Oklahoma City: Ground Zero
Bernstein, Mark F
THE LAST WORD OKLAHOMA CITY: GROUND ZERO Mark F. Bernstein It is quiet again outside what is left of the federal building in Oklahoma City. The driver of one of the TV trucks is hunched down in...
...Months after the bombing, signs of damage are still apparent...
...The driver of one of the TV trucks is hunched down in his seat, taking a nap while a soap opera plays in the back...
...Down the street, a billboard next to the First United Methodist Church, untouched since the bombing three days after Easter, reads: COE N SEE HI GLORY ARIL5 7:30 At the corner of 5th & Robinson, Ground Zero, sunlight twinkles through tiny shrapnel holes in the street signs...
...during the rest of the week, visitors rest or say a prayer...
...This delivery free...
...some depict the ruined building or the mayhem of the rescue effort, others express simple sentiments of sadness and hope...
...Even there, the wrought-iron lampposts were twisted at crazy angles from the force of the explosion...
...The only part of the property standing is a small park on the side of the building that was shielded from the blast...
...Communion is every Sunday at 8 a.m...
...When a visitor asks one of the marshals at the courthouse across the street whether there is anything going on, he gestures toward the sound technicians smoking outside and confesses, "I don't know...
...We started with yellow for the Iranian hostages, and some may remember the green ones worn in Atlanta several years ago for victims of a serial child killer...
...ask those guys...
...Perhaps, then, it is not the macabre that draws the curious, but the familiar...
...Most cities have a monument to their war dead, but these are tributes more to a cause than to the soldiers themselves...
...All of us in Houston pray for you...
...The "Pride in the Heartland" logo bursts forth from cars, T-shirts, and billboards along Interstate 40, along with subtle variations like "Tragedy in the Heartland," "Helping the Heartland," or "Healing the Heartland...
...There are yellowed notes left in the victims' memory, some unspeakably sad ("Happy birthday Christy, Another birthday wreath from Granny"), others simple and heartfelt ("Aug 4 1995 Iowa will not forget...
...Pink is for breast cancer, and of course the most successful have been the red AIDS ribbons, de rigueur for the Academy Awards...
...The Oklahoma City bombing victims get a royal blue ribbon with yellow trim...
...We don't know each other, although we seem to think we do, and so our only means of communication is the personal advertisement or the note on the fence...
...Another memorial stands across from the federal building itself...
...a crane and a few bulldozers pick along the empty lot, surrounded by mounds of red Oklahoma clay...
...The phenomenon of mourning the loss of strangers is heightened by television, which creates a sense of intimacy while leaving us alone in our living rooms...
...The heartrending news photo of the fireman carrying a dying child from the rubble appears everywhere-in crayon drawings, on T-shirts, even on a needlepoint pillow...
...There is also a note of resiliency...
...An impressive collection of this stuff may be seen in the governor's reception room at the state capitol, where gifts sent from around the country have been put on display...
...Surely there have been others...
...God Bless You All...
...Did lines of the curious cruise through Lakehurst after the Hindenburg blew up...
...First, there are drawings sent by school children...
...One wonders if our desire for personal association with the newsworthy is a modern phenomenon...
...In an unashamed way, the commercial becomes a vehicle for the personal...
...often we are introduced to their parents or shown their home movies...
...The Methodist Church will have to be demolished, but a structure called the Heartland Chapel has been erected in the parking lot...
...We call victims by their first names (Ron and Nicole, for example...
...Did travelers to Chicago a hundred years ago venture to the site of the Haymarket bombing...
...Ribbons are merely the demure cousins of bumper stickers, and Oklahoma City has those, too...
...As a symbol of the nation's psyche, the collection is remarkable...
...This is what keeps the T-shirts and bumper stickers from coming across as a cynical attempt to profit from tragedy...
...Pinned to the chain-link fence surrounding the bombing site one finds wilted carnations and bouquets, a rosary, pieces of ribbon, a Brian McRae baseball card...
...It is not possible to have a tragedy in this country any more without someone designing a colored ribbon for us all to wear...
...Where the demolished federal building stood now looks like any construction site...
...And what one reads in these messages is not rancor or vindictiveness, but pride in the living, that people responded to catastrophe the way they had hoped they would...
...Saturation news coverage of events like the Oklahoma City bombing makes us feel we know a place, from having seen it so often...
...Above them, along the facade of the ruined church, a new banner proclaims: "Our God Reigns and We Will Remain...
...Still another note, written with somehow charming simplicity on a freight company's bill of lading, reads: "God Bless all those who perished in this senseless act...
Vol. 123 • January 1996 • No. 2
