A man removes a sign hanging from the Lennox Hotel along Boylston Street after the street reopened to the public for the first time since the Boston Marathon bombings in Boston on Wednesday, April 24. The city is trying to return to normal less than a week after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, shocking the nation and leaving the city on edge. See all photography relating to the Boston bombings.
Editor's note: Mike Downey is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.
(CNN) -- "I measure every grief I meet
"With analytic eyes;
"I wonder if it weighs like mine,
"Or has an easier size."
-- Emily Dickinson
To sing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" is not a sickeningly sweet way to show how you feel today about Boston.
It's a charming way, if you ask me. Because, as wise ol' Neil puts it in another oldie, "Me and you are subject to the blues now and then."
So, come on, let's hear it. Sing a song sung blue.
It's what red-eyed Red Sox fans did, loud and strong, on Saturday when their team came back to its own diamond for the first time since the Boston Marathon bombings -- and Diamond himself showed up to lead the crowd.
I know it's what Yankee fans did a few nights ago in New York, where a singalong of "Sweet Caroline" in that team's stadium would normally be about as welcome as a German anthem in "Casablanca" in Humphrey Bogart's bar.
Indian fans, Cub fans, Marlin fans and others have sung it at recent games as well in Boston's honor. Which is totally cool of you all.
It's what a Cardinal or Oriole or Jay or Ray or A fan could do at a home game to show solidarity, not unlike nine of Jackie Robinson's disciples all running onto a field wearing 42.
It wouldn't kill a Phillie fanatic, a Brave soul or a Met soprano to belt out a stanza's worth of "Sweet Caroline" for one inning, even if not everybody is in agreement with the line that goes, "Good times never seemed so good."
Neil Diamond tweeted a thank you to New Yorkers -- "you scored a home run in my heart" -- for warbling his ditty in their city, inasmuch as his long-ago ode to Caroline Kennedy has over the years evolved into the Red Sox's good-luck tune.
OK, so it's not the hippest verse on Earth.
OK, so the judges from "The Voice" would probably cover their ears.
OK, so this isn't a song up for a Grammy so much as it is a song that's sung around the house by your Grammy.
An innocuous song isn't a life-altering tribute, any more than "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" years ago lessened the pain of loved ones heartsick about missing daughters and sons.
But sometimes, hey, it really is the thought that counts.
Red Sox CEO: Baseball can help heal
Obama in Boston: 'You will run again'
Runner: Bombs sounded like Afghanistan
Boston, we are with you.
For those of us not fans of your teams (or New York's), it wouldn't normally break our hearts if we woke up to find out that Major League Baseball wants to move you 3,000 miles to be the Boston Red Sox of Anaheim.
Bleacher Report: Rene Rancourt's national anthem at Bruins game helps Boston heal
Today, though, I and others like me would gladly link arms with Ben Affleck and Stephen King and James Taylor and don a cap with a big "B" on it and stand by your side, crooning about "Caroline" as if if it were the greatest musical composition since Mozart's.
I cannot conceive of what the sorrow must be like from Monday's horror, any more than I could a while ago when innocent Connecticut children were killed. Dickinson, the gentle "Belle of Amherst," summed it up as well as anybody could in her poem, "I Measure Every Grief I Meet."
"I wonder if it hurts to live,
"And if they have to try,
"And whether, could they choose between,
"They would not rather die."
Events such as these cause many of us to re-evaluate what matters most. Getting to a finish line is of no meaning if no one is there to care. Winning a race is irrelevant if no one is waiting at its end to give you an embrace.
Bleacher Report: Red Sox release uniforms honoring victims of Boston Marathon tragedy
I covered a couple of Boston Marathons, back when it was several times more famous than any other marathon in America, or maybe the whole world. I can't recall if back then New York even had a marathon.
To see that city on Patriots' Day was quite a sight. It wasn't a Fenway crowd or a Garden crowd. It was the whole commonwealth of Massachusetts, or felt that way, lined along the sidewalks and streets. What a civic pleasure.
Alas, life has a way of interfering with our enjoyment of it.
Terrorism was so rampant in Europe once when I went to Paris to attend a Tour de France, the sign identifying the bureau my newspaper shared with NBC on the Champs Elysees had to be masked with tape, I suppose so no mad bomber could easily find it.
