Bill Lantry
Member
- Messages
- 2,663
- Location
- Inside the Beltway
Dear All,
Last night, towards midnight, I was on the nordic track, exercising. I was upset because I'd found some highly figured wood for some cabinet doors, and I was so excited about it, I took in in and showed it to Doorlink. She rejected it, out of hand, because she just wanted "plain" wood on the cabinet faces. Anyway, I can never go right to sleep after exercising, and I was so upset about the Doorlink thing that I was disinclined to try. So I sat down at the computer and looked for a way to waste time. I decided to see what was most popular this week on youtube.
Skipping over the britney spears stuff, the big things were remembrances of sept 11. I hadn't seen those videos for a while, so I watched them. Horrific stuff: the planes, the buildings, the people. It brought all the memories of that day rushing back... 6000 students to worry about, no-one knowing what was going on, having to set up communications channels for all those worried parents, keep the staff together (one of our faculty members was on the pentagon plane), all the rumors about other planes in the air, every road jammed so there was no escape, nothing for it but react to the changing situation and be ready for the next thing, whatever it would be, and many other things and emotions I could mention, awful things...
I turned off the computer. Clearly, I'm still not ready to think about that day. It might be a while. But I did learn one thing: it was just plain silly to be upset with Doorlink over such a small thing. I think Rick says something like that at the end of Casablanca: the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans by comparision. I can't believe I was actually upset about a discussion of figured vs. non-figured wood, or a few words that were exchanged because of it. And I thought of the very end of the rhyme of the ancient mariner: "a sadder and a wiser man, he woke the morrow morn."
So here's hoping we can all put this into peaceful perspective. Remember, for a few days after sept 11, when nobody was honking at each other over some small road dispute, and people were talking to other people they hadn't spoken to in years, or who they passed everyday and never spoke to? I know it's been a few years, but I remember that interlude of peace as well as I remember all the other things. I hope this forum can be a place where we can find that kind of peace, in an otherwise very troubled world.
Peace,
Bill
Last night, towards midnight, I was on the nordic track, exercising. I was upset because I'd found some highly figured wood for some cabinet doors, and I was so excited about it, I took in in and showed it to Doorlink. She rejected it, out of hand, because she just wanted "plain" wood on the cabinet faces. Anyway, I can never go right to sleep after exercising, and I was so upset about the Doorlink thing that I was disinclined to try. So I sat down at the computer and looked for a way to waste time. I decided to see what was most popular this week on youtube.
Skipping over the britney spears stuff, the big things were remembrances of sept 11. I hadn't seen those videos for a while, so I watched them. Horrific stuff: the planes, the buildings, the people. It brought all the memories of that day rushing back... 6000 students to worry about, no-one knowing what was going on, having to set up communications channels for all those worried parents, keep the staff together (one of our faculty members was on the pentagon plane), all the rumors about other planes in the air, every road jammed so there was no escape, nothing for it but react to the changing situation and be ready for the next thing, whatever it would be, and many other things and emotions I could mention, awful things...
I turned off the computer. Clearly, I'm still not ready to think about that day. It might be a while. But I did learn one thing: it was just plain silly to be upset with Doorlink over such a small thing. I think Rick says something like that at the end of Casablanca: the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans by comparision. I can't believe I was actually upset about a discussion of figured vs. non-figured wood, or a few words that were exchanged because of it. And I thought of the very end of the rhyme of the ancient mariner: "a sadder and a wiser man, he woke the morrow morn."
So here's hoping we can all put this into peaceful perspective. Remember, for a few days after sept 11, when nobody was honking at each other over some small road dispute, and people were talking to other people they hadn't spoken to in years, or who they passed everyday and never spoke to? I know it's been a few years, but I remember that interlude of peace as well as I remember all the other things. I hope this forum can be a place where we can find that kind of peace, in an otherwise very troubled world.
Peace,
Bill
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