Today, after posting about the horrors of our current world, I came across an article I’d like to share.
Mike Rowe is the narrator of Deadliest Catch and has also done other projects including ‘Dirty Jobs’ – where he tends to get as dirty as the job he’s reporting on. He’s obviously blue collar, very funny, and amazingly deep when you least expect it. I have a great deal of respect for him. Apparently, in the last 24 hours, he received the following communique… his answer is beautiful.
Molly Carr wrote to Rowe: ” I live in Las Vegas, and I’ve seen you here often. Once, in the lobby at Mandalay Bay. We’re all shattered here, obviously. A comforting word from you would go a long way…”
What did Rowe say?
Hi Molly
I’m not surprised you saw me at the Mandalay. I cleaned their shark tank back in 2006, and I’ve stayed there at least thirty times since. Maybe that’s why my initial thoughts about this latest tragedy were so random and strange. Even before I imagined myself in the thick of the chaos, (as I always do,) and even before I thanked God that I wasn’t, (as I don’t do enough,) I found myself wondering if I had used the same elevator as the killer.
Isn’t that odd?
As people were being murdered in the most cowardly way imaginable, by a creature I can barely think of as human, I lay in my bed at home, stunned and horrified – wondering if I had stood in the same box and pushed the same buttons as the man now destroying countless lives and families. Since I’ve ridden all the elevators at Mandalay, I determined that the answer was yes.
I then wondered if the killer and I had shared the same barstool in the lobby? Had we swam in the same pool, or chatted up the same bellman, or played a hand of blackjack at the same table? Had we slept in the same bed?
It’s not a stretch. I’ve stayed on the 32nd floor of Mandalay before. I remember looking down at the sprawling, empty space 300 feet below my window – the same sprawling space that was recently filled with thousands of people having a good time, right up until they weren’t, courtesy of a monster.
Yesterday, I was struck by how unknowingly we rub elbows with evil. How we share the highways and bi-ways with hollowed-out men and craven women whose capacity for wickedness knows no bounds. It would be convenient if such people all looked the same, but alas, they don’t. They look just like us. And so we dine with them in restaurants, unknowingly. We walk by them in shopping malls, sit next to them in theaters, and maybe even hold the door for them as they smile and nod in thanks.
I’m sorry, Molly. I know these are not comforting words. The world is as uncertain as the people in it, and we share this rock with some very uncertain folks. But we also share it with living proof that hope will never die.
Take comfort in men who threw themselves over other people’s children. They are no less real than the killer, and they are still with us.
Take comfort in the woman who loaded wounded strangers into her car and drove them out of harm’s way.
Take comfort in the hundreds of first responders who risk their lives every day, and the hundreds of anonymous citizens who stood in line to give their blood.
Take comfort in the fact all good people are shattered, and that you are not alone.
There are no words, Molly, at least in my vocabulary, to bring you the comfort you seek. But there are people among us who restore my faith in the species, even as others seek to rob me of it. I can introduce you to those people. That’s what I’ve tried to do with my little slice of cyber space, and that’s what I can do today. The same thing I do every Tuesday.
This is Momma Ginger. Momma and her fellow Soup Ladies spend their lives waiting for disaster and tragedy to strike. When the unthinkable happens, they drive to the scene with a trailer filled with homemade soup, and feed the first-responders.
It sounds like a small thing. It isn’t. When it comes to kindness, there are no small things. And when it comes to keeping hope alive, our first responders are the best example there is. This is the woman who takes care of them. In fact, she’s on her way to your city right now.
Take comfort in her.
Hope. Such an awesome thing. There are more wonderful people in this world than evil ones. let’s NOT allow those evil people to dictate our lives.
Off soap box.
Tomorrow will be a very stressful day for me. It will be one week since Spawn rolled the car and tomorrow, he’s driving the new one to school and back. And no, me driving him out there and back isn’t going to work. We’d have to leave at some ungodly hour of the morning. So I will be on pins and needles. Right now, I have tension tamer tea steeping and I’m going to ply him with it so he’ll get a good night’s rest.
