Why I remember

 “No one ever remembers.” 

Those four words, posted on my wall on a now defunct social media site, broke my heart. 

The woman who posted them was replying to my acknowledgement of the anniversary of the stillbirth of one of her children. He was a twin; the other twin was miscarried earlier in the pregnancy. 

Today, October 15, is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. The entire month of October is dedicated to remembering these babies; these babies lost through miscarriage, lost through stillbirth, or lost through early death. 

I have never lost a baby. I don’t know that heartbreak. I know the heartbreak of trying to conceive and failing, of many doctor’s visits, and of finally conceiving and having a son. But not everyone has that happy ending. 

I do, however, know many who know the heartbreak of miscarriage, the heartbreak of stillbirth, the heartbreak of losing an infant to death. A friend just lost a longed-for child through miscarriage and had to have a D&E in order to remove the fetus. 

Two other friends lost their babies to cord accidents, where the umbilical cord strangled the baby in the womb.

Other friends have lost children to stillbirths or early death.  

By coincidence, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day falls on the the day before my birthday. I was not meant to be born in October. Instead, I came early. Perhaps I could have been one of those statistics, a lost baby that my mother remembered. I was lucky. Not everyone is. 

My grandmother lost an infant daughter, Bobbie Lee, when the baby was three months old. She was “Bobbie Lee” because she was named after my grandmother’s father, Robert Lee Thompson. I have a copy of her death certificate, which lists her birthday as August 1st, 1935; and her death date as November 13, 1935.  Her cause of death was “gastroenteritis”. My grandparents lived in Harlan, Kentucky, a small, coal-mining town, and it was 1935. Had she been born today, I think the odds of her survival would have been much better. 

She never talked about Bobbie Lee much, except for at least one conversation with me and perhaps with a few others. In 1935 especially, I think the death of an infant was met with, “At least you have other children,” or, “You can have another one,” (as if one child could replace another.) And then you didn’t talk about it. 

There is a saying, “There is no footprint too small to leave an imprint on this world.” 

Today, so many remember those little footprints; those ones that were never born, those born sleeping, those who lived only a little while. 

I have a list of babies I remember this time of year. 

So:

For Ana C.

For Anna V.

For Bobbie Lee C.

For Caley A.

For Desmond M-S.

For Hope C.

For Hope K.

For Ian A.

For Sarah Grace W.

For William W. 

And for the many others I’m sure I’ve forgotten and the many others I do not know.

You lived in someone’s womb and you lived in many hearts.

And your little footprints left a mark on this world. 

“No one ever remembers.”

Someone should.

This is why I remember.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

One unsung hero

Fourteen thousand people faced their ultimate test on September 11, 1993.

That number, according to Google, is approximately how many air traffic controllers are employed in the United States. 

One of them -- a high school ex-boyfriend -- worked in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He may or may not have been on duty that morning; If he wasn't, he was probably called in.

September 11, 1993, was the day the skies were cleared of all air traffic except for Air Force One and any military aircraft. 

History.com wrote about the air traffic controllers on 9/11.  The article focuses mostly on the activities of the controllers in the Northeast and the Washington, D.C.; the area where four planes crashed. 

At 8:46 a.m., the first plane, American Airlines 11, hit Tower 1 of the World Trade Center.  Like most people, the controllers thought it was a small plane, like a Cessna. 

But already, they'd heard Mohammed Atta's accidental broadcast:  "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and we'll be OK. We are returning to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves."

They knew there was trouble but hadn't yet connected Mohammed Atta's order with the crash of the plane into Tower 1. 

By 9:03, when United Flight 175 hit Tower 2 of the World Trade Center -- in front of millions of viewers who had on Good Morning America, or the Today Show, or CNN, or CBS's Morning Show, or Fox News -- they knew all of this was no accident. Both planes had been hijacked, and there might be more. 

What to do? How many hijackers were there? Would there be more planes crashing? 

