Death in China

I don’t know if you’ve heard about this yet, but an American tourist was killed in China while visiting a famous tourism site. His wife was also attacked and still might die.

Maybe if it hadn’t been during the Olympics, this wouldn’t be a big news deal, but there’s a famous saying that goes: it is easier to feel the death of one person you know than a million you don’t.

Most of you know how much I love my alma mater, UCLA. What you probably don’t know is that volleyball is my favorite sport, both to play and watch. I’ve met every volleyball player to play for UCLA in the past 20 years, and have become friends with some of them. One of them is Elizabeth “Wiz” Bachman, who was the face of the program for years. You often hear people described as “incredibly nice, one of those people for whom no one has a bad thing to say.” That’s Wiz. A truly amazing person.

It was her father, Todd Bachman, who was killed, her mom injured. I don’t know if he knew about TravBuddy, but he certainly would have been a fan of this site. He went to all of his daughter’s college games, commuting from Minnesota to El Lay half the time, as well as with the national team. We’d met at UCLA games, but I mostly remember one time in Eugene, Oregon, when UCLA was playing against the Ducks. As avidly as we would watch the game, during time outs and switchovers he and his wife would talk about keeping in touch with former players, like Chaska Potter and her new music career with the band Raining Jane, and showing pictures of Kara Milling’s wedding, and on and on. He would go to the snack bar and without asking bring you something. The last time I saw him was at the Athens Olympics, where I was down on the sideline taking photos and he walked by and we saw each other and smiled in recognition.

What’s really amazing is watching the US Volleyball team playing on TV. Perhaps they weren’t told about the news before the game, but if they were, it’s pretty amazing that they could play. Wiz was on the ‘04 Athens Olympics team with more than half of the girls on today’s team.

Well, I really don’t know what else there is to say. It’d be pretty easy to put some blame on China for this, and I’m no fan of the country--usually I’d be there in Beijing shooting again, but passed. It’s so clichĂ©, but it’s always true: don’t take life--and the people you know and love--for granted.