Since I don't normally have access to a TV when I blog I rarely remember some of the television related stuff that runs through my head. Although after an 11 hour day at work, not much runs through my head. My project manager was "sick" with a headache and didn't make it in today when we had a large project to ship to the client. Yet her car was parked near her "friend's" house after work. What a miracle recovery.
Anyway, that's a nice segue. Miracles. Birth, love, life itself, a hockey game. I know, it's like playing the game from Sesame Street. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong. Anyone who knows me and hasn't had their head buried in the sand the past week or so knows I'm talking about the Miracle on Ice. 25 years ago today in Lake Placid New York. In fact, as I type this, the tape delayed game would have just about been to the third period. Anyone outside of Lake Placid wouldn't know of the Miracle just yet. But the ripple effect is still felt in so many ways 25 years later. The movie, Miracle does have a few embellishments, but with the absolute spot-on portrayal of Herb Brooks by Kurt Russell it's more relevant than even they thought it would be. It does a good job of painting the bleak state that America found itself spiraling around in. Much like the state everyone feels the country is in today. Very little national pride, little to no faith in the presidency, fighting wars, that to most, seem pointless...sound familiar?
Where am I going with this? There's no easy answer. But on this night 25 years ago, a group of kids, who had worked their collective asses off, lifted the spirits of a nation at a time when they most needed it. Today's society is so jaded I'm not sure that something like that could happen again.
Joe's most recent post begins with his view of the ritual of mourning or lack thereof. I understand what he means. America lifts up the annointed few, but cares little for the anonymous many. At this point, anyone who was interested knows that Hunter Thompson committed suicide. He was a famous writer, immortalized by film, and many now feel that he was the last of his kind as a journalist. He was married twice and had wonderful adventures.
Jennie was 92. Approx. 25 years Hunter's senior. She died peacefully, he chose the way he wanted to leave. She had 12 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Why wasn't she on the front page of USA Today? Is it because she chose a different path? Chose to share her gift in a different way, because I don't doubt she had a gift...something to share...someone to impact. Much the same way, without meeting Brian I can say that he has an impact, a gift. Maybe it doesn't stack up, in the public's eyes, to Hunter's gift, but really...who are they to judge?
Do I know Hunter, Jennie, or Brian? No. When I post the loss of someone on my blog it's because they impacted my life. I'm not taking a veiled stab against Joe (just in case the big time law student still tunes in from time to time). This is how my life runs. If you look in the August archives for 2003 and 2004 you'll see the tributes that I posted to Herb Brooks. Was Herb my best friend? No, but just by doing what he did, he had a big impact on my life. John Raitt and Sandra Dee died the same weekend as Thompson. Neither had the impact that he did on my life, unless you count the fact that I'm a huge Bonnie Raitt fan and John had a hand (so to speak) in that so I didn't feel the need to post about them. And, just to show I don't play well-known favorites, you can scroll back to the January 2005 archives to see that a very ordinary (in the world's eyes) woman passed on. She had a greater impact on me than even I knew. Again, how does this all relate back to hockey?
Or does it even relate? 25 years ago, this is what Hunter was working on. Jennie was content with her family. Brian was the newly polished apple of mommy and daddy's eye. And 20 kids galvanized a nation by playing a game. Yeah a game. A game that had larger ramifications than even they realized. Maybe, America simply needs to get over the "me, me, me" attitude to see what those ramifications are in today's world.
Of course, after all the rambling I still didn't get to the television aspect. All I really wanted to mention was my new favorite commercial. It starts off with a woman standing in a large closet with the strains of Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight playing in the background. The melody picks up and the lyrics start, "It's late in the evening. She's wonderin' what clothes to wear, wonderin' what clothes to wear, wonderin' what clothes to wear." Then it pans out of the closet to a gentlemen, who is completely dressed, sitting with a laptop manipulating the video of Eric Clapton. She gives him a dirty look, yells at him and goes back into the closet. It's for Yahoo music, but it seems like something that I would do. And, if I had the resources, I probably would have done it. It's not like I haven't used music cues for things before. I believe he was the drummer for that one band.
To wrap up what's been an extremely long and scattered post, perhaps one day America will find it's way back to the unity that a bunch of cocky college kids discovered on a cold February day, maybe we'll realize that all men are created equal (and should be treated as such in both life and death), and we'll all live safe in the knowledge that The Dukes of Hazzard will always have a much higher place in the history of television than this crap.