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Robert A. Mills

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TRYING TO TAKE TUCSON – a bonus blog
1/19/2011 6:14:06 AM

For many years in Rochester I was a staff announcer at WVET, then later at WVET-TV (now WROC-TV,) the preeminent broadcasting facility in Western New York. When I began there our news director was my close friend, David Roberts; he left in the ‘50s to work overseas for the U.S. State Department and at the Voice of America.

Roberts was replaced by the sports’ broadcaster Tom Decker, and for nearly three decades I was the weatherman and co-anchor on our twice-daily TV newscasts. Over the years, we covered everything from the two Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations to Richard Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War.

Decker and I are both retired — he lives in Florida and I reside in Georgia — and we correspond regularly by e-mail. We are old men now — tired, callous, caustic and cantankerous — collectively we have seen the best — and worst — America has to offer.

Decker is an unabashed right-wing conservative who is certain the country is hamstrung by too much government, exploited by people such as Harry Reid and Nancy Pulosi; I am a cynical left-leaning liberal who is convinced our government is hamstrung by people such as John Boehner and Sarah Palin. We are both dead right, despite the grinding of separate axes.

But, diversities aside, we were shocked and dismayed by the senseless tragedy in Tucson, and Decker, moved by the utter futility of it all and the absurd cliché “unbelievable,” wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the Daytona Beach (FL) News Journal; this is what he wrote, brackets mine:

“Once again a tragic event has captured the nation’s attention. The many expressions of sympathy and concern have included the word ‘unbelievable’ [as regards this brainless act.]

“It is heartbreaking that the target of a deranged mind was a popular and highly regarded Congresswoman. It is [even more] heartbreaking that a fusillade of bullets suddenly ended the lives of six people, including a 9-year-old girl, and injured many more.

“But it was not ‘unbelievable’.

“Today's world is noted for its periodic outbreaks, especially among political and celebrated figures. We need only to recall the fatal shootings of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King [and John Lennon.] And add those unsuccessful attempts against Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.

“This is the world we live in. We can mourn. We can seek improved defensive measures. We can pray that inevitable future horrors be few and far between. But we cannot permanently end this periodic carnage.

“And that is distressingly believable.”

Unlike most people still inhabiting this planet, I can actually hear Tom Decker saying these words. Remember, I was in the newsroom and on the set when he spoke innumerable times in “editorial tones” brought about by national events of unspeakable inanities.

Decker and I have lived 34% of this nation’s entire life (he admittedly more than I,) and we have seen everything from the Great Depression to the ravaging of our best and brightest young men and women in devastating wars. Now, today, we have new crosses to bear. Jaded beyond belief, we thought there was nothing left to keep us from thinking better days were just around the corner.

Are we wrong? Tucson caught us by surprise. Just when we thought nothing worse could happen, it did. But . . . I’ve got news for you. We are Americans. We will survive. We will endure. As bad as Tucson is and was (and it was horrible) we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep right on going. We have to.

That’s what America is all about.

* *

A Reminder: Mr. Mills’s second novel — AURA LEE — a Civil War yarn, is now available for ordering at www.authorsden.com/robertmills. It can be ordered on line and delivered to your door within 72 hours!

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