HAPPY NEW YEAR???

I couldn’t wait to send out my first blog of 2021. Despite COVID worries and restrictions, and a sobering escalation of cases here in Maine and across the country, hopes were rising as we await the imminent vaccine. And hooray! The longest night of the year was in the rear view mirror. That’s a big deal in Maine.

Then, two days ago, a teeming mass of thugs and rioters, toting guns, MAGA banners and Confederate flags, stormed the Capital in Washington, D.C., where our  senators and representatives were in session, attempting to approve the Electoral College vote for President. I’d been watching the proceedings on television, knowing there was potential for argumentative fireworks, never thinking I was about to add a new iconic photo to my memory bank.

Over the years, certain images — pictures more potent than 1000 words — have captured moments I will never forget.  I still “see” Jack Ruby, 58 years ago, stepping forward in a crowded jail hallway in Dallas, firing shots that killed Lee Harvey Oswald. I saw this on a black and white television, and the picture that pops up in my mind is grey.  But it’s sharper than a stiletto heel in my memory.

On January 28, 1986, I was at home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, watching the Challenger space craft lift off from the Kennedy Space Center. Then, 73 seconds later, I saw it explode in an awful cloud of yellow and white. Seven crew members, including Chistine McCauliffe, died.  Today, 35 years later, I can tap that image in a nanosecond.

September 11, 2001. A sunny day with Windex blue skies. Suddenly from the television in the kitchen, I heard an anchor mention that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center towers. All day long and into the night, I sat glued to the television, trying to absorb and process the horror.  Of all the images captured by photographers that day, the one I boot up instantly shows the towers collapsing.

Shattered images of America. I don’t treasure them, I just can’t let them go.

And now, January 6, 2021. There are many ghastly photos, including one described by Heather Cox Richardson as a shirtless man sitting on the dais of the Senate, “wearing a bull costume that revealed a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen.” But for me, the sad lasting image of the day shows the hordes swarming the Capital steps and portico.

What? How? Why?

Back when I was a freshman in college, I took a course called Government 101, aka “Baby Gov,” as my Skidmore classmates labeled it. One day Professor Galant was lecturing us about the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution that protects the freedom of speech, religion and the press. It also protects the right to peaceful protest. 

To this day I remember my professor saying:  “But no one has the right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater.” 

This past Wednesday, too many people yelled FIRE. And sadly, my personal photo album has a new addition.