Did I show you my cute shoes??? The pointy toed ones?
OMG! They are SOOO uncomfortable. I wore them to school Tuesday and by the time I got to my room, I was kicking out of them. It was Barefoot Day in my room! They are going back! I’m going up a full side with the double wide! Hope that works.
I’m having the same issue with the black suede ones – they’re a bit tight in the toe – lordy, are you SUPPOSED to buy pointy toed shoes a full size too big? What masochist decided we needed to wear these sorts of things?
yeah – I think I’ll just go ahead..
Either way, I TRIED to read some this month. I know you’re so not interested and will skip down to the Richard.
I am continuing the problem I have had for the last few months. I start on a book and I just can’t finish it. I don’t care, it didn’t grab me… I dunno.
This book was given to me for an honest review. My review was basically, I stopped about a few chapters in because it was simply unbelievable. The Russians – or someone – is nuking LA and the protaganist’s college age daughter is sitting with her friends on the roof of her college dorm, painting her toenails and watching. She goes to a party where she is almost date-raped by the campus stud. The protagnist is a retired Navy Seal who ends up hoofing it to the family safe house because a couple of amateurs waylaid him and his rental and his wife and 2 other kids are having problems as well – including a babysitter who is clueless that her charges have climbed out the window and gone up the street to play. And mom is okay with this.
I wasn’t okay with this and quit. It’s my understanding after posting my review, the ending was a cliffie and there is no word if it will continue. I. Don’t. Care. Next.
Another book I started and didn’t finish. Back around WW1, an airship – or blimp – goes down in the dessert, carrying a secret treasure. the wreckage is never found. 100 years later, a Russian millionaire decides to go hunt for it, for reasons, and decides a certain archeologist can help. Needless to say, he wants her help whether or not she wants to give it and is willing to kill everyone in his path to procure her aid. Either or, a security detail of – RETIRED NAVY SEALS (what is it about retired navy seals? They’re supposed to be competent) can’t seem to stop this guy. Her body guard loses her and gets her back about 3 times by the same guy (why he didn’t just kill him is beyond me) and when the Russians took her the FOURTH time and also took her mother – I quit.
NEXT!!!
The 3rd book in this series – a medieval Wales who-dun-it to who-did-it. Owain is marrying his 1st cousin, Christiana (basically, getting control of MORE Welsh land this way) and inadvertently sets up one hell of a mess when he dies (19 sons. The king was a man-whore) Not to mention the Catholic Church, which is gaining ground, is very much against the marriage because – ew, gross, 1st cousins getting nekked. However, someone tries to kill the king the night before and all hell breaks loose.
There are 2 weddings at the end of this. Yay.
And my Nanowritmo takes place during this time period. I’m sorta focusing on one of Owain’s sons – Madoc.
Never heard of Madoc? You will.
And last…
The 2nd in this series. This one took a while to get started – but once it did…Whoosh!
According to legend, King Solomon bound powerful demons to him and they built his temple in one night. Once the task was completely, he bound them in a jar, sealed it and marked it with their names (I guess so people would be afraid to open it, because they were bad moe-foes) – and threw it into the Dead Sea. Or some sea.
Except someone fished it up and opened it…
more than once, apparently.
Either way, a WHOLE bunch of people are after it – including the Russian Mafia – what IS it about the Russians? Buried treasure in the dessert, buried treasure in the Great Sea, messing with elections. Please. If they were really messing with this stuff, the New England Patriots would NOT have won the Super Bowl!
Either way, it was a rollicking good time. I need to dig up the third one.
I’m thinking my reading might not be so much as I have Nanowritmo coming up and I need to write my Big Bang.
And my Tension Tamer tea is kicking in. Here. Have some Richard.
Yeah, that’s about right.
zee's muse 