Down in Herndon, Virginia, at the Federal Aviation Administration, Ben Sliney realized that his first day on the job would be a baptism by fire. 

One minute after United 175 hit Tower 2, Sliney ordered a "ground stop".  "Ground stop" meant, no plane in the United States of America could take off. 

It was 9:04 Eastern Time; 7:04 Albuquerque time (Mountain time). If my ex-boyfriend wasn't already on his shift, I'm sure his phone rang telling him, "Get in here, now." 

At 9:05, the order "ATC Zero" came over the airwaves. "ATC Zero" translated into the complete shutdown of the airspace around New York City. Not only could planes not take off, planes couldn't land there, either. 

32 minutes later, at 9:37 a.m., a third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, hit the Pentagon.

Five minutes later, at 9:42 a.m. exactly one hour after the first plane hit the World Trade Center, the FAA gave the order to "clear the skies." 

I don't speak FAA lingo.  I'm sure the FAA said it in their own "language", but the order was clear: If you are a plane and you are in the air, pick an airport and land immediately. 

If my ex-boyfriend was on duty, it would have been 7:42 a.m. The sun was up, spreading light over the New Mexico landscape. 

Under normal circumstances, the job of an air traffic controller is tense and difficult. Lives are in your hands and one wrong order to a plane can cause a crash, or a near-crash (or, in more semi-humorous cases, a landing at the wrong airport.) Plus, you have to worry about being on time, or as near on time as possible; they have to keep an eye on the weather and an eye on air traffic.  (I would rather drive in Atlanta traffic than guide people through the air!)  You cannot afford to panic. You cannot afford to show anxiety. Even if your heart is racing at 120 beats per minutes or higher, you have to talk calmly to a plane, telling them what runway is open, what gate to go to, whether or not the pilot should circle . . . all of the things that we airplane passengers don't necessarily think about. 

But "land all planes"? All commercial planes? At the nearest airport? 

Whatever switches flip in an air traffic controller's brain to keep him/her calm and steady, they flipped, and I believe they flipped in my ex-boyfriend's brain. He, and his colleagues, spoke the FAA language that told what plane to go where, what runway to land on, whether to circle the airport before landing, whether to send them on to another airport because they didn't have room.

According to the National Archives, the skies were clear by 12:16 p.m.; 10:16 p.m. by Alburquerque time, two and a half hours after the order to "clear the skies". 

Two and a half hours for someone to sit with headphones on, to strain to listen to a pilot, to look at a radar and keep track of a plane's location, and all the while knowing that four planes had crashed, wondering if there were any more hijackers, would there be any more crashes?

But they did it. In two and a half hours. 

We remember the FDNY and the NYPD when we think of the heroes of 9/11, as well we should. We remember them going up while everyone else is going down. 

But the people manning the microphones, the headphones, the radar, guiding the planes to safe landings when they were not prepared to handle the sudden load of air traffic  . . . they were heroes, too.

My 20th high school reunion came six weeks before 9/11. My ex-boyfriend and I didn't part on the world's best terms. He did get in touch with me much later through e-mail and he apologized for his behavior. At our reunion, the last words I said to him were, "I wish you well." 

And then, six weeks later, 9/11 happened. 

Not only was I horrified at the events as they unfolded, I was concerned about the ex-boyfriend. I knew it had to be stressful and trying. So I popped off an email asking, are you okay?

He responded, "Yes. Thanks for thinking about us."

I have not heard from him since then, and since he has a life, I don't expect to. 

But he belongs to that group of unsung heroes that cleared the skies on a horrible day. 

To him, and to every other unsung hero, I say, "thank you".

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

The Olympics' darkest day

I don't speak Hebrew. But I'm sure that, had I heard wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund's scream at around 4:30 a.m. Munich time on September 5, 1972, I would have known that something horrible had happened or was happening. 

He'd been asleep after enjoying an evening out with other Israelis. What wakened him was a scratching noise at the door of his apartment. He went to investigate and found the door beginning to open and masked men with guns on the other side.

