As we often do on Thursday nights, Trish and I were out to dinner. I bowl on Thursdays from Labor Day until late April, so that night pretty much remains our “night out” year-round. It’s not unusual for a couple of bowling buddies to join us when we hit our normal haunt, and last night was no exception.
After ordering a drink Trish’s phone rang, and in an unusual moment said “I’ll be right back” and left the restaurant to talk on the phone. I thought it might be trouble until I saw her outside laughing. She shortly returned, saying it was a friend (who I won’t name) who has just returned from a year long teaching stint in Armenia. Trish mentioned that she (the woman) “had missed the bombing by just one day”.
I have no idea what bombing she was talking about.
It’s not that I don’t pay attention to the news and that’s why I don’t know what bombing she was talking about, it’s the fact there’s so many of them I can’t recall a specific one anymore. In our world terrorist attacks have become so commonplace I can no longer distinguish between them unless they’re catastrophic events. Bombings in far off places by fringe groups hardly register with me anymore.
That’s sad if you think about it. Every day people just going about their business, be it going to work or off shopping or just enjoying the day, and in a single moment they’re gone because some other person kills them for some reason that seems important to them. Mass shootings or stabbings hardly get a second day’s mention on the news unless they happen here, and then each side of the political spectrum begins the finger pointing as to whose beliefs were the root cause.
As lots of places do we have a flag flying outside work, and recently it has flown at half-staff for many, many days as multiple violent tragedies hit this country; so many that it was hard to keep track of exactly why it wasn’t flying at full staff. Was this time for some police officer killed? Or was there a military tragedy? Maybe there was another mass shooting? Heck, did someone famous die?
Or maybe just because this is the world we live in…
Random thoughts of 210Darryl 