Catapult

I wanna be the knife that cuts into my hand 

and I wanna be scattered from here in this catapult 

What a big baby won't somebody save me please 

You won't find nobody home

You're going to find a Kirk Urso tribute on every other Crew blog you look at this week.  Jesus.  I can't compete with that. Nor will I try.  Kirk, from all that I've read (I never met the man) was a stand up guy.  I have no reason to take any of that at anything but face value.  The tributes coming in for this kid are a who's who of soccer folk.  I won't even make fun of Jack Jewsbury due to this.  Jack gets the rest of the season off from me talking crap about him for this.  I don't care why he did it.  That's class and I will respect that class.

I apologize to my regular readers if you expected to come in to this post finding a feeble attempt at humor as is my normal style.  I just can't do it tonight.  I fully expected tonight to be on the Massive Report Podcast tonight trying to inject some comedic relief where appropriate as is my normal thing, but I can't even feign that tonight.  Tonight, just as the last two nights have been, is awful. 

I love this town.  This is my adopted hometown.  I'm not from here.  I'm from Fort Wayne, Indiana.  My family lives there.  I love them to death.  My FAMILY lives here.  

Someone who is near and dear to members of my family is gone.  He didn't know me.  A lot of those guys don't know me.  Whether it's right or not I care about their well being.  This kid died.  This kid cheesing with a cat is dead. 

I work with a lot of amazing people.  Those folks whom I saw today know me as "one of the two Crew fans in the department".  I had Monday scheduled off.  The only thing they wanted to know from me today was my thoughts on the kid from the Crew that died.

I tried to hold my tongue.  I really did.  I know a lot of people in the medical profession.  I also have had rudimentary training in CPR as a camp counselor as a kid.  NONE OF MY TRAINING STATED TO WALK A PERSON WHO WAS IN ARREST AWAY TO ANOTHER LOCATION.

The interview that 10TV did started with the bouncer stating "I was just walking to the back, I was dong a routine cleaning check... so I went over there just to see how he was doing, you don't have to be a doctor to tell if someone is breathing or not."  To me that says one thing.  He wasn't breathing.  At that point we don't know what happened.  All we know is Kirk ended up on a stoop on the other side of Park Street near the Greek Orthodox Church.  That's weird.  My first aid training said nothing about removing a person who was not breathing to a place away from my place of employment.  In fact it stated the same thing as all of these web pages stated.  START DOING CPR.

I don't blame this bouncer that worked for Park Street Patio for Kirk's death.  Please don't take it that way.  I do however think this is a lesson that unfortunately had to be tragically learned by the greater community.  Don't wait to call medical professionals when someone is in trouble. 

I've said this before.  We're Columbus.  We're better because we take care of each other.  This may be my own idealistic representation of what our community is, but it's what I've seen before and plan on seeing again from our community.  Don't assume one of our brothers or sisters will be ok.  Take action.  Help your family out.

This Saturday we will mourn one of our own.  Someone who most of us never had the pleasure of meeting.  We have already mourned him privately, some with tears, some with questions, some with quiet thoughtfulness.  All correct.  Saturday let's mourn him with a thunderclap.  Not to impress others... not for the selfish reasons that may boil up in our most weak moments.   Let us mourn him with the respect we should pay a family member.

Let the whole damn world know he will not be forgotten.

I wanna be the light that burns out your eyes