I remember an old episode of MASH, where Major Margaret Houlihan, the ever-steely head nurse of the 4077th, lost it over a dog that had been run over by a jeep.
The dog was a stray, and Margaret — who never, ever got emotional at the death and destruction around her — fed the dog table scraps. When she found out the dog died, she broke down.
To me, it is brilliant writing. First, I love dogs. I love walking down the beach — as I did Monday morning — and seeing (and greeting) all the dogs I encounter.
Second, dogs represent pure innocence. And exuberance. And unconditional love of us. They bring out often-hidden glimpses of humanity in people who sometimes don’t seem as if they have any. Dogs aren’t called “man’s best friend” for nothing.
And this is why, with all the senseless carnage of Saturday night at the Warren Street playground — one death, three injuries — I went to bed with a dog on my mind.
I don’t know the dog’s name. I don’t even know what breed it is. I just know that the poor dog got caught in the crossfire of bullets that were obviously meant for someone else, and subsequently had to be put down.
Stop and think about this. These … these … creatures just started blasting away. These lower-than-lowlife subhumans were so careless with what they were doing that he hit a dog.
Now before anyone accuses me of trivializing this homicide, let’s get down to cases. This was a senseless, pointless tragedy. One man is dead, three more people are injured, and God only knows how many people are traumatized and will be permanently scarred by what they saw. There was a basketball tournament going on, which meant that there were undoubtedly kids everywhere. The bullet that hit the dog could have just as easily found its way into a child.
The dog just symbolizes random violence at its coldest. Not that any violence is acceptable anytime or anywhere. But come on. It was so important to kill someone you guys had to go to an area full of vulnerable people and start blasting so indiscriminately that you killed a dog too?
But “Bungalow Bill” and Co. didn’t care. They just started blasting.
Here’s the thought process:
Bystanders? Too bad for them. Stray animals? What value do they have to anybody? Who cares if they’re loved by some people as if they’re children themselves? They’re not even human. Children? Innocent people attending a block party across the street? Can’t worry about them. As long as I put a cap in the guy I’m aiming for, collateral damage isn’t my concern. If you survived, I guess you should consider yourselves lucky that I just happened to point the gun in a different direction.
As sports editor of this paper for 20 years, I covered a lot of Lynn basketball and loved every second that I spent in a gym. And I used to hear kids talk about the Warren Street playground, and how they really learned how to compete playing with their peers on that court. They may have ended up at different schools, but that was common ground for some of the city’s exceptional basketball talent.
It’s not too much of an exaggeration, says Ward 6 Councilor Fred Hogan, to say Warren Street’s community basketball program back in the day was a smaller version of the famous Rucker League in Harlem, especially when you consider one of its graduates is Stu Primus, who only went to the Final Eight while playing for Boston College.
The park has some real nice history behind it, and, pardon the language, but damn these creeps who barged in there and desecrated the place (I know there are suspects, but I won’t give them the pleasure of writing their names here).
There’s always a tipping point in life — a moment where everything turns around. I’d kind of like to know when we’re going to reach it. When do enough people, in Lynn and the United States, say “all right. Enough.”
Maybe, in Lynn, at least, this is the tipping point. Maybe this is the event that unites the city so that this mindless, senseless violence stops.
Something’s got to give. The idea that some subhuman species of persons can walk up to a park and a neighborhood teeming with kids minding their business, just doing what they do, and fire a gun into that picture of happiness and togetherness is just repugnant.
Sometimes, life just depresses you, doesn’t it?