He screamed in Hebrew, "Danger, boys! Terrorists!" then threw his 300-pound body against the door, hoping it would stop the men from forcing their way in. His scream gave his roommate, weightlifting coach Tuvia Sokolovsky, time to smash a window and escape.

A wrestling coach, Moshe Weinberg, joined in the fight. The terrorists' response was to shoot him through the cheek and then force him to find more hostages.

Weinberg lied as they passed the door of Apartment Two, saying, there were no Israelis there. He led them to Apartment Three instead. Apartment Three housed six wrestlers and weightlifters. Perhaps Weinberg thought they would be strong enough to fight off the terrorists. But they were all asleep, and men with guns usually have an advantage over someone who's been suddenly awakened.

On the way back to the coaches' apartment, the wounded Weinberg again attacked the terrorists. Gad Tsobari, one of the wrestlers, seized the opportunity and escaped through the underground parking garage. Weinberg was able to knock one terrorist unconscious and slash at another with a fruit knife. 

He was no match for the gunmen. They shot him to death. 

A weightlifter, Yossef Romano -- who'd fought in Israel's Six-Day War -- also attacked the intruders and wounded one before he, too, was shot and killed. 

These men were not going to go down without a fight. 

With the nine hostages that were left, the gunmen went back to Apartment One. In addition to Yossef Gutfreund, they were: 
Kehat Shorr, shooting coach
Amitzur Shapira, track and field coach
Andre Spitzer, fencing master.
Yakov Springer, weightlifting judge
Eliezer Halfin, wrestler
Mark Slavin, wrestler
David Berger, weightlifter (who held dual citizenship with the US and Israel)
Ze'ev Friedman, weightlifter. 

Who were these terrorists, and why had they picked the Olympics for their heinous acts?

They were eight members from a Palestinian group, Black September.  Their demands? The release of 234 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, and two founders of the German left-wing group Red Army Faction. 

They allegedly got into the Munich Olympic Village by scaling a six-and-a-half foot chain link fence with the help of athletes who, themselves, were sneaking back into the Olympic Village. Since the eight terrorists were dressed in track suits, the athletes had no way of knowing who they were helping into the village. I guess they thought, "Oh, you're trying to get past security just like we are. We scratch your back, you'll scratch ours." I wonder how horrified they were when they found out exactly who they had helped over the fence. 

In Apartment Two, Shaul Ladany, an Israeli racewalker who'd also survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, heard the screams from next door, leapt from his second-story balcony, and ran to the American dormitory.  The other seven people (four Israeli athletes, two team doctors, and their team manager) hid in the building and eventually escaped.

Tense negotiations began and continued for the next several hours. The Black September terrorists, to show that they meant business, threw Moshe Weinberg's bloodied body out the door of the dormitory. 
American marathon runner Frank Shorter (who would later win the gold medal in the event) told Sports Illustrated, "Imagine those poor guys . . . Every five minutes a psycho with a machine gun says, 'Let's kill 'em now," and someone else says, 'No, let's wait five minutes.' How long could you stand that?" 

But elsewhere, the rest of the athletes carried on, and the events carried on, until 12 hours after Moshe Weinberg's murder, the Games were suspended. 

At 4:30 p.m., a squad of West German police -- regular Munich police officers, with no training in combat or in hostage rescue -- arrived at the Olympic Village with a plan to crawl down from the ventilation shafts at the dormitory and kill the terrorists. 

But, while the police were getting into position, members of the media -- in a stunning act of either ignorance or outright stupidity -- filmed the police getting into position and broadcast the images on live television, which the terrorists were watching. After the terrorists' spokesman threatened to kill two hostages, the police backed off. 

When confronted with the terrorists' demands, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's response was swift and to the point: "No." Israel's policy was, no negotiations with terrorists, period, because any negotiations would leave Israel open to possible future attacks. Can anyone blame Israel, given the history of the Jews, especially the history of the concentration camps of only 30 years ago? 

So the West German authorities came up with another plan.

