There have certainly been historical moments seen through the television screen. As I look back on a few that are memorialized in my psyche, I also can recall the type of set these pictures were shown on and vaguely, the time and place that I starred at those machines. Whether on an original black and white, adorned with rabbit ears, tin foil and metal hangers, or on the massive stereo console (such an item of pride to my folks), I was transfixed. Then the portables followed with such grainy pictures, and eventually the sleek, slim flat screen of today with DVD, HD, Blue Ray and...
The Kennedy shooting happened when I was small. Sister Mary had us kneel on the hard, painful linoleum flooring and pray for our president and for the soul of the man (and that was an assumption at that point,of course) who shot him. I cried and cried until I was so stuffy that I could hardly breath. Once home, my mother cried also as she fooled with the antennae. AND the whole world wept.
Martin Luther King, Jr. orated ."I have a dream," which was played and replayed on the middle school's rolling video recorder. I sobbed until my eyes were horribly puffy. (Was there ever such a sound as that man and his words?) AND the whole world wept.
Yes, there was the Moon Walk, the Watergate scandal and the John Lennon shooting. I saw Princess Diana's funeral live while tucked in bed with a migraine headache... AND yes, the world wept.
O.J tried on gloves, pretended to understand DNA jargon, and then heard his verdict. There were angry tears that time. I may even have thrown the remote control.
September 11th and we watched the horror on a short delay from the actual event. Victims. Children. First responders. Rubble and dust and terror. Color that seemed too brilliant. .
Of late, the Newtown Tragedy was seen via the PCs of our time, as well as the tube. Newscasters stumbled and stuttered as they tried to convey the magnitude of such an atrocity. Everyone had an opinion on this event. We became accustomed to the music played every time the local news covered another aspect of this story. One could picked any of dozens of channels from which to watch.
Today, Boston is mourning the dead and the injured on social media, and we find our planet a frightening place...again.
AND, the world weeps... again and again and...
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
