Yeah, I know. We're all used to hearing about these mass shootings almost every day now...somewhere. We're all used to it.
This one hit home though. This was my coming-of-age proving ground. Oh, of course, I was no "Senator's Son." I wasn't a student of that oh-so prestigious (read: outrageously expensive) private Ivy League university. But I knew some who were, was well-acquainted with its facilities and environment and one of my best buds in the day, Nancy, was a student at the co-affiliated, also-prestigious RISD, intertwined throughout the College Hill campus area. I dated a girl who's family had ties to the college and the East Side (yes, I said girl...this was a loooong time ago kiddies, I talk about her here) and I can't tell you how many times friends, especially Wayne, John C. and I went specifically to hangout on Thayer Street, the main "college town feel" drag on the East Side.
This was indeed A Place I Used To Know.
I mean, Rhode Island! Mass shooting in Rhode Island. It just blows my mind. When I lived there some nearly 30 years ago, I would have never thought it possible. Nothing happens in Rhode Island.
"What next?," I thought as I sipped my morning coffee, "a mass shooting here in this little city in the middle of butt-fuck Florida where no tourist goes, population (allegedly) 10,000?" Oh, too late. It already happened a few years ago just months before I moved here.
You know, the title pretty much describes the entire world now, doesn't it? At least for me, it seems. This whole world is "a place I used to know." I just don't anymore.
In doing a search when deciding on the title for this post I stumbled on this song, gave it a quick listen and I think it sums up my feeling about this fairly well, at least with the first few lines of lyric:
Hey, how've you been? Well, I built a home. Far away from here. Far from everyone. Just for a while. Got to live without. My head spiraling out. Knew it wouldn't last.