In Solidarity With Parkland, Florida
Mar 02, 2018
Like a lot of Americans, I have been paying close attention to the kids who survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It’s very unlikely that I will ever experience anything like what those kids have gone through. But when I watch their faces as they stand up and speak truth to the legislators who hold the power and responsibility for seeing that our schools are safe, and contemplate the need for society to do something to protect them, I see something in their postures and in their eyes that is vaguely familiar. Of course there is great emotion in what they are saying. They are courageous but, if you look closer, you can see a tiny shift in their eyes, an involuntary tilt of their heads, a little change in their balance, as if they are listening to the sound of a faint audible bell sounding in their heads.
Though it is barely comparable, I have had a glimpse of that look. Six weeks ago I returned home from a short, few hour trip into Rapid City. We live in a remote area at the end of miles of gravel roads and at the dead end of a two-mile-long driveway. We go weeks without seeing a car. When I came home that day, I expected to see my dog, Shiner, tearing around the corner of the horse barn to greet me. He’s usually excited to go inside with me but, that day I saw no sign of him. It was cold and getting dark so I figured he’d weaseled his way into Erney’s cabin, who is our old friend and dog caretaker. I really didn’t think much about it, just parked the car and walked past the horse barn to Erney’s to collect him. When I asked Erney, he just shrugged. “Haven’t seen him. Haven’t seen anything, all day.”
We agreed that he was probably somewhere in the trees, exercising the rabbits. We talked for a few minutes and I made my way back to the house. By now it was almost dark and the light had become eerie. When I got to the house I found the front door wide open. I wasn’t sure what to think. I could only believe that I had inadvertently left the door open when I’d left a few hours before. I stepped in and flipped on the light that illuminated the broken glass of picture frames that were scattered across the floor. I heard Shiner coming from the back bedroom. I initially went for the easy explanation: I left the door open, Shiner found it, came inside, and had a dog party in our house. But Shiner is not that kind of dog, he is not a Rottweiler or Doberman Pincher, he is a small, gentle, white English Setter, with a black patch around one eye. By then he was standing in the hallway, looking ashamed and as bewildered as I felt. A few more feet in and I noticed that the computer I’d been on just a few hours before was gone. Drawers were gaped open and I walked to one of the open drawers and saw that my Colt revolver was gone. My walk down the hall showed more open drawers and missing electronics.
I had called Colton and went to the window when I heard him pull up to the shop (which he was going to check out when he arrived), and I stared out in disbelief, the ranch pick-up truck was gone. We had been robbed. Our wall of security had been breached. Our little Camelot had been violated. What had Shiner seen? His tail wagged in slow confusion. Thump, thump, thump against the wall.
In twenty years we had never locked a door, never taken the keys out of the ranch trucks. When Jill and Jilian showed up they stood staring at the damage gasping, that is when I first saw the troubled look that I’ve been seeing on the faces of kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School. That faint bell was sounding, inside Jill and Jilian’s heads. It was fear, a loss of innocence, a recalculation of the order of our lives. Who did this? Meth heads? Crazies? Would they come back? It’s a bell that could never be un-rung.
We’d lost the pickup, the computer, stereo speakers, my kindle, cell phone, some jewelry, and the old Colt revolver that I had kept near me for forty years. Our family photos could be reframed and our photographed faces would again smile out into the room, but those faces would never be the same – they had now been changed.
It was clear that the greatest loss was something that could not be calculated. From the material realm, the insurance did not cover the pickup and after the deductible and depreciation values, the check was incredibly small. There was enough to cover all new door locks and a now needed security system, what was left over I reserved to buy a new pistol. Because I didn’t know what else to do, I walked over to the cabinet where the old Colt had always been, and put it in the drawer. It was a hollow gesture.
76 comments
Far-away places, the same experience.
I am so sorry to learn that you too have experienced the shock of intrusion and robbery. For me here in Grenoble, France it was back in May of 2013 when we also lost the computer, the television, my kindle, and some jewellery. (Our English Setter, Spot, was at the kennel.) The robbers put it all into my car and drove away with that too. And I remember having to deal with the insurance company the same week I learned that my mother had passed away and I needed to get a plane ticket to return to Ohio for her funeral. Maybe family togetherness did help to blot out the vision of intruders in my home helping themselves to our possessions and walking into our private space. Jill and Dan, your home and your hospitality back in June 2017 still hold a special place in my mind.
How sensitive of you to keep your losses in proportion, as your thoughts first went to the kids in Parkland. We all continue to think of them and praise them for their action.
this may sound strange or sermon-like but I’ve found the best way to overcome these attacks we all experience at some point. instead of allowing the anger/fear/resentment to burn a hole in your heart for as long as you hold onto this ugly event, bring forgiveness to it. the forgiveness I speak of isn’t like what is taught by religions of the world but the thought which you give to this as if it never happened, that it isn’t something to obsess over, you can let it go, let them go, for they didn’t know better. this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t guard against ill-will of others, just to let it go so it doesn’t harm you and those you love. it’s rising above the battleground.
’s a sad, old story that is part of our heritage. A long time ado there was a loosely associated group called the Banditti of the Prairies that held the upper Mississippi Valley in a state of terror and rage. Their worst offense was to exploit the custom of hospitality as part of their predations. As inn accommodations were scarce and primitive, travelers would ask householders to put them up for the night. When Abraham Lincoln traveled the judicial circuit, he made much use of local hospitality. The custom is the source of all those traveling salesman-farmer’s daughter stories. The custom is well-portrayed in Hamlin Garland’s story “Under the Lion’s Paw.”
The Bandittti would ask for a night of hospitality so they could case the homestead and assess the values and the layout. Then they would return with their cronies and carry off everything of value. They carried this ploy out to the point where all the homesteaders began to keep loaded arms handy and refused hospitality to traveling strangers. This resulted in an attitude of shoot first and inquire later, a rash of shootings of both perpetrators and innocent travelers, and a climate of suspicion and hostility. The Banditti were among the first to complain about the dangerous atmosphere, but law enforcement and local officials also found it burdensome to sort out the legitimate acts of self-defense from the hasty, mistaken shootings.
As community leaders organized more considered methods of defense, things calmed down. But the custom of hospitality and trust in fellow humankind was dead and laid to rest.