By Nicholas Proch
Let’s take a walk through what it’s like to write my column. I woke up this morning feeling like I was hit by a truck transporting cheap Irish whiskey. Realizing I had an obligation to come in and work on Labor day, while the rest of the world is at barbeques and bat mitzvahs, I started racking my brain for ideas. This column was quickly looking like a dud.
The staff started to file into the office and we started our usual layout. News. Upgrade. Sports. They were all moving along smoothly, but I knew there were two gaping holes. The first was a solid editorial idea, the second was about 450-500 words below my best Kilroy impersonation (for those of you who don’t have any clue what I’m talking about, that’s ok, I usually don’t either).
What were this week’s issues? We have mounting debt and an economic crisis (but let’s be honest, back-to-back weeks of that will probably make half of you skip past this section), there is still aftermath related to the hurricane (that didn’t happen, but there are still people in this state who don’t have power?) or I could write about September 11.
It’s the ten year anniversary, how could I not write about that? It’s timely and seems important to a lot of people. But what was I, the person who always has a pointed opinion about everything, going to say about September 11th?
After much toiling in my head wrestling this idea, here is how my first paragraph started: As you may have heard, this coming Sunday will mark ten years since our country was grabbed by the throat and thrown into a wall. We were attacked, upset and, worst of all, we were embarrassed.
As you can see I had no idea where I was heading. I knew one thing after writing this, I was inevitably going to be a complete ass, but I didn’t want to be; completely. The next line was this: We obsess over landmarks. There are buildings that are so dilapidated and unimpressive, but yet the masses flock to them.
My argument was becoming embarrassing and in poor taste. I was going to make the connection that there is an obsession with devastating events that have symbolic buildings associated with them or a place that we can call ‘home’ to that tragic event.
It was quickly turning into something I didn’t want it to be. There was a glaring problem: I was being insensitive to the families and friends of victims because I had nothing substantive to write about it. I was taking the easy way out for the sake of filling space. It was easier to put charged words down and to be sensational than it was to be informed and balanced in this situation.
My column is one that I want to stand out, but I don’t want it to be for the wrong reasons. At first, I thought I was being soft, but in actuality I was being smart and I’m learning. I’m rarely going to admit that I would have been wrong with using my words, but in this case the right decision was leaving these words out.
With all this being said, I know that I was heading down the wrong path, but on this upcoming Sunday, my thoughts and prayers will go out to the victims, their families, friends and everyone who was involved, as should yours.
