I really tried to think of something sporting to write today, but like Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...nothing!!!
Instead I sit here bouncing two very unreleated things around the inside of my skull. They have nothing to do with each other, yet are occupying all of my thoughts.
One is what the heck do I get my wife for Valentine's Day. Let me say this is a holiday I can't stand. I don't have any different feelings for my wife on February 14th than I do every other day of the year. I just feel more pressure on that day to come up with something nice, something different, something I think she's really like. Every year we say we won't be exchanging gifts. Cmon.. you know as well as I do that's a classic trap. You know, like the "do I look fat in this dress" question. There's only one right answer no matter what the correct answer is.
So here it is Friday and I've got nothing. I'm not gaining on any ideas either. Perhaps it's because of the other thing on my mind.
I've been in the news business for 23 years. I've heard, seen, and read about other plane crashes. So why is the Colgan/Continental flight that went down in Buffalo monopolizing my thoughts?
I was in the newsroom last night when the urgent crossed the wires, plane into a house near Buffalo. Maybe because I worked for 8+ years in Western New York, maybe it's because I have driven past the Buffalo airport hundreds of times and maybe it's because I've seen countless planes go overhead while passing the airport, but for some reason this affected me differently.
This is the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner crashed on take off in Lexington, KY. Air flight is still the safest way to travel, although that is a hard point to sell today.
I watched intently last night, at the office and when I got home, switching from FOX to CNN to MSNBC to see what people were saying, hoping that like the US Airways flight in the Hudson River, there was some miracle ending. This time...no.
50 fatalities right now, including 49 who where on the plane. I was atonished by the calmness of the brother of one of the victims who spoke to the media at about midnight. He was awaiting the arrival of his sister who was coming for a visit. He was calm, composed and even repeated information several times as waves of media kept coming. People are remarkable in the heat of the battle.
At some point today, I will have to turn my thoughts to sports and focusing on a busy Friday. At no point will I stop thinking of the 50 people who died in this crash and the families who have to live without them. We'll get back to talking sports here tomorrow. Right now, those wins and losses just don't seem that important.
