Gun Shots-Intrusion In Paradise

I had turned off my regular morning show, planning to get on with my day without the stories of Hollywood gossip, the latest in fashions and a meal to cook in fifteen minutes.  I needed to concentrate on my Memoir class meeting this afternoon.  In a few minutes my husband came  rushing into the den and shouts " turn on Fox News.  Something bad has happened in Virginia." I  immediately thought of another school shooting. The picture came on and I began to read the caption.  Shooting in Moneta, Smith Mountain Lake, television reporters.  What was going on?  George and I had taken my aunt to lunch at one of the many restaurants at Smith Mountain Lake last Monday. The area has become a tourist mecca since I was a child and visited with my cousin on a tobacco farm which "gave up" some of its land to become a part of the man-made lake. (Not for free I might add.)  The inlets and coves are lined with million dollar homes, each with its own dock. There are more modest homes back from the lake waters.  Do you remember the movie "What About Bob?" with Bill Murray?  The lake scenes in the movie were on Smith Mountain Lake. Do you remember the scene in the cafe?  It had been a gas station when I was a three year old and lived up and across the main road.  I sat on the steps waiting for my Daddy to come home from work.  My Mother graduated from Moneta High School which has long ago been torn down.  Smith Mountain Lake put tiny Moneta on the map fifty years ago as a place to come and relax from the busyness of everyday life.  Smith Mountain Lake put Moneta in the world news as a place where three innocent people going about their duties in the early morning hours could be wounded and shot and killed by a mentally unstable former co-worker. The show was live and some of the victims' family members were watching.  No doubt this is the way the shooter planned it.
When this tragic scene began replaying in my head I thought of the many lives that would be touched by this
unbelievable deed. The young woman's fiance, the young man's fiance whose wedding dress arrived that day, the co-workers who appeared to be a close-knit group, the families, neighbors, college friends, and on and on.  Then, I won't forget that the shooter had a family.  I cannot imagine how they feel.

I look back sixty years or more and I see fields of tobacco.  I see persons of all ages involved in doing their jobs in those fields.  I see myself, a tow-headed skinny kid, pale skin turning pink from the hot Piedmont sun. wiping sweat with the back of my dirty hand.  I hear my aunt say, come on chaps, lets go to the house and find something cold to drink,  She doesn't have  to call but once.

Back to Monday, August 17th, 2015, Smith Mountain Lake.   I saw no tobacco fields, just stores and restaurants, blacktop and manicured green areas, and new homes.   Forward to Wednesday, August 26, 2015, 6:45 a.m. Bridgewater Plaza, West---eight shots rang out and Paradise was gone.

Your comments are encouraged.
Darlene Eichler
Writer, Teacher,
Blogger, Memorist
dargeeic@aol.com