The terrorists, at 6 p.m., demanded to be taken to Cairo. Originally, the West Germans offered to transport terrorists and hostages to Cairo by plane. West German police, disguised as crew, would overpower the terrorists and free the hostages. 

Then the West German police backed out, saying the plan was too dangerous. 

But the authorities pretended the agreement was still in place. They sent two helicopters to take terrorists and hostages to a NATO airbase at Furstenfeldbruck. 

A third helicopter, containing West German authorities, preceded them to the airport. Their new plan:  an armed assault in which terrorists would be killed and hostages would be freed. Sixteen West German police, dressed as the flight crew, would be inside a Boeing 727 jet. Two of the terrorists were to be allowed to inspect the plane. Five sharpshooters were also positioned in strategic areas at the airport. 

And at the last minute, the sixteen West German police abandoned the plan, without telling the people in charge and leaving only the five sharpshooters to take out eight terrorists. 

When the helicopters landed and the two terrorists boarded the 727 and found it empty, they realized they'd walked into a trap. They ran back to the helicopters. 

In the shooting and chaos that followed, two terrorists and a West German policeman were shot and killed. Then a terrorist turned his assault rifle on one helicopter and murdered four hostages, then threw a grenade inside, incinerating the bodies. 

A second terrorist at the other helicopter took a machine gun and shot the remaining hostages; their bodies would show that they'd been shot at least four times each. 

While initial reports said that the hostages were alive and the terrorists were dead, the horrible truth slowly came out. 

ABC's Olympic coverage, anchored by Jim McKay, had gone on the air that afternoon with the reports of the hostage taking at the Olympic Village. All evening, and through the night, ABC Sports president Roone Arledge spoke into McKay's earpiece, giving him the events as they unfolded.  

At 3:24 a.m. Munich time, McKay, summoning all the professionalism he could, spoke:

"You know, when I was a kid, my father used to say, 'Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.' Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They've now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They're all gone."

What more could you say or do after hearing those chilling words?

First, Olympic competition was suspended for the first time in modern Olympic history. Then, on September 6th, the Olympic Stadium, which was supposed to be the scenes of joyous victories and celebrations, became the site of a memorial service for the slain athletes.  The President of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, spoke, praising the strength of the Olympic movement. But when he compared the attack on the Israelis with the arguments on professionalism creeping into the Games and the ban of Rhodesia (after protests by black African athletes), and barely mentioned the murdered athletes, many listeners were outraged. 

Later that day, the IOC decided, the Games would go on. The Israeli government and their team manager agreed. For the Israeli athletes, though, the Games were over. They withdrew and left Munich on September 6th, right after the memorial service. Jewish athletes were placed under guard, and Mark Spitz, who'd just won his seventh gold medal in swimming, left Munich during the crisis because of fear that, as a prominent Jew, he might become a target. While many athletes did remain, several chose to leave, their desire to compete destroyed. 

The 1972 Olympic Games had as their motto, Die Heiteren Spiele, "the cheerful Games". They desperately wanted to erase the image of the last games held on German soil: in Berlin, in 1936, under the reign of Adolf Hitler. 

Those "cheerful Games", unfortunately, turned tragic.

September 5th and 6th, 1972, 50 years ago, still remain the darkest days in Olympic history.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

  

A 50-year love affair

On a day in the summer of 1972, a disk jockey at St. Petersburg, Florida's WLCY-AM (138 on your radio dial!) checked his playlist, selected a 45, and then watched as the record dropped onto the turntable and a plastic arm moved to the proper spot in order to drop the needle onto the proper groove.  (Any millennials and Gen Zer's who are confused at that above paragraph can ask their parents for a translation.)

The music that played caught the attention of an eight-year-old girl listening to the radio at home. She heard the song, she liked it, and every other time it played on WLCY, she liked it more. 

I was that eight-year-old girl in 1972. The song was "Saturday In the Park",  and it began a 50-year love affair with the rock group Chicago.

