Students from Florida State University, the staff return to the campus
The president of the FSU, Richard McCullough, visited commemorative monuments on the campus, spoke with students who returned to the campus, just a few days after the mass shooting.
I turned advertisements for a client in Columbia, Missouri, April 17. My director CB Lorch by Charlie Bravo Pictures is also a main silt for national television networks. In the middle of our video band, he was contacted by Fox, asking if he was available to cover an active shooting event at Florida State University. We took a moment to process this message, then we stopped our recording to see what we could learn about the tragedy that takes place. At that time, we all felt very far from home.
Later in the afternoon, I traveled the 125 miles of Columbia in Saint-Louis to join my wife, Berneice. My work has perfectly coincided at Easter weekend and the opportunity for us to visit family and attend our 11-year-old Luke’s Baseball grandson.
I used the reader to make up for the news and try to digest the deployment of the unimaginable.
It was a beautiful mid-West night. A slight breeze while the sun was moving in the mid-West sky. Far from pain. A perfect moment to feel incredibly lucky. Luke had no idea that something terrible had happened at 798 miles away. He was just a child playing baseball by a beautiful spring evening. He was safe, but being safe never came to his mind. His only concern was to take a hit.
I was sitting next to Berneice as she worked to coordinate the way the way could help, watching her juggle contradictory events. Berneice leads our centraide path of Big Bend and far too often, they are called during extraordinary need.
As I watched her speak with leaders and community agencies, the dichotomy was palpable; Leaving his seat to have another dozen seat telephone conversations, then sit down to try to refocus on a field full of happy children … Small what was going on at home … Then his phone would sound again.
And at that time, I said I was to thank God, our children do not have to worry about accidentally reading Maya Angelou, because our visionary heads of state have assured that his poetry would not climb our school libraries. And that our children were safe from being in a bathroom with bad sex. By getting comfort that because we have our straight priorities, we have protected our children from these things that can harm them.
Proud that our national leaders have saved a few million dollars by eliminating the Ministry of Education and getting rid of these annoying mental health programs. Sleeping well knowing that our state leadership made sure to allow the open transport of firearms to be at the top of the priority list, and the visionary lowering of age to buy a weapon made its way.
Knowing everything that wrapped me in an itchy anger cover. The kind of itching that we are powerless to scratch, because we have leaders who find the cover comfortable. And then as the events took place, I took a deep inspiration and I thought of two good men who did not go home, because they went to a campus to do their job.
I was wondering if our children will look back and realize how we failed them. Failure to minimize risks. Has not allowed the tragedy to give birth to the change instead of simply providing another podium moment of hollow thoughts and prayers.
From a distance, I saw photos of these leaders rushing towards the cameras to show their concern and remind us that they have made no one burst into our children’s schools and again read a dangerous Maya Angelou poem.
Gary Yordon is a crowd of the WCTV political program “The Usual Suspects” and president of the Zachary group. You can find its podcast, “Banana Peel Boulevard” on ThepeelPodcast.com or on Apple, Amazon Music and Spotify platforms.
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