without question, Independents are certifiable loons looking to steal votes and raise their own profiles.


Political Football: Says it all, doesn't it?

A Scribe favorite is when people say that they can’t understand how we put more time and energy with sports and other ‘trivial matters’ than what their governments are doing. To an extent, there’s a good bit of truth in those words. For all the millions of good fans out there, there are lumped with the types that are portrayed in movies such as Big Fan. Those bad fans have obsessions cloud far, FAR more than political visions, but permeate every aspect of their lives.

That conundrum is a favorite discussion topic because it’s born from populist anger that comes from a declining economic state. This has gone on since Americans first invested into sports. We essentially invented the sports industry; discovering that a blend of civic pride mixed with enviable athletic feats, disposable income and political grandstanding make for our nation’s largest and most successful entertainment vehicle.

It’s funny because when the good times are rolling, we pay little to no attention to everything that’s ailing us from within. It’s okay to root for millionaires or people making others millionaires (college athletes). It’s also okay for continue watching all the train wrecks on VH1, MTV, Bravo and the like, but that’s another conversation for another day.

When the money isn’t flowing, however, we scream about those who can live comfortably enough to not feel the day-to-day pinch of a recession. It doesn’t matter that most of those who’ve made millions off their craft actually earned it, it’s having such riches while others are losing meager five-figure jobs that brings out such conversation. This juxtaposition is an indictment on where our priorities are as a country, if you continue to listen to those drumming that beat.

The thing that some critics fail to understand is that there isn’t another vehicle in this country that can bring people together for a few hours in a day to cast aside most of their differences. Even with contrasting fandom and interests, people congregate around sports for camaraderie that doesn’t exist elsewhere on such a grand scale. It doesn’t mean that all the ‘isms’ have disappeared; they do permeate in subtle ways within sporting institutions and in blatantly ignorant manners among media and fans.

We look to sports because unlike most forms of our lives, we see that no matter what resources are available to the participants, they have to adhere to a set of mostly obvious rules that EVERYONE knows. Skirting such rules brings about immediate punishment that ranges from the minimum and momentary boos and catcalls to the maximum of public scorn, even when we could surely move on to another subject. No matter the errors of our favorite sports figures and our own biases, we still revere the games because it’s the only place where the physical confines within the game do not discriminate. Out of bounds is the same for all players, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference and political affiliation or indifference.

As Rasheed Wallace once philosophized, the ball don’t lie.

The divisive nature – or the mere existence – of politics is what brings out the worst in a society, not its best. Until we can have that ideal political discourse without condemning each other based on Gallup polls or what cable news network we choose to watch, people will never care more about elected officials more than our quarterbacks.

And by then, would we even need elected officials?