WARNING: This post is rated V for Violent Content. (That’s the world we live in now, Dear Readers.)
So last Sunday TBF and I were supposed to be in Las Vegas. We had gone there for his birthday last year and had such a great time in such fabulous weather that we vowed to do it all over again for this birthday.
Besides, we both had an unfinished Things To Do list.
He wanted to get in a little more poker time in downtown Vegas and I wanted to go to Carbone and see what their $64 veal parmigiana was all about.
(Hold your horses, Kauf. That’s only if he had gotten lucky at the poker table.)
But my recent surgery has precluded me from wearing a bathing suit, and if I couldn’t spend lots of time sunning at the pool, I’d soon as not go.
Reluctantly, I told TBF how I felt. He was a sport and agreed that until I am bathing suit-ready, we should hold off on all getaways that are bikini-based.
So with a heavy heart- I was still hugely disappointed, after all- I canceled the reservation for Sunday, October first and we stay-cationed in Chicago instead.
So you can imagine how I felt on Monday morning waking up to the news that Las Vegas had been the site of the latest and largest mass shooting in U.S. history.
I felt like I had dodged a bullet.
Another one.
To be fair, we did not have reservations at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Nor do I think we would have been anywhere near that concert tent venue. But that doesn’t really matter.
This would have been the third time that I had been in the vicinity of an awful, awful shooting involving crazy people and their easy access to guns.
Let me take you back to 1988.
Does the name “Laurie Dann” ring any (graveyard) bells?
As a Winnetka parent, this was too close for comfort.
About a month before that heinous event, I met Joel Corwin in a popcorn line at the Edens Theater. My brother Kenny introduced us, saying,”Ellen’s son is named Nick.”
Joel Corwin’s face lit up like he had been handed a present.
“You have a ‘Nick?’ I have a ‘Nick.’”
And with that, he pulled out his wallet and proudly showed me a photograph of an adorable eight year old Little League slugger. He was in a green and white uniform and had struck a batting stance.
I remember the photograph perfectly.
Because I had the exact same one.
My eight year old was in the same Little League. With the same uniform. In the same pose.
And in exactly the same position in this mother’s heart.
There was only one difference. A month later, a maniac named Laurie Dann did not come into my kids’ school and shoot up a classroom full of third graders.
Her rampage took her to other elementary schools to spread her lethal trail of murder and some kind of psychotic revenge.
I was lucky to get two children returned to me that day.
Some parents in Jefferson County, Colorado weren’t that lucky on April 20, 1999. My son Nick and I were watching tv when the news cut in blaring forth the story of two teenaged gunmen and their murderous massacre at Columbine High School.
Sickening to just listen to it all over again. And, as Nick and I watched for a week in horror, that school shooting destroyed so many young, promising lives- and the lives of their friends and family, of course.
It almost killed the community, too. The gap between the families that had lost children and the families that had been spared the tragedy grew bigger ever year.
How can you get over something like this?
I was fortunate not to be in Florida or California or Virginia or…
And then, I read this.
OMG.
I can’t keep dodging bullets.
And neither can you.
Please.
The Laurie Dann shooting was the day the North Shore stopped leaving their front doors unlocked. Innocence lost.
You’re exactly right, Mitch. An elementary school? A woman with a gun? Kids being shot? Who had heard of this before? It didn’t seem real.
Seems to me it’s time for us to buy bulletproof vests. We are the majority and the NRA has us cowered in a corner. Seems hopeless to me and time to protect ourselves. I’ll be wearing one at the next concert.
You’re right, Laurie. It is sad but why should we be sitting ducks for the NRA- endorsed crazies to use as target practice. Good idea. Get me one too.
Laurie,
I bet not one NRA member was ever involved in pulling the trigger on any of these shootings
I am an NRA member.
I own a weapon and about a dozen sharp kitchen knives. Never once have they ever hurt anyone.
Do you think I should take them somewhere to have them checked out that they’re working properly?
BERNIE,
THERE ARE NO WORDS SO I WILL REMAIN SPEECHLESS. OTHER FOLKS, PROTECT YOURSELVES AND YOUR LOVED ONES PLEASE.
Dann lived across the street from us for a while before her murder spree, Herbie & Sally
How awful. And why did her father give her a gun? If this was true, in fact, Her parents were co-conspirators in my opinion. They had to know she was mentally ill.
I remember the Laurie Dann event well. A friend in Portland lost his nephew in that attack. I also knew the the Crouse family tragedy (Allison had been an occasional lab partner in Biology the summer before). I remember Valerie Percy death. It is amazing we ever recovered . Oddly I spent the last 15-20 years of my career specializing in trauma work. Heading a team we would go into schools where a death….natural, violent or accidental. I felt it was a privilege to be part of the healing process….. many times I wondered how the families continued to move forward .
What wonderful work, Barbara. You were on the side of the angels here. I wish they were more people like you and less members of the NRA.
Ellen,
Are you saying you wish I was not a member of the NRA?
You’re blaming the WRONG people!! Sad……
As I said before, not a single member of the NRA committed any of these crimes. And I bet not a single member of the NRA committed any of the murders in the inner cities.
The last I heard, murder is illegal, but people still murder.
The last I heard driving drunk is illegal but people still drive drunk and kill (murder) people. Do YOU drive drunk?
I don’t drink, Bernie. But I wouldn’t like it if the Alcohol Industry lobbied to change the laws to make it legal for 15 year olds to buy beer. Guns are only as dangerous as the people who have access to them. And no one needs an automatic weapon- except the military and sadly, the police.
No!!
Guns are only as dangerous as to the WRONG people that have access to them. Just as a drunk is dangerous to the public that has access to a car.
Are you afraid of ME because I have access to a weapon….whether a knife, a bomb or a gun?
Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the nation. And its politicians are NOT in the pockets of the NRA. Are they?
I think the NRA has a vast influence over all politicians. Including the ones in notoriously corrupt Chicago. Don’t get ME started on Chicago politics and corruption. It’s a sinkhole of greed.