The Stolen Olive

April 19, 2006

We Aint Coming Out

13 Years Ago today, April 19, 1993, 81 people died in a fire. The compound was on a hill they called Mount Carmel, in the small town of Elk, Texas. Elk is so small the media decided to call it near Waco. This decision by the media really confused a lot of my AGGIE friends (or one in particular), as they were having trouble finding "Near Waco" on a map.

I was a freshman at Baylor during the 51-day standoff between ATF officials and the Branch Davidians. This was a terribly stressful time to be in Waco. Not only was I trying to adjust to my first year of college, the stupid TV stations took off all of my soap operas for 51 days.

I was also in the process of creating my first OCD project on the computer. I had become really close friends with a girl who lived down the hall from me. She was a senior and was planning an extremely small intimate wedding. Not only was the wedding going to be small, it was scheduled for 2pm on the same day she was to graduate at 10am. My project, was to design the wedding booklet. Instead of invitations, we created a booklet that had a page about the bride, a page about the groom, a page about the pastor, a page about the church, maps, iteneraries, places to go in Waco, etc. The entire time we were creating this booklet, up until April 19th, there was a huge question mark hovering in the back of our minds. The media and ATF had filled up every hotel room within a 40 mile radius of Waco. The Bride didn't know where her guests were going to stay unless this dumb standoff ended.

Someone lied to the ATF officials and told them that they were somehow *cough* "important" *cough* and that they basically could take over the town. The would just walk into our classrooms, our auditoriums, our student union building and sit down and disturb lectures, concerts, movies, etc. I will never forget sitting in our music building watching the State Choral Competition that my high school was competing in, and in the middle of a song in walks 4 ATF agents with their walkie-talkies on. The judges tried to tell them to turn them off or leave but they just flashed their badges and sat there like the assholes that they are. By the time the 51 days were over we were sick to death of these ATF guys.

On Monday April 19th, walking out of my Political Science class and heading back to my dorm, the sky was dark with smoke and smelled like someone was having a massive BBQ. When I got into the dorm, there were crowds of people gathered around the TV and hearing that the compound was on fire and the standoff would be over soon. I went back to my room to put down my backpack and returned to the crowd downstairs.

After about 10 minutes, a large group of girls and guys decided... "Hey, Let's Go Watch." We drove out to Elk, (and I was hoping it was the ATF guys and not the kids burning) parked the cars, walked as close as we could get to the action. I will never forget what I saw, and I will probably never have any respect for the media again....

It was like I was at the County Fair. There were street vendors and carts selling hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ, t-shirts, posters, etc. 81 people (mostly women and children) were dying at the hands of our incompetent government officials and they were making it into a circus act. Some of the t-shirts had some very eloquent slogans on them like: "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Davidians" or "I Survived The Central Texas BBQ."

Two short years later, April 19, 1995, I woke up on a Wednesday morning and turned on the TV. I saw the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a massive hole blown out of the side of it. Two men were later convicted of the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and his friend Terry Nichols. McVeigh later claimed that his aim was to avenge the Waco massacre.

As if these two anniversaries weren't bad enough for our nation to remember, 4 years and one day later, April 20, 1999, two students went to school with guns and killed 12 of their classmates and one teacher at Columbine High School, on the same day as the birthday of the Angriest White Guy Ever. Yesterday, April 18th, was also the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Earthquake.

On a lighter note... April 18th the world "welcomed?" Suri Cruise (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes) and Grier Henchy (Brooke Shields). These two little girls were born in a week plagued by anniversaries of bad things happening. I hope they are able to realize that we are not cursed by our birthdays, after all... I was born on David Koresh's 15th birthday.

Posted by FutureFoodTVStar at April 19, 2006 12:31 AM

Comments

not all bad! April 18th is Ms. J's day, too. Today she was five :-)

Posted by: Dy at April 19, 2006 02:34 AM

Please tell me that you are making that up about your Aggie friends looking for "Near Waco" on the map. PLEASE.

This is why we call that place "Wacko." ;)

David Koresh - gotta love him.

Posted by: Kami at April 19, 2006 10:42 AM

I remember this like it was yesterday. I was very pregnant with my last child. I was scared!

Posted by: Sheri at April 19, 2006 10:53 AM

Kami

Nope, sorry. He was one serious Aggie.

He called one day during those 51-days and said he couldn't find NearWaco on the map.

He's a Republican now, what can I say?

Posted by: Aimee at April 19, 2006 10:58 AM

Wow. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea all that was going on behind what I saw on the news every day. So interesting.

Posted by: Carrie at April 19, 2006 02:12 PM