Wednesday was a typical day in the life of a journalist in Columbia. Most of my days are filled with interviews, taking photographs and planning. Sometimes those days include writing columns.
That’s easy sometimes. There are days when events occur or times when an idea just pops into your head. But as I sat in my office working on other things, like county budgets, school enrollment numbers and city contracts, I knew in the back of my I head I’d have to write something.
Often, my wife, pets and friends get picked on in my column. But as I sat in my office after everyone went home Wednesday evening, I scrolled Facebook and found something that really brightened my day. The staff of the Columbia High School newspaper, Paw Prints, compiled a short video interviewing students and school employees.
“We’re just interviewing people that we think are beautiful, and we think you’re beautiful,” the interviewer tells each subject. The faces and reactions tell it all. There are giggles, smiles and maybe even a blush or two. It’s a great video.
I couldn’t help but think that maybe someone in that video really needed a boost that day. Several commenters said that it brought tears to their eyes.
These days, it seems our TVs and internet stories are filled with hate. Nazis here, statues and flags there. Screaming, shouting, anger and tears are everywhere. It’s enough to depress you, get your blood pressure up, make you drink, or whatever your escape is.
Then along comes a simple video, produced by high school students, that brightens the day.
Sure, I could have written about any number of topics. The 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is next week and I know there are many in Columbia who experience pain and grief on that day.
And last week marked a sad occasion in my own journalistic career. It was 30 years ago late one evening that a young staff photographer in his first job out of college got a phone call. What transpired that night and over the next few days still sticks in my mind. You see, on Aug. 16, 1987, a Northwest Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-82 took off from Detroit’s Metro Airport and didn’t make it far. The plane crashed across Middlebelt Road near I-94 around 8:46 p.m. killing 156 people. The crash had only one survivor, a 4-year-old girl named Cecelia Cichan.
Sometimes, when I close my eyes at night, I see the crews working around the tail section of the aircraft trying to recover the dead. I can see the corner of a building that was burned as the plane plummeted. I can still see a vehicle in the middle of it all, where two people driving on the road were killed.
Somewhere in a box in my attic are the papers from that time. They’re fading after 30 years, but the memories aren’t.
That’s why when I saw the video made by the CHS students, I smiled. I’ll admit that I’ve watched it several times. Heck, a lot of people have watched it because as of late Wednesday, it had been viewed more than 2,400 times.
Sometimes, it takes something as simple as being told you’re beautiful or watching a video of people reacting to the statement to change your mood. Maybe we all need to take a moment to tell someone that they’re beautiful or that we love them. Maybe a simple statement like that could be the start of something, well, beautiful.
Mark Rogers is managing editor for The Columbian-Progress. He can be reached at (601) 736-2611 or by email at news@columbianprogress.com
