From Where I Sit...

Life Is Like A Box Of Knee Jerk Politicians

The Governor of Illinois announced plans to tear down Cole Hall at Northern Illinois University. This is the site of the horrible Valentine's Day shooting where 5 students were killed.

Tearing down Cole Hall would be a mistake. I think the entire country realizes how tragic that February 14th day was, was. One day and one man does not define a building, a college, or a community. The focus of Cole Hall should be on how all the students came together during a very dark time in their lives. I read many heartwarming stories of strangers helping the wounded while not sure of their own safety at the time. As hard we try, we can not stop bad things from happening. We can, however, learn from these events and try to find the positives. Students at NIU learned they are a strong community willing to help one another, look out for one another, protect each other.

Only the students in or near Cole Hall on that day can truly say what that building represents to them. They should have the option to never step foot inside that building again.

I become skeptic when government officials decide to spend millions of dollars for the sake of erasing bad memories. Let's take those millions and make better laws to try and prevent something like this from happening again.

I'm reminded of the scene in the movie Forrest Gump where Jenny comes across her home where she was abused as a child. She feels the need to throw rocks at the house in anger. We hear Forrest to say, "sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." Which, to me, means that you can tear down Cole Hall, but what happened there will never go away and can never be forgotten.

It should never be forgotten.