This morning, for the first time in years, I turned on the TV to listen to the names being invoked at Ground Zero.
An FDNY station (a “hook and ladder company”) is right down my street. Walking home the next day, still stunned and raw, I saw a strange firefighter standing outside the station. The place seemed deserted apart from him… the usual guys were gone. It was eerie.
This guy seemed unfamiliar. I went over and started to talk to him.
He told me that the company had lost seven men the day before.
I didn’t understand. We’re uptown.
Then it dawned on me: firefighters from around the city had been called to Ground Zero.
As I began to process, denial replaced incomprehension. I asked him if he knew the names and he told me Matty Barnes was one and I didn’t accept it. Matt was a friendly (and handsome) firefighter who loved to stand in the door of the station and chat with passersby.
I thought of him going into that inferno and my mind shut down.
Then came rage.
Matthew was already a hero, having rescued two babies from a burning building by climbing a 25-100 foot ladder and handing them to another firefighter.
On a March afternoon two years ago, Matthew E. Barnes climbed to the top of a 100-foot aerial ladder to rescue 6-week- old twins from a furious blaze on the Upper West Side. The ladder swayed in the crisp breeze as Matthew Barnes took Isabella and Jacob Kalodner from the hands of their distraught mother, Linda.
Rest in peace, Matthew.
Charlie Kirk. I’m gutted.
It doesn’t diminish the personal tragedy of his death to point out that this is bigger than one man: for the first time in US history, a political speaker was assassinated on a college campus for simply expressing opinions.
I have to say that I didn’t pay much attention to him—at a certain age, you form impressions quickly (there’s less time left) and it seemed to me that he was dealing in ideas that I’d metabolized 35 years ago. But I’m taking a fresh look at him. He did great work organizing and introducing kids to these ideas, which may seem stunningly weird to them. Something that’s “yeah, right” to an old geezer is a novel concept to a kid, especially a kid in the year 2025.
Charlie, I hope your death makes as much of a difference as your life did. And you did make a difference. A big one.
We can’t all be tireless organizers, but we can try to explain things to young people who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground, no matter how tiresome the task becomes.
And take a few risks. What do we have to lose, a few AWFL friends?
Rest in peace, Charlie.