This week on the Flip, as those of us who love our website have come to call it, each writer was given an assignment – the following pre-sentence:
“When I read about the death of the Polish president, I thought…”
From there, it was up to him (or her). We thought it would be fun to see where our resident genii went; you’ll have to judge for yourself if we were right.
And now, Mick Shaffer.
When I read about the death of the Polish President, I secretly (openly) hoped Roman Polanski was among the 96 others on the plane that went down. He’s Polish now, right? Eh, I’m not gonna look it up.
When I read about the death of the Polish President, I wondered how long I’d have to sit on my killer “Polack on water skis” joke to avoid it being labeled “too soon.” Brief aside: Why do Poles get stuck with the imbecilic stigma? Are they that much denser than, say, Germans or Romanians or any other one of those Eastern Bloc countries that are good at gymnastics? I’m pretty sure Copernicus was Polish. He put a couple of thoughts together.
When I read about the death of the Polish President, I came to the conclusion that “Lech” in Poland must be like “Joe” in the States.
When I read about the death of the Polish President, I…actually kept reading. This is something of an anomaly for me; the Goldman Sachs/Pakistan bombing/death of an 89-year-old-former-TV-western-actor-I’ve-never-heard-of stories tend to run together. I feel like I’ve read them before. I feel like I’ve read them 121 times.
On a typical morning, my newly chosen Google reader homepage blurs into an indecipherable mess of weather and politics and world news and stuff I in which I would be acutely interested, had I not stopped mentally challenging myself at age 17.
The Calvin & Hobbes cartoons typically stand out though.
And so did the death of the Polish President.
This is a political power broker that died. It would be like Sean Penn dying.
Wars are started over the passing of world leaders. I doubt Poland will be going to battle anytime soon. Who would their opponent be, British Airways? Although, considering recent events, they might have a case against Iceland. I can’t recall if the volcano or plane crash happened first and, well, I’m not gonna look it up.
At the very least, people remember where they were when Presidents die. I was…at a computer, I think. Maybe in a towel. Maybe in business socks. Maybe in both. Ok, so perhaps I don’t remember my exact location or disposition when reading the news. Perhaps it wasn’t quite like the Challenger explosion (3rd grade art), OJ (tractor), Oklahoma City bombing (library), or Zellweger/Chesney divorce (bathtub).
But for most people in Poland, Kaczynski’s death is probably their Kennedy assassination. I’m sure KGB conspiracy theories abound and that suspects might be rounded up and that many of their middle names just might be “Lech.” At the very least—even if investigators determine the cause of the crash to be boring ol’ pilot error—an entire nation mourns. Every Polish citizen (forgive the awkward nomenclature, but “Pole” sounds too weird and sexual; “Polack” sounds like I’m setting up a punch line) is forever going to remember where he/she was: gymnastics meet, gymnastics practice, watching gymnastics.
The devastation would have been great even if President Lech Kaczynski had been the only one aboard the doomed plane. But the “and others” portion of the Google headline included many of Poland’s top political officials, military leaders, diplomats, and dignitaries. Ninety-seven people died. Eighty-eight of them held governmental positions of power. Any one of their deaths would have made news in Poland, but combining all of them together produces unfathomable grief along with federal chaos. I’m no historian, but I don’t think that region of the world has been known as the most stable of political environments.
If this had happened in Smithfield, Rhode Island instead of Smolensk, Russia, involving guys named Obama and Biden and Geithner instead of names with diacritical marks, it would go down as the worst moment in American history. Now, Poland certainly has some “worst moments” to choose from – I don’t think the image of SS tanks cruising across the borders is easily forgettable. But the death of the Polish President, as well as 96 other people with names—important, well-known names—who would otherwise have their names mentioned if it weren’t for their unfortunate fate of not only dying but dying alongside a president, has to rank highly.
The point is, this was more than the tragic death of nearly 100 people. It could go down as the single, most calamitous event in the timeline of a country over a thousand years old. One plane crash will greatly affect the lives of nearly 40-million people in Poland.
And all I did was applaud myself for reading it.
Chances are I soon busied myself with my fantasy baseball team. On my drive to work that day, I probably spent more time figuring out if I liked Lady Antebellum than I did thinking about this horrible tragedy. If I remember right, it came up once or twice in conversation that day. My “horrible” dandelion problem came up 11 or 12 times in conversation that day. After that, I’m sure I would have paid it no mind at all if it weren’t for Paul issuing us this topic. I was hoping for an assignment along the lines of, “The hand tickling the Pillsbury Doughboy belongs to…” but instead I got the beginnings of a thought-provoking sentence that only began to provoke those thoughts once I sat down to write.
I had no idea where I was going with that sentence when I first sat down. I likely had visions of parlaying it into some sort of NFL Draft analogy. Whatever the case, I definitely sensed some emotional distance. And I’m not sure why that is. There’s the physical distance – maybe that’s why we feel so separated from such a great tragedy. Then again, if this had happened in the UK, I imagine I would’ve been glued to CNN (well, maybe Fox News) all day/week. Maybe it’s because Poland won’t soon have a 4G phone or because its residents reportedly have a devilishly hard time with light bulbs. Maybe it’s for the same reason those jokes get told; the victims are faceless, nameless. I don’t know what the reason is. But it’s something. It’s there. All I know is that I should probably finish the sentence.
When I read about the death of the Polish President, I thought not enough.
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