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I'd like to make a request of anyone who makes their living writing for newspapers or magazines, or talking on television or radio.
Please, please, please stop whining.
For the past six weeks, we've engaged in more introspection and self-analysis than during the last half-century combined. Nothing wrong with that -- the events of Sept. 11 were, hopefully, the most horrific we'll ever collectively experience, whatever our perspective. Anyone whose goals and world view hasn't changed, at least a little, probably didn't have all that much going for them in the first place.
But such soul-searching is a very individual, private thing. At least it should be. That's not how our psychoanalytical culture works, though, particularly the fifth estate. And over the past few weeks, most of the self-revelation poured out on pages and airwaves fall into the category of more than I need to know. Or want to hear.
The most common theme -- how terrible our lives have suddenly become. We can't arrive at the airport 25 minutes before our flights and still make it. Somebody might send us a letter filled with anthrax. Worst of all, THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD WHO DON'T LIKE US AND WANT TO KILL US.
Oh, no.
And the aforementioned self-analysis has an incredibly self-centered ring to it. Increasingly, the fears and anxieties spewed forth are not for the health of our economy or the safety of our country, but the happiness of the individual expressing them.
Food doesn't taste as good. Comedy isn't as funny (and if it is, it's probably offensive in some way). Can't get nine hours of deep sleep filled with pleasant dreams, or forget the world situation long enough to make love beforehand. Life has been irrevocably altered for the worse since finding out that a friend's cousin's brother-in-law would have been in the World Trade Center if not for heavy traffic.
What a bunch of self-indulgent crap. There are roughly 837,424 ways in which I'm much more likely to die than at the hands of a terrorist. And in a substantial number of those possibilities, I've probably got it coming.
In all the literature that came out of World War II, you won't find any bemoaning Fibber McGee's sudden loss of relevance, or longing for the days when we didn't have to worry about anything, ever. Of course, the people writing and talking back then had endured the Great Depression, Prohibition and World War I without an excessive amount of complaint.
Maybe, just maybe, we had things a little too easy before Sept. 11. Other than reporters and analysts who focus strictly on foreign affairs, the media largely ignored the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania because, well, that was way over in Africa and, after all, the President had been busted for fooling around with a consenting adult. In the Oval Office, no less.
We had all but forgotten about the truck bomb in the parking ramp under the WTC that killed six in 1993 because perpetrators were arrested and convicted. Never mind that their spiritual and political leader, Osama bin Laden, was still lurking somewhere, along with an accomplice who was never captured.
Work and personal considerations had me bouncing around Western New York and the eastern United States last week. A few observations that have nothing to do with night sweats, unprovoked crying jags or an uncontrollable urge to bury my head under a pillow:
Real people are tougher than we in the media seem to understand. Before the Buffalo Bills game in Jacksonville last week, I shared a table amidst the pregame festivities outside the stadium with a grandmotherly woman and her son, who have attended every Jaguars game together since the team's inception in 1995.
"People don't get as loud and crazy as they did before games, but everybody still comes and has a good time," Marge said between bites of fried shrimp. "What are you going to do? Sit home all day?"
The blackened mahi sandwich, by the way, was delicious.
The night before the game, a group of Western New York media in Jacksonville hit a sports bar along Route A1A near the hotel.
Fifteen-foot-high television screens offering remarkable clarity ringed the restaurant. Some showed the American League Championship Series game between the Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks, while others carried the Rangers- Islanders game. All the while, waitresses clad in cheerleader outfits served pitchers of beer, chicken fingers and enormous slabs of strawberry cheesecake.
It couldn't have been more excessive. Or better.
"This is the greatest sports bar ever," said one writer who has seen his share.
Take that, Osama.
Back in Niagara Falls, the usual lunch crowd filled Gadawski's Fighting Irish Tavern on Falls Street on Friday.
Lawyers, politicians, writers and people who actually work for a living discussed the state of the city, the Bills' win the night before and how we'll ever fill the gaping maw left in our cultural landscape by the cancellation of A Festival of Lights (OK, I made that last one up).
Not a soul mentioned anthrax.