Before I can go On
I spent most of my formative years in Texas. Temple, Texas to be specific. My memories, as a child, really seem to begin and end there, though I distinctly remember both Virginia and California and aspects of school and home and church and life in both of those places. However, the memories I go back to over and over and over again live in Texas.
That is shared because there are a few events in my life that really stand out. They are not like Kennedy dying or Pearl Harbor or September 11th, though I did discover that 9/11 is something I am still dealing with. However, I don’t feel anything for Pearl Harbor and current theories suggest that J.F.K. probably would’ve been impeached had he lived and I think, “Wow, we deify a president and yet, he was not the best man in the world.”
And yet, American changing and world changing events aren’t what I am thinking about. Rather, I was living in Texas when the FBI and ATF and a dozen other government agencies surrounded the Branch Davidian compound. Some time later, I was watching north from a small bar and grill outside of town where my friends and I were eating lunch and saw the plumes of smoke rising. I was that close to the action. Every night I worried that my dad was going to be sent to the compound and that things would heat up and that people would die. People did die, but… well… not my dad (he was never sent to the compound).
I was living in Texas when the Luby’s massacre took place. I remember watching the news and seeing that a man had driven his car through the front window, got out, and started shooting people. At the time, in Texas, this was an example of the need for citizens to carry weapons.
Before I was even born the University of Texas at Austin had the record for largest mass killing at a university because of student who went to the top of the clock tower and started sniping classmates below. He was eventually shot and killed.
In 1999 the Columbine massacre took place. My parents, at that time, had either started the move to Cortez, CO. That one hit home because, at the same time, the press was debating on the cause of so many mass murders and the reason why the two boys at Columbine shot up the place, killed classmates, and then killed themselves. It was a difficult thing to watch because, as things progress, it’s a hard thing to deal with.
One of the things that go through my mind during a disaster, like this, is, “Do I know anyone who was there?” I am pretty confident I don’t know anyone at Virginia Tech. Looking at the list, I can see no names that would be familiar or places I would know anyone from. It doesn’t change the feelings of loss at this senseless attack.
So, last night, Erin and I were watching TV. At one point the news came on. With the news came images and video from the shooter. I could feel bad about the events that took place; I can even handle the constant discussion of what was happening; but at that moment, at that moment I got mad.
Because I spend a bit of time on the internet specifically surfing a variety of blogs, most of which are related to writing in some form or another, I got to read about people who have a level of connection to what happened yesterday. Granted, these are not people I know personally, but to think that some pretty famous authors were related to people who died; to think that the press decided (yesterday) to spend more time on the kid who did the killing rather than the ramifications of the victims, the dead, the families, I was upset.
Consider The Trolley Square massacre here a couple of months ago. I don’t care, one whit, about the kid who walked into Trolley Square and started firing his shotgun at people. I do care that he was shot and killed. I am happy that he is no longer alive and that the families and community doesn’t have to suffer through a trial and his mother and family telling the world he is not a bad boy. I don’t care what led to his shooting at those people. What I cared to know was that (a) I didn’t know anyone and (b) the shooter was dead. That’s it.
And yet, to think that the guy, earlier this week had bothered to spend time creating a video and expressing his hatred for the rich and more capable than him, who had taken his hatred to an extreme, this was sick. It makes the press sick. It makes me sick that we live in a time when we spend more time on the person who did the killings and the committed suicide than on the victims. I don’t want to know that the guy had a manifesto. I don’t want to be shown the images of the kid again and again. I don’t want to know that his mother and father thought he was a nice, good boy.
With that said, there are aspects to the story, and the kid, that I do care about. One is that he had a history of stalking. There is no real connection between his rampage and where he was born, but its nice to know that he and his family moved to the United States. Another is that he had a history of hatred toward those that he presumed were better than himself. We know that these things can lead to someone going over the edge.
I am truly saddened by what took place. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. I feel bad for the losses.