If you had told me a week ago that the neighborhood around my Trader Joe’s would be a crime scene and that I’d be going through an abandoned Copley Square Station on the way to work everyday a week ago, I would have told you, you were crazy.  Impossible.  Not in my city.

But here we are.  Bombings.  FBI.  Police posted everywhere.

Somehow though I think my adopted hometown will survive.  Somebody said yesterday in the newspaper that Boston is town where people cheer for difficult things.  And they like challenges.  I also think the humor of this place will help it though this whole tragedy.

Obama came to town today to show his support for Boston.  Honestly, were it not for him, he wouldn’t be who he is.  He goes to Harvard, becomes the first black editor of the law review and enters the national stage.  Today I went down to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the South End to speak to the people of Boston.  I didn’t get to see him or anything, but I got to hear his words and see the people affected by this tragedy:

 

 

One woman next to me actually broke down and cried.  I didn’t photograph that.  It would have been cruel.  There was a dignified silence about everyone.  Workers from the Red Cross were walking around the crowds as well:

 

I loved the look on this cop’s face.  It said “you messed with the wrong city.”  Actually it said something else, but that is a word I don’t use on this blog:

 

Yeah, that is Lester Holt in the background, the host of Dateline NBC.  No, I wasn’t there to gawk at celebrities.  Not now.  Not in this situation.  Actually there was a dignity about everyone there.  When I worked in news, sometimes I saw a fakery to people in the news biz, like “hey, we don’t care about the people we are reporting about.”  But not here.

Here’s Lester Holt in the media scrum:

 

I saw a dignity to everyone at the proceedings.  I really like that:

 

 

 

We’ll get through this.  I know we will.