At 08:20 PM 9/10/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Thanks Ken. What a great irony. I hate thinking about tomorrow. One of my
>site visits is to the preschool on Mt. Prospect Avenue where the children
>saw the planes hit. I've been so happy since we moved out of earshot of the
>airport in Newark. Today's weather was like that morning--crisp and clear
>and gorgeous. It felt like 9/11 today and driving on the turnpike past the
>airport and the lanes of planes landing, it felt unsettling.
I have that morning burned into me. Everything I did from the time I
exited the PATH (the train that runs between Newark and Manhattan) at
Christopher Street, glimpsing the Towers at what I suppose was a minute
before the first plane came in, then the events of the day: seeing the
first Tower on fire from a half-mile away, uttering hate-filled yet
icy-calm curses I could not imagine myself saying, speaking to both my
children--one in Boston, the other in Baltimore--to let them know I was
okay. The latter, with whom I'd had a strained relationship since I left
in 1997, said "Daddy, I love you" before he hung up. I sat at my desk and
bawled like a child. Then walking north--for it was still a beautiful day,
I suppose--to Pennsylvania Station on 33rd Street and by some miracle
getting on the first train out when the station was reopened to Jersey
traffic. And the first train out was going to my station. It looked like
something out a newsreel of a population transfer in India in 1947, but it
didn't matter.
The traumas hit later.
>We don't have anything planned at work like the "ritual" last year. I have
>three social work interns beginning their placment. I've been thinking
>about John Tierney, a probie firefighter who died and Sean and Helen his
>parents in Staten Island.
My only ritual is a piece of clothing. On 9/11/01 I was wearing a pair of
black Tony Lama western boots. I wore them last September 11 and I shall
wear them again tomorrow. Stupid as this may sound, I consider them lucky
shoes.
I was so fortunate...nobody I actually knew died on any of the planes or in
the WTC itself. The woman on the train was real, of course, but it's also
true that I didn't know her except to trade glances.
I know a guy down here who took a vacation day that 9/11 to go
waterskiing. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. He still does. He told me
that his entire desk--all his trading associates and subordinates--died
that morning. Last year someone asked him "Are you doing anything special
on the 11th?" "Yes. I'm going waterskiing again." Same way I'm wearing
those overpriced boots that carried me away from that cloud of smoke and
pillar of fire. Memorials, all.
Ken
-------------------------
Kenneth
Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com
http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
"Sometimes the veil between human intelligence and animal intelligence
wears very thin--then one experiences the supreme thrill of keeping a cat,
or perhaps allowing oneself to be owned by a cat."--Catherine Manley
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