Straight to Hell

Needless to say, it's been a pretty messed up week in these parts.

Monday started off great, though. I headed to Wellesley with a group of fellow North Shore Striders to volunteer at the mile 12 water stop of the Boston Marathon. It was a blast. The day was beautiful, both for spectators and runners, with temps in the 50s and a mix of sun and clouds. I'd been on the other end of things, having run the race three times before and having watched it as a spectator, but this was a whole new vantage point for me. We got to mile 12 at 8 a.m. and set up our tables with Gatorade and water. I was at one of the last water tables on the left as runners made their way toward the halfway point.

We had fun with it, having a little competition with the table next to us to see who could hand out the most cups of water. We saw the wheelchair racers come through first, followed by the elite women and then a pack of elite men, who started at 10. Things got really busy around 11:30, when a steady stream of runners started coming through. We were very busy for the next 90 minutes, handing out cups. I started doing a carnival barker impression, yelling out water and cheering on runners who put their names or countries on their shirts. Most folks appreciated the shout-outs, and many runners thanked us for being out there. I was glad we weren't at the Gatorade table, because that stuff can get sticky. There was a lot of splash-back as runners grabbed cups on the run and occasionally spilled it on us. I never got totally soaked, though, and it wouldn't have been a big deal if I had.

After 1 p.m., most runners had gone through and we started to clean up the thousands of cups strewn on the ground. It went quickly and we were done by 1:30 as the last straggled made their way toward Boston. It was a tremendously rewarding day and I left feeling pretty great about life and how to live it. I got back to Beverly a little after 2:30, stopped to get an iced tea and was listening to sports talk radio as I drove to my house when I heard that there were explosions at the finish line of the marathon. The rest of the day and night was spent watching TV coverage of the horrific events that followed. Oh, and answering the barrage of phone calls, emails, texts and other messages from friends and relatives checking to see that I was okay.

The rest of the week has been a roller coaster of emotions, watching and reading about the innocent bystanders who were killed or maimed, taking heart in the actions of the first responders and civilians who helped during the incident, shaking my head at the journalistic clusterfuck that's unfolded as the misinformation flowed and innocent people were identified as the culprits (looking at you, New York Post), and then waking up to the insane manhunt that took place overnight, resulting in the death of one of the bombing suspects as well as an MIT campus cop. As I type this, Boston is in lockdown as authorities try to round up the last suspect, a 19-year-old Chechen who lives in Cambridge. Streets are deserted, all modes of transportation are shut down, and people are being told to stay in their homes. Absolutely nuts.

Then of course in the rush to judgment, plenty of media outlets (The Post, CNN, definitely others) and non-media types (folks on Reddit, 4Chan, Twitter, etc.) were quick to point the finger at brown-skinned folks as the bombers. There's definitely been a 9/11 feel to all this, albeit on a smaller scale but with much more focus given all the social media shit flying around. Even last night, before the FBI actually named the Chechen brothers as the suspects, plenty of people thought one of the suspects in the photos released late yesterday was an Indian kid who's been missing from Brown University. I stopped by a convenience store this morning and had a quick aside with the Indian woman who worked there that I was glad the Indian kid wasn't one of the bombers and she agreed. Sure enough, the night of the bombings a Bangladeshi guy was beaten in NYC because he was "an Arab." Ugh.

So as we await the outcome of this insanity, I'm sure things will be a little on edge for a while. All we can do is keep going. And keep running. Oh, and whatever their motivations, the bombers can go fuck themselves.