Good Reads Library
Gawkers Disease
This picture taken near the site if the Minneapolis bridge disaster really struck a nerve with me.
As I've mentioned about half a million times, I live a few miles from the Pentagon. Several days after September 11, I drove alone the road that leads onto I395 S and passes right along the side of the Pentagon that was destroyed.
And what did I see on the hill on the other side of the highway?
Tourists. Gawkers with cameras. Sightseers!
And all I wanted to do is scream at them--"You motherfuckers are taking pictures of a TOMB!"
I have never been to Ground Zero. Never wanted to go and see a place I had known as a familiar landmark of home turned into a pile of rubble. Bad enough to have had to watch it happen live on TV--and then see it replayed over and over for days!
I cannot, cannot, CANNOT understand how people can be so frimpin ghoulish as to want to stand there and stare at the destruction. Want to take pictures of a place where people just like them--with families and friends and futures--met their end.
Gawkers, go home. Hug your loved ones. Be glad you were lucky enough NOT to be there on the bridge.
As for me, I'll be thinking of the I35 bridge every time I cross a bridge for the next few months, just as I still remember the tatters of the Pentagon every time I drive by it. The way I remember the Twin Towers every time I drive home to NY and see them missing from the skyline.
No need for a picture. The memories won't go away, even if I tried to let them.
