COLUMN: The ever changing emotions

A couple of moments during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend quickly changed my emotions.

The end result is knowing what is more important.

In recent years, I’ve looked forward to the day before Thanksgiving. This year was no different. If you haven’t bought everything needed for the big day, it’s a time for me to catch my breath and enjoy the quiet. Since my adult life has been in small-town America, there seems to be a rule of little to no activity where I live they day before a major holiday.

My family was invited to friends for Thanksgiving, so no rush was needed. We were asked to bring a couple of things that were not complicated or time consuming.

While running a couple errands Wednesday, the news broke over the radio. A fiery car wreck killed two people at a border checkpoint in Niagara Falls, New York, according to the Associated Press. For the past 22 years, with those incidents like that it’s automatic to think some kind of terrorist attack. All the circumstantial evidence was there. I thought the same especially knowing how much attention our southern border has received.

A holiday full of travelers and it’s possible terrorism has again reared its ugly head? Other Canada-United States border entries in New York state were closed afterward.

The FBI’s decision late that Wednesday was it wasn’t terrorism after the vehicle went through an intersection, collided with a median and sent through the air before hitting into a line of booths and exploding at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.

“A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified,” the FBI’s Buffalo office said in a statement. “The matter has been turned over to the Niagara Falls Police Department as a traffic investigation.”

It felt better knowing it was not terrorism. But an incident like that still takes some time to recover. I’m convinced no place is immune from anything. Enjoy your moments of peace and relaxation when you can.

Then came Friday.

The newspaper is probably not on any Black Friday shopper’s list. For the years I’ve been in this business and worked many of a Black Friday, the day is usually quiet and easy to make preparations for the next week. That also allows some time to be paid to other things including the Iowa-Nebraska football game.

Iowa’s season has been bizarre and defied virtually every rule about how to play the game. A team that struggles on offense isn’t supposed to win nine games. It’s been an entire team effort, which makes it special. I’ve already called Iowa’s 2023 season the equivalent to Halley’s Comet. Something this unique and rare may only come around once every 76 years. It’s not to be ridiculed but revered. Iowa football has been compelling.

As with several of their games, the deciding moment again happened in the last minutes. I was fortunate to watch from the office as my Iowa-fan daughter was paying attention on her phone while shopping with mom. After Iowa again won it on the last play, a celebratory phone call was made to my daughter. But two seconds into the call, another call was coming into my phone. I recognized the number and suspected it would be important. I could have let it go straight to voice mail. I didn’t.

I told my daughter what had happened and I would call her back.

The other phone call was someone from church who has been recovering from knee surgery and was looking for a ride to church that weekend. Plans were made when I was to be at the front door.

In a matter of seconds, the importance of providing for someone’s need of something, even that simple, was a bit more important than celebrating a bunch of 20something college kids who looked looked more like the end of their game was on a video-game system than real life.

Sometimes that happens in life. We are reminded of someone else’s situation, how we can help and how it could be more important than our innocent, selfish escapes in life. I’ve been a sports fan mainly to have an escape from the daily duties and obligations. I think we get those moments from other people to hopefully keep us from diving in too deep into our escapes.