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This column appeared in the Grand Island (Nebraska) Independent on September 12, 2001. At that time, I was writing a weekly humor column for the newspaper and the 9/11 attacks occurred just as I was putting the finishing touches on that week's column.
We all have memories of where we were when we heard the dreadful news. This is the column I ended up writing for publication:
This morning, I was about to email my editor with the final draft of this week's column, a screed about the state of this past weekend's college football events.
It was infused with humor, the type of writing I generally perform in this space on Wednesday. It's what's expected of me. I had worked many hours on the piece and was happy with the outcome.
But prior to hitting the send button, I glanced at my TV which was tuned to MSNBC and what I saw and heard numbed me. You know the story, and it will have been updated thousands of times between now as I write this and tomorrow when this column appears in the hands of my readers.
While humor can be a saving grace in difficult times, and it has always been the proud American way to carry on with a brave face, I felt personally that it would be unconscionable to greet my Wednesday morning readers with tongue in cheek, and so asked my editor to extend my deadline that I may produce something more palatable, given the horrific times in which we are now awash.
At this time (Tuesday), I have no idea what lies ahead for our country in the face of the heinous and blistering attacks that have served lethal notice on the United States. It just isn't a time to laugh.
At this early point in time, there is no "best medicine" to bind the wounds that have been inflicted by such inhuman savagery. And what concerns me is the aftermath.
And that aftermath, folks, will perpetually linger in the seams of a dark, dragging cloud of fear and hysteria because the United States is a symbol for all that is good and free and that makes it a target for everything that is evil and corrupt and barbaric.
This morning, in the midst of trying to make sense of this jagged puzzle thrust on us by terrorists of the worst variety, I received word that Grand Island Senior High had been evacuated, but had not heard why. Having a child enrolled there, I jumped in my pickup and headed across town, thinking that students were probably being dismissed early, as a precaution, in light of the attack on our country.
When I drew near to the school, I spotted a city police officer involved in the task of keeping traffic off that stretch of College Street that runs past the south side of the high school. I pulled over to the curb and got out of my truck to ask him about the details of the evacuation, as it appeared that now throngs of students were re-entering the school.
The officer confirmed that school officials had received an anonymous bomb threat. He assured me that everything was all right and classes would be resuming according to routine.
I suspect that this won't be the only bomb threat phoned in to schools and institutions across the nation today. There are sick people out there who thrive on this type of malevolent upheaval and disorder and while they may have no intention of actually carrying out their threats, they have murderous hearts nevertheless.
I am appalled, perhaps naively so, that this type of thing would happen in this community--here in the Heartland, in the middle of Nebraska The Good Life--and that, while we watch our national state of affairs with nail-biting interest and unease, we also have to lend credence to the catcalls of a lame and twisted mindset that apparently exists right here in any one of our neighborhoods.
What has happened to our society that we must not only dread the sophisticated treachery of the outside world, but also must have our fears and anxieties compounded by the psychotic actions of a few degenerates existing unworthily as fellow-citizens within the fabric of our very community and who get their obscene jollies from disrupting the lives of school administrators, faculty, and a couple of thousand students -- not to mention their concerned families -- in the wake of a national alert?
This is a time when Americans need to stand together and work to somehow get past this tragic episode in our nation's history. It's certainly not a time to mine some kind of perverted humor by creating even more calamity for our countrymen. And those who do are criminal punks of the lowest order.
I wish we could have shared a laugh today. But nothing is funny.
Maybe next week. I'm afraid it's going to take a little time.
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