I rode my bike today. Thats not unusual at all. It was my first ride since getting back from RAGBRAI. I spent a lot of my ride today thinking of the past few weeks as well as the past few days. I need to tie a few things together here. Im not gonna do this chronologically. Element 1 is this article: uniformstories/stories/ems/heavy-news Basically about the effect of covering death, violence, loss. Element 2 was covering one of those type stories. I was leaving Ames when Timothy Jenks lost his life while riding his bike. Because I was nearby I was on the scene while rescue personnel were still arriving. I heard a mothers reaction to finding out her son was gone. Awful. Element 3. Hearing something eerily similar on Thursday morning in Mason City. Frank Brinkerhoff, the second man to pass away on RAGBRAI this year, was in a tent not far from mine. Thursday morning I didnt know who but I was pretty sure someone had learned of the death of a loved one. So today I come away from my ride and my thoughts pretty sure Im not immune to the effects of the stories of loss I cover. And thats a great thing! I have a heart, emotions and compassion in spite of hundreds of stories of death, of loss and sadness. And trust me, Ive done plenty of stories at the other end of the spectrum. Stories of triumph and achievement and sheer joy! Back to RAGBRAI. Even though I didnt ride the entire route I had a great time! Thanks to WHO-HD for letting me work on this assignment. And thanks to Stephanie Moore WHOTV and Rose Rech. I think we made a great team for the first time taking this on. We did some pretty good stories along the route and learned a lot. I hope we get to do it again. And again and again and again!
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 00:30:28 +0000
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