Rant #2,515: Enough Is Enough Is Enough

This might be the final column where I look at the collective anxiety supposedly a good part of the population is feeling related to the horrid death of basketball great Kobe Bryant.

I think that I, personally, have reached the saturation point regarding the mourning, and while the shiva period is not yet over, I think we need to get our heads together, as a society, and try to move on from this.

In today's newspaper, just to further the collective angst we are all supposedly feeling about this tragedy, one of the sports columnists spoke to an usher at one the arenas that houses an NBA team. The usher, like the rest of the world, seemingly cannot cope with this loss.

Working the game last night between two NBA teams, the usher wore a picture of Bryant on his work uniform. He told the reporter--the arena he works for prohibits ushers from speaking to the press, so his name was not used, although after this little interview, the usher will certainly be outed--that when he came to the U.S. from a foreign land many years ago with his father, the first thing they did when arriving in America was to turn on the TV. It just so happened that an NBA game was on, and the first person that he saw on the screen was Bryant. He became a Kobe Bryant fan for life, because he felt he had a "friend" in his new country.

It is nice to think that, and the usher has a right to believe what he wants to believe, as does everyone.

I also have a right to believe that we have bottomed out on all of this, and we not only need to move on from it, but we MUST move on from it.

I really wonder if, God forbid, if a president died in such a horrid way, if we would be in such a morose state days afterward, if that person would be so honored as Bryant has been, if people would not be able to go on with life as so many have been unable to since this horrible accident occurred on Sunday morning.

And yes, the deification movement is still in place, and at this point, you have your opinion, I have mine, and each side should respect that opposing opinion, so please respect mine.

I think we go overboard with our athletes because they do things that most of us could never even dream of doing, even in our youth.

They can slam a ball, hit one out of the park, or throw a ball for 50 years with ease. Most of us can't do that, have never been able to do that, and we marvel at the ease that they use in doing these things.

It also takes us away from our own lives, at least for a few hours, when we watch them do these incredible things.

And when such unfortunate things happen as befell Bryant, it throws us into a sense of panic. If these "superhumans" can burn so brightly and then be dimmed so quickly, what does that say about the average Joe, like the ushers of the world as I described earlier? What is their impact on the world, certainly when compared to an internationally known athlete? If such a remarkable person can go so quickly, what about us?

People have gone way overboard with this, just as they did with Princess Diana and Robin Williams and countless other celebrities who have had their lives snuffed out needlessly.

I remember as a young kid, having gone through the JFK assassination as a first grader and its aftermath, I was just getting into baseball, and I bought a pack of baseball cards for five cents.

As the bubblegum tumbled out of the pack, right on top was a card for Ken Hubbs, an infielder with the Chicago Cubs.

But the card looked so different than the other cards. It was an "In Memoriam" card, signifying that the Cubs' budding star had passed away. At age 20, in 1962, Hubbs had won the National League's Rookie of the Year award, and he was a budding star for the team, also being the first rookie to win the prestigious Golden Glove Award.

At age 22, he perished when the private plane he was piloting crashed near Provo, Utah, just prior to the 1964 season. This player was pegged to be the "Derek Jeter" of his time, an all-around athlete, good looking to a fault, single and available, and the idol of millions.

But as fate would have it, that never came to fruition during his short life.

I am sure that the outpouring of affection to Hubbs was also as feverish as that of Bryant, but on a much, much smaller level, but the Topps Co. recognized such a loss, and cemented it with this special card.

For this seven year old, I really did not know what to make of it, but it was there, and the memory of Hubbs--more of the card than as a ballplayer--has been in my collective consciousness for years, and every once in a while comes to the forefront of my mind.

It probably did when Thurman Munson perished, and it certainly did when Bryant lost his life this past weekend.

What I am trying to say is that I get it, I get the mourning, I get the pain that is being felt from here to Brisbane and back again for this tremendous, horrid loss.

I cannot make sense of it either.

But to continue to harp on this, as if we lost a god on earth, has reached its saturation point.

It is time to move on, and if the ushers of the world are having a tough time doing that, well, I kind of feel sorry for all of us.