That same year, 1986, a bomb was placed at the Eiffel Tower but failed to explode. A couple months after the bike race, bombs went off in a Paris town hall, then a casino, then at a police headquarters. Many died. Many more were maimed.
Roughly 10 years later, I was in Atlanta, winding down from a long day, when we heard a distant boom. Blocks away, a pipe bomb had gone off in Centennial Olympic Park, right in the middle of the 1996 Olympic Games.
One dead, 111 injured. (A cameraman also died of a heart attack.)
A lot of us who didn't care at all about Atlanta turned into Atlanta fans that day.
We brace for the worst, but it shocks us anyway.
Bleacher Report: Boston Bruins Fans Unite in Beautiful Rendition of National Anthem
Boston is our latest casualty.
We outsiders can't do much but sympathize with you. And, yes, sing with you.
How is it Neil Diamond's other song goes again? The one sung blue?
"Funny thing, but you can sing it with a cry in your voice. And before you know, you start to feeling good. You simply got no choice."
Today, I am from Boston.
Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.
Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mike Downey.
Loading weather data ...
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
A man washes a bus stop window on Boylston Street on April 24.
Alec Mikels cleans tables at Whiskey's Smokehouse on Boylston Street on Tuesday, April 23 in Boston.
A cleaner power washes Boylston Street near the blast site after the FBI handed the area back to the city of Boston on Monday, April 22, following the week-long investigation.
The Boston Fire Department Hazardous Materials team cleans the first blast site near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 22.
Cleaning material is sprayed on April 22 on the outlined blast seat on the sidewalk of Boylston Street at the site of the marathon bombings.
A member of the Boston Fire Department Hazardous Materials team cleans the first blast site with a pressure washer on April 22.
Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins embraces one of the first responders from the Boston Marathon attack after the game against the Florida Panthers at the TD Garden on Sunday, April 21, in Boston.
David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox speaks to the crowd during a ceremony held in honor of the bombing victims before a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park in Boston, on Saturday, April 20.
Neil Diamond sings "Sweet Caroline," a song traditionally played at Boston Red Sox home games, during a game against the Kansas City Royals on April 20.
Members of law enforcement react during ceremonies in honor of the Marathon bombing victims before Saturday's game.
A woman sheds a tear during pregame ceremonies Saturday.
A man holds an American flag at ceremonies before the Saturday game in Boston.
Hundreds of people pour onto Hemingway Street in the Fenway neighborhood to celebrate after the announcement that the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect had been captured on Friday, April 19.
Women cheer police as they exit Franklin Street on Friday, April 19, in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Officers from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives relax Friday after the capture in Watertown, Massachusetts.
A woman gives a Boston police officer a hug and other officers are thanked during a celebration in the Boston Common on April 19.
A member of the North Metro SWAT team pumps his fist while leaving the scene near Franklin Street on April 19.
Around 200 people celebrate on Hemingway Street in the Fenway neighborhood after the capture of the second suspect on April 19.
People wave U.S. flags as police drive down the street on April 19.
A photograph of Martin Richard, one of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, was placed on the plexiglass by a fan following the hockey game between the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Rangers on April 19 at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York.
A man waves a U.S. flag in Watertown on April 19.
Local residents cheer to news that police have captured the surviving suspect Watertown on April 19.
President Barack Obama arrives in the White House briefing room to make a statement late April 19 about the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. "We've closed an important chapter in this tragedy," he said.
A SWAT team member is followed by reporters and a celebrating crowd on April 19 after the successful operation.
A police officer adjusts his hat while various law enforcement agencies descend on the area around Franklin Street on April 19.
Spectators celebrate as law enforcement officers leave the scene on April 19 near Franklin Street.
People gather at the scene near Franklin Street in Watertown on April 19.
A man claps next to a police vehicle in the Watertown neighborhood on April 19.
Onlookers applaud first responders departing the scene at the end of the manhunt on April 19.
Police officers and SWAT team members exult after the successful operation to capture suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on April 19.
Boston SWAT team members are surrounded by spectators and the media on April 19.
Residents clap after the capture of the second of two suspects wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings on April 19. 
|