Why Chicago? Why that song? I don't know. What reason can an eight-year-old give for liking a particular song or a particular group? All I know is that it was an upbeat, happy, peppy song, the perfect song to introduce me to a new group.

The band's official website tells the story of "Saturday In the Park" as Robert Lamm coming back from New York's Central Park after seeing the steel drum players, dancers, singers and jugglers, and insisting, we have to write a song about this!

Lamm's account, recorded in Billboard magazine, tells the story this way:  "It was written as I was looking at footage from a film I shot in Central Park, over a couple of year, back in the early '70's.  I shot this film and somewhere down the line I edited it into some kind of a narrative, and as I watched the film I jotted down some ideas based on what I was seeing and had experienced.  And it was really kind of that peace and love thing that happened in Central Park and in many parks all over the world, perhaps on a Saturday, where people just relax and enjoy each other's presence, and the activities we observe and the feelings we get from feeling a part of a day like that."

Gradually, through TV appearances and my own library research, I got to know the band: Terry Kath on guitar, Peter Cetera on bass, Walter Parazaider on saxophone (and occasionally flute), Lee Loughnane on trumpet, James Pankow on trombone, and Robert Lamm on keyboard. 

When I was 13, one of my Christmas presents was Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits. Like any teenager obsessed with a band, I played it over and over until I had it memorized. And then I still kept playing it. 

I kept my eyes and ears open for any mention of Chicago on the news, on the radio, anywhere I could find them. 

So on the morning of January 24, 1978, while lying in bed and listening to the radio, I heard the words, "One of the members of the group Chicago . . ." and I smiled to myself. 

Then the next four words, " . . . has accidentally killed himself," gut-punched me. 

And that was how I learned that guitarist Terry Kath had accidentally shot himself in the head. His last words?  "Don't worry, it's not loaded."

I was devastated, much like fans are when their favorite entertainer unexpectedly dies. Robin Williams, Kurt Cobain, and Whitney Houston come to mind. 

But Chicago bounced back, with the album "Hot Streets". The band, however, was never the same after Terry Kath died. 

After a dip in popularity in the late '70's/early '80's, Chicago enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. It was then, in 1984, that a dream of mine came true:  I got to see Chicago in concert, in Tallahassee, Florida, during our homecoming week. Our tickets were in the nosebleed zone, something like row XXX. I didn't care. It was Chicago. I screamed the whole time. Now, I barely remember any of the songs they played, except the first one, "We Can Stop The Hurting," from their then-newest album, Chicago XVII; and also "Hard To Say I'm Sorry/Get Away." 

They've gone through personnel changes, musical changes, adjusted to the new world of streaming. 

In 2016, the original six members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor long overdue. 

As of this writing, they are still touring and still performing; in fact, they recently did a concert here in Atlanta with the Beach Boys. While on the one hand, I'm sorry I missed seeing them; on the other hand, there are only three original members left -- Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, and Robert Lamm. They are not the Chicago I knew as a child.

More recently, fans of the show "This Is Us" were exposed to "Saturday In the Park" when it was used in an episode called . . . "Saturday in the Park." The character of Kate Pearson used the tune of the song to help her blind child remember how to get to the park they went to on Saturdays.

They began as a group of six, 55 years ago, and today, they are still going. 

So, from a now 58-year-old woman, thank you.

Thank you, Robert Lamm, for your trip to Central Park which inspired the song you wrote.

Thank you, DJ at WLCY, 138 AM, for choosing to play "Saturday In the Park" in the summer of 1972.

And thank you, Chicago, for being a part of the soundtrack of my childhood, and for bringing an eight-year-old girl pleasure with a song about a simple but magical day in Central Park. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

Is this what forgiveness means?

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Or, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

No matter which way you translate it in the Lord's Prayer, forgiveness is a core doctrine of Christianity.

We're told to "forgive as the Lord forgave you" (Colossians 3:13), and even Jesus himself, on the cross, prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

When the Apostle Peter asked, "How many times should I forgive my brother? Up to seven times?" Jesus' answer -- depending on your translation -- was either "seventy-seven times" or "seventy times seven." 

