I'm Sorry, But Not Today - Issue #52
I'm sorry that I'm not writing about the world of magazines and media this week or sharing with you the articles that I've collected over the past seven days.
Instead, I have some thoughts about what happened yesterday in the city next door to me. A place that I learned that I really do love.
We moved to the village next door to Highland Park about thirty years and a few months ago. We liked the look of Chicago's North Shore. We liked the schools, parks, neighborhoods. We weren't sure that we'd fit in exactly but we wanted to give it a try. It seemed like a good place to raise a family. Our town was close enough to the city of Chicago that we could get there for all the cultural events. Even better, right next door was the very pretty and friendly city of Highland Park and we even had some family there.
Yesterday we were a little out of sorts in the morning. July 4th is a really big deal in our village and when our children were young, we would take them to the "Family Days" celebration. It consists of rides, games, a pancake breakfast and a very informal and silly "Bring Your Own Dog", dog show. Then at noon, a parade along out town's Main Street that features bands, local businesses, sports teams, the police and fire departments and, of course, local politicians.
The Highland Park July 4th parade is always a few hours before ours so the high school marching band and all the politicians we shared with that bigger community could march there first and then come to us.
It was all cosy, friendly, congenial and very suburban Americana. This year, after my wife and I participated in the Rotary Club's 5K race, we wondered what to do with ourselves now that our young adult children were no longer living with us. Where to go this year? What to do?
Yesterday, a little after 10:00, we decided to go the Family Days celebration at the neighboring park and then watch our town's parade. Why not? We still live here and despite all of the difficult political news and and everything else going on, we can feel patriotic! It's our town, our community, our county, our state, our country, after all.
But as we crossed the Metra pedestrian bridge, we saw Lake County Sherif cars racing towards the east, shortly followed other police cars. Then as we approached the park, we saw that families were leaving, not entering. Soon after we learned why.
So it can happen here. It can happen anywhere. At least here in the United States. With regular frequency. It does happen in other countries. But not nearly as often as it does here.
I'm not opposed to guns. I'm not opposed to differing political opinions or economic theories. Frankly, about the only thing I am truly opposed to is borscht.
My heart broke yesterday for the families that lost a member. My brain was twisted thinking about the families that worried for their members who were in the hospital being treated for bullet wounds.
And this realization: All the children in our local schools now know that the "Active Shooter" drills they participate in during the school year are for real. It's not just a way to avoid some classroom time.
This wasn't the future I envisioned when we first moved here. There wasn't supposed to be a pandemic. An economy eaten alive by monopoly. A shooter on the roof of Ross Drugs sending families scurrying into Walker Bros. Pancake House for safety and depriving six other families of their loved ones.
But it is the one we have. And the only thing I can think of to do is to push back and say, "No more."
No more.
