My friend Tom runs everyday. Not usually into a tree, as he just did, making the event fit the old 20th century journalism school definition of news. I saw the river of blood running down the front of his face, like he’d been fighting the English, and thought, ‘there’s a story.’ That’s what I always think. I’ve been writing stories my whole life. I didn’t think, ‘there’s a blog post, Facebook post or Tweet.’
Nor did I think, ‘snap a photo.’ Aside from the fact that image capturing equipment doesn’t snap anymore, I should have at least remembered that I’ve got a camera in my pocket all the time. It’s built into my phone. I’ve got the gadgets, but not the instincts.
And that’s what puts me perhaps my generation in the right lane, watching other whiz by on the left. I’m not whining about it. I’m trying to adapt. I went and got a photo of Tom after I thought about it for ten minutes. Sadly, he’d cleaned himself up at the same rate it took me to realize everything I wanted to do with everything I have available.
Were I a gazelle on this techno-Serengeti, the lions would’ve been watching me today, licking their fuzzy chops. Although today, they may have actually caught Tom.
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