WHERE WERE YOU?

Could you ever forget where you were?  Of course not.  Every one of us remembers, and will always and forever remember, exactly where we were, what we were doing and when we knew, irrevocably, that “something bad” had just happened to our country.

I learned about it from Matt Lauer.  I was watching the Today show when he suddenly realized that something significant had occurred.  He took a break to learn more.  His return to the air moments later confirmed the beginnings of that “something bad.”

Today, as the Mister and I look back, we agree that if there was ever anything good about that time, at least for us, it was this:

We lived in a small community of condos, just inside the city of Dayton.  We weren’t all bosom buddies but we knew each other in one way or another.  Our garages all opened into the same area and it was in that area that most of us spent the next few days.  Together. Scared.  Worried.  we spent those days as one.

We shared food and drink, of course.  We listened with heightened awareness to the constant traffic at nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base.  Why, we wondered. Was something going on we didn’t know about?

Most importantly, we were there for each other.  Supportive.  And full of fear and worry.  But it seemed to us that the whole country felt that way and we took comfort in that.

I had the television on for a little bit yesterday.  I was struck by something I saw and something I heard. And didn’t like. At all.

I felt a sense of divisiveness in more than one speech.  It was inevitable but most unwelcome. 

It struck me as being vastly different from 25 years ago.  When we were all in this together. As a country. When we were one.