In other words, if I am to call myself a follower of Christ, I cannot withhold forgiveness.  I cannot refuse to forgive someone who has hurt me or harmed me.  I admit, I often ask God, "Do I have to?" (like a six-year-old would sound) and the answer is always, "Yes." 

"Forgive," and "Do not worry," are the two commands I probably struggle with the most as a Christian. I have dealt with my share of wrongdoing, and while I do believe there are people I have forgiven, I'm not sure if the forgiveness process is complete in other areas. I don't think I have yet forgiven everyone who bullied me in school or the leaders who were spiritually abusive in college. And I'm not sure if I've forgiven mistakes my parents have made in raising me. Although now that I have a child, I find myself remembering a quote from Ray Romano: "The older I get, the more I feel the need to apologize to my mother."  My parents were human, as I am, and I believe they tried their best. There were areas I did not make that easy for them.

Here's what bugs me about the subject of forgiveness, though; or rather, the way some teachers of the Bible handle it. 

This is a version of a Facebook comment I made today. It is snarky, sarcastic, and somewhat facetious, and I admit it is extreme. I made it in response to this link to an article by preacher and abuse advocate Jimmy Hinton. His father, a Church of Christ preacher, is currently serving a lifetime prison sentence for the sexual abuse of children.  

When we Christians talk about "forgiveness", I sometimes think that what we mean is that we want the offended party to instantly forgive. Instant forgiveness means that if they say they're sorry, you say, "I've already forgiven you," and you go on as if nothing happened. That's what Jesus did with our sins, didn't He? He forgave us and he's forgotten our sins. Shouldn't we do the same?

If it's a crime against a victim who happens to be a Christian, again, I think what certain Christians want is for the victim to, again, instantly forgive the offender, stand up for them in court and support them, offer to serve the offender's sentence in his place, "because Jesus did that for me when He died on the cross.  He took my punishment so I wouldn't have to serve it." The victim should write to the offender regularly, telling them about how much God loves them. Perhaps the victim should even visit the offender regularly in prison, to show how much they have forgiven and to show how much God loves them. "If God can give me forgiveness for you, just think how much He loves you and wants to forgive you!"

When the offender gets out of prison, the victim should offer to let them live in their own home; because aren't we supposed to go the extra mile? Aren't we supposed to offer hospitality? 

If the offender is not a Christian, the victim will be the one to convert them.

If the offender is a Christian, the victim will be the one to bring the lost sheep home. 

Then they will both go before the church with the wonderful testimony about how God worked through all of that to enable the two of them to become best friends, and the victim will say, "If I had the choice, I'd go through it all again, because look at what God brought out of it!  Isn't God good?" 

Who knows? They might even team up with a famous author, get their story written and made into a Christian movie!

Okay, my snarkiness is over. 

There are cases where a Christian is sinned against, grieviously, and God has given them the strength to forgive the person who hurt them. I have heard of at least one case where -- if I remember the details correctly -- a drunk driver killed a Christian's child. That Christian was eventually able to forgive the driver and develop a relationship with them. 

Like I said before, if I am going to be a follower of Christ, forgiveness is mandatory. I cannot claim to follow Christ and hold grudges or animosity towards people who have hurt me. 

But letting go of those grudges, or the pain of a wrongdoing done against them, is not immediate. It can take years, sometimes decades. It took me two decades to forgive someone from high school who hurt me. No, it should not have taken that long, but it did. And there are hurts and grudges from childhood that yes, I admit, I still struggle to turn over to God and to let His justice work.

And in some cases of abuse, such as what Jimmy Hinton describes, it is absolutely not healthy for the victim to be around the offender. In cases of sexual abuse, it takes years of therapy with a competent therapist to get past the hurt and the damage that was done. 

