AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 24
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Speechless
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NEW ORLEANS - I had every intention of spending my insomniac hours strolling the streets of the French Quarter and revisiting the haunts I cruised during the many visits I made here during college.
It never happened.
Not even close.
After spending Tuesday afternoon touring the some of the city’s most devastated areas (Katrina), I was spent. I’m talking too whipped to stretch out after dinner or even to cruise down Bourbon Street and people watch a bit before bed.
Like Salim Stoudamire, I wasn’t expecting to be sucker punched by what I saw here. But now here I am, staring out the window of my hotel room with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
What I saw left me speechless.
It also left me feeling like a chucklehead for fretting over much of the foolishness that we chomp on here on a daily basis (trivial pursuits most days for sure, but oh so much fun).
I feel like a bit of a goon for instigating so much of the bickering about things that mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
I guess we all have to play our parts in this bizarre circus. But that doesn’t mean we can’t feel crazy for being caught up in the matrix some days.
Are we wrong to debate the merits of contract extensions for Josh Smith and Josh Childress while the people here are still digging out from under the rubble that was their lives before Katrina?
Probably not. But that won’t help me sleep any better tonight (or any other night for that matter).
I will rebound from this current funk, I always do don’t I? I’ll live to stir it up another day, mostly about the latest news on the contract extension front regarding Smith (check ajc.com if you haven’t read about it already. No deal will be done before the deadline).
Maybe I’ll even return to my jokester ways and lighten the mood with some veiled shots at folks I love to pick on. Maybe.
But rest assured, the good people I saw here Tuesday won’t be far from my thoughts. Not far at all.
