A Regular Sunday, Regular As Things Go

by Thomas Dimopoulos

LAKE GEORGE, NY - It was a regular Sunday afternoon, regular as things go in the neighborhoods of the Northeast during autumn.

The sidewalks were being covered by a gentle blanket of leaves falling in the lazy breeze
and, from the curb, you could see clear through the front windows of a house, into the living room, and see armchairs aimed at television sets where Eli Manning was throwing
a football into the end zone at Giants Stadium.

Outside the window and on the sidewalk, a boy peddled by on a bicycle, hands jammed
under the handlebars, and a helmet-less head that exposed a scalp full of hair that danced
in the wind as he glided down the street. A regular Sunday, regular as things go.

A few miles away, in less time than it took for the boy to pedal his bicycle the length of
the street, or for the Giants to complete their next set of downs, a boat flipped over on
Lake George. Twenty of its passengers were dying.

They called themselves the Trenton Travelers, and were among a group of senior-age
tourists enjoying the autumn New England scenery. A number of them were enlistment
age at the time of World War II, middle aged when The Beatles landed in America.

They were retired chemists and automakers and newspaper carriers, former schoolteachers and survivors of breast cancer. They were grandparents and great-grandparents who had already devoted a lifetime to work and were out to enjoy some of what life's recreation had
to offer.

They spent $1,649 for the seven-night trip into the New England fall on a journey that
began Tuesday, Sept. 27. On the sixth day, they came to historic Lake George, 32 miles long, named 250 years earlier in honor of King George II.

It was a clear and sunny day, reminiscent of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
They were to spend Sunday night after the cruise enjoying dinner at the Georgian Resort
on Canada Street. Instead, the tables waited, vacant.

They would have gotten up the next day for a hearty breakfast, then headed south for a
tour of Saratoga Springs on a Monday morning that at first seemed pretty regular,
as regular things go.

What the Trenton Travelers would have seen Monday in the Spa City was the bright orange clothes of the workers tearing up the sidewalk on the east side of Broadway.
They would have seen the billows of smoke rising above the buildings.
They would have heard the artillery of the worker's jackhammers.

They would have been told all about the city's fabled Victorian past. They would have been shown the west side of Broadway, across from the park, where the Grand Union Hotel used to be, and directed to the corner where a Borders Books and Music stands today that,
for many years, was the site of the massive United States Hotel.

You can imagine that probably a few of them would have scoffed, while others smiled
at the girl wearing high brown boots and a short-short skirt waiting at the Broadway
crosswalk for the traffic light to change.

Instead, Monday brought a parade of ambulance chasers disguised as news media.
They were busy adding a new name to a seemingly never-ending list of places where
tragedy has struck: Aruba, New Orleans and now, Lake George.

In cyberspace, some posted hopeful prayers in remembrance of the families of those that died. Others shared once-happy memories about visiting the popular tourist spot now tinged with layers of melancholy. And at least one Michigan-based legal team promoted themselves as Boating Accident Lawyers and created a Web site to attract potential clients.

Deep within tragedies, there are also stories of heroes that emerge. Lake George resident Gisella Root and her husband, who rescued eight people by pulling them onto their boat, and South Glens Falls jewelry store owner Mounir Rahal, who pulled six from the water,
are some of them.

Sunday will bring more football games and more fallen leaves.
People, somewhere, will wake with heavy hearts.
It will bring, as well, more boys riding bicycles, their hands jammed under handlebars
and their hair dancing in the wind as they go gliding down their neighborhood streets,
pretty regular, as regular as things go.

published in The Saratogian