It seems that in cases of abuse, nearly all of the expectation is placed on the victim to forgive. Sometimes the victim is even asked, how did you contribute to the situation? The victim is expected to quickly forgive because Jesus quickly forgave. There's one difference, though:  Jesus is the Son of God, He is perfect, and He had that ability to quickly forgive. Victims are not the Son of God. Yes, I believe in forgiveness; I believe people who have been wronged need to forgive . . . but true forgiveness has to be on the victim's timetable and not on the timetable we think it ought to be.

And where is the equal expectation for the offender to repent? Where is the equal expectation for the offender to say, "I'm sorry I hurt you," name the specific ways in which he/she harmed the victim, make restitution if possible, and show the fruits of true repentance?  Maybe one of those fruits is to honor the victim's wish to have no contact with them. 

I write this as an imperfect Christian who struggles to forgive and who prays often, "God, help me forgive.  Sometimes I don't want to but I know You command it of me. Help me." 

But does forgiveness mean that you immediately say "I forgive you," that you never, ever think about it again, and that you treat the offender as if the offense never happened? 

Maybe, in some cases, that above statement is exactly what you should do.

Maybe, in some cases, that above statement is exactly what you should not do.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

The flood that made me?

While Eastern Kentucky is known for coal, rugged and beautiful scenery, and a heritage of independent people, it is also notorious for dangerous flooding.

As I write this, 37 people have died in floodwaters pounding Eastern Kentucky counties such as Knott, Perry (with the aptly named county seat of Hazard), and Letcher. 

Harlan County, my birthplace, has largely been spared the devastation of other areas of Eastern Kentucky. That was not always true. They've dealt with many a flood in the past when the Cumberland River and its feeder forks overflowed their banks. (I wonder if the river was thinking, hey, when you have more rain than you can hold, what do you expect us to do with it?)

After a 100-year flood in 1977, Harlan County had had enough. And over the next years, they built a flood control system that involved, among other things, the rerouting of certain areas of the Cumberland River. So far, in this 2022 flood, it seems to be working.

But before that 100-year flood, Harlan County struggled through its battle with floodwaters. 

Mid-March, 1963, was one of those battles.  It was a week where it rained, and the riverbanks overflowed, and people either had to evacuate due to rising floodwaters or stay in the house because they couldn't go anywhere unless it was by boat. One of my Facebook friends, writer Karen Nolan, remembers getting typhoid shots during that time. 

I've seen pictures of Harlan County floods, of cars that were washed downstream and wound up on Main Street stacked next to each other, of water that reached roof level, of people who have lost everything. 

There was one benefit to that flood, though.

I didn't know until a few years ago that there had been a flood in Harlan in March of 1963.  I'd seen a photo of a flood in Hazard from that time but didn't know it had hit Harlan as well. 

Exactly seven months from that week of rain, water, mud, and destruction . . . I was born.

And I was a preemie.

When I learned that a flood had hit Harlan in March of 1963, and I did the math, I thought, this flood was possibly responsible for my conception. After all, if you can't go anywhere due to water . . . 

(I will say this:  Although my parents' house was not too far from the Cumberland River, it was on a hilltop and, to the best of my knowledge, the water did not come high enough to do major damage. My family was lucky. They did not suffer the losses that so many other families did.)

Right now, so many Eastern Kentuckians have lost so much. It's possible that the death toll will rise from this 2022 flood. Coming back from this flood will take time and energy, and I wonder if some Kentuckians think that rebuilding their lives will take more energy than they have right now. 

Right now is a time to reach a hand out, donate, pray, check on any family in the area. 

But maybe, just maybe, in about nine months -- or maybe a little sooner -- this flood might yield a tiny crop of blessings. 

After all, at least one blessing came from a 1963 flood!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

When Queen (no, not Elizabeth!) ruled the world

Freddie Mercury's doctor advised him not to perform that day. Mercury had a sore throat and he would likely do damage to his vocal cords. 

Instead, on Saturday, July 13, 1985, Freddie Mercury defied the doctor's orders, strutted on stage with his band, Queen, and delivered the performance of a lifetime.

