The Boston Bombing

We watched part of the marathon and then the Red Sox game on television.  Turned the TV  off to be a little more productive, then mid-afternoon Significant Other turned it on again.  The news was bad and then it got worse.  And worse still.  Every time I check it more children missing legs, children killed, a horror show.

We used to watch the marathon runners come through Wellesley at the half-way mark.  You could hear the girls from Wellesley College urging the runners on half a mile away.  Very thrilling to see the wheelchairs zipping by, then the whole pack in the old days.  Scrawny and hefty (yes, there were those), Bony and cushioned, muscular and stick-like, the runners pounded down Central Street   by the thousands, a riveting sight.  People we had seen training in the dark and snow of winter, the slush of early spring, running, running, running.

Of course there were always a few show offs who weren't running but wanted everyone to think they were.  One year my boss trained and trained and ran the race only to  give up  in Natick.  We were all crushed.  He was always so disciplined. It's a hard race,  up those hills that break your heart.

Me?  I smoked so much that I never had the wind to run or swim, even after I stopped smoking.  Envied those who did.    But I cheered on the runners from Wellesley or from home.  Never from Boylston Street with its crowds,  and general chaos.  We attend the Boston Book Festival in that neighborhood, which also has its crowds, this being Boston.  Will I go to the festival this fall?  Not sure.  Probably will.  I flew in a mostly empty U.S. airplane during the Gulf War.  I traveled twice by plane shortly after 9/11.  So I'll probably go to the book festival.

Boston is the city where two of the 9/11 planes departed, and we lost a lot of good people and we don't take terrorism lightly.  I suspect a lot of citizens are having recurrences of PTSD.  I heard that there were some trainees in the medical tent, preparing for a day of dehydrated runners, chilled runners, blisters, maybe even chest pains.  They got more than they could ever have anticipated.  Hope they're O.K.

And as usual the first responders (lots of them on the scene) ran toward the explosions rather than away.  Lots of brave cops and BAA people who rushed  to help the wounded.  Ordinary citiznes, military, everyone trying to help.  They should be proud of themselves.  

So the day after Marathon Monday, is it Traumatized Tuesday?  Yes, and then some. 

I keep asking myself what kind of coward sets off a bomb when the street is full of children, women, and non-combatants if you will?  He didn't even have the courage to blow himself up.  Now we know what the people in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan live with almost daily.

We live in a crazy world.