It's since been said that for those 20 minutes, a different Queen ruled England.

***

I did not watch the Live Aid concert in July 1985.  I remember passing by the TV room in my college dorm and seeing that it was on TV, but all I knew about it was that it was a benefit concert for famine relief and that Phil Collins was going to perform in London and then hop the Concorde so he could also play the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.

So when the movie Bohemian Rhapsody came out, which focused on Queen's performance at London's Live Aid concert, and also purported to tell Freddie Mercury's life story, I thought, "What's the big deal?" I have not seen Bohemian Rhapsody, but I have read 1) the movie is rife with inaccuracies about Mercury's life, and 2) Rami Malek delivered a fantastic performance worthy of the Oscar he won. 

Then I stumbled across this reaction video from the YouTube channel Jamel AKA Jamal. Reaction videos are videos where a person, or more than one person, listens and reacts to a piece of music they've never heard before. Most reaction videos are from millennials listening to '60's and '70's music for the first time. (I love Jamal. Here's his channel.) 

He did a reaction video of Queen's Live Aid concert .  . . and I watched . . . and I was fascinated. 

I got even more fascinated when watching this video about why Queen were so good that day.

What I took away from both videos were:

• They were a tight, professional band that had performed together for years.
• Since they'd performed together for years, they knew each other's ins and out. They'd know what to do if Brian May hit a wrong note on his guitar or if Freddie Mercury forgot a lyric.
• They'd rehearsed knowing that they'd only have 20 minutes to perform, and that there'd be a tight turnaround time. So when it was their time to go, they had to be ready to go. 

By the mid-1980's, Queen supposedly had seen their heyday. They'd ruled the charts in the '70's with "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Another One Bites the Dust," and who hasn't done a stomp-stomp-clap to "We Will Rock You"? But in 1985? They were still touring and still recording, but the shine from the '70's was gone.

And then Bob Geldof issued the invitation:  Will you perform at Live Aid? 

They said yes.

Unlike what the movie Bohemian Rhapsody says, Freddie Mercury may or may not have been ill with HIV/AIDS on the day of Live Aid. His diagnosis was not announced until the day before his death. 

Maybe the sore throat he had was because of HIV. Maybe it was just a regular sore throat.

But when the doctor said, "Don't sing," Freddie said, "No way," (or maybe he told the doctor something similar in more colorful language), and went on stage at 6:41 p.m. London time.

When he hit the first notes of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the piano and sang the first, "Mama . . ." he had the crowd immediately in the palm of his hand. The crowd became a sea of humanity, waving their arms and singing along with the familiar lyrics. 

From there, Mercury and the band launched into "Radio Ga Ga," "Hammer to Fall," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions."  

Between "Radio Ga Ga" and "Hammer to Fall", Mercury had some fun with the crowd, leading them in a singalong of "Ay-oh!" Back and forth Mercury went with his audience, and his final note has since become known as "The Note Heard Round The World"

For those 20 minutes, although guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon provided the music -- including blistering solos by Brian May -- Freddie Mercury, his body drenched in sweat, held the stage and held the audience. 

By the end, even if you had wanted to, if you had been in that 72,000 Wembley Stadium crowd, you could not have resisted doing a stomp-stomp-clap, singing back at the stage, "We will, we will rock you!" and joining in with the chorus of "We Are the Champions". 

The camera caught a mesmerized audience swaying back and forth under an hypnotic spell. 

Their 22-minute reign ended around 7 p.m. London time, with Mercury's final "We are the champions . . . of the worrrrlllllddd!" 

Champions of the world, indeed!

And as if weren't that enough, he and Brian May came back with an encore, not a hard-rock, high-energy set like they'd just performed, but a ballad asking "Is This the World We Created?" which brought the audience back to the reason for the whole Live Aid concert in the first place: the hungry mouths that needed to be fed. 

When Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991, the world lost a consummate showman and talented musician. 

I'm just sorry it took me 37 years to figure it out.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.