It seems like yesterday, we were headed for Bar Harbor Maine for a day that had special meaning to me, my husbands 50th birthday. Little did we know how insignificant that event would seem in just minutes.
The gas station was in Biddeford. I’ll never forget. Jimmy Buffet had been looking for “One Particular Harbor” on thee radio when I rolled down the window and was greeted by a wizened Marine who kindly asked how much? That was when everything changed.
His young mechanic, no more than 19 years old, came out of the Station with an odd look on his face. The old marine turned and gave him one of those withering looks an exhausted parent may give their child. That was when the younger man looked at him and said “They are saying a plane hit the World Trade Center in NY”…
The old attendant turned that withering look towards us. Private planes – idiots, he muttered…shaking his head as he pumped. “Go back to what you were doing” were his only words. He was there to work – not to jaw.
As the pump binged its gallon to gallon count, the young man wandered out again, only this time he looked worried.
“What is it NOW” The Old Marine was getting ticked off by the apparent lack of work around the place. The boy looked past him this time and directly at us “They just announced another plane has hit the Trade Centers”. There was a pregnant pause before the old guy shooed him away again…clucked a bit more about kids, before his face betrayed his thoughts. One plane…an accident…..but two?
We pulled out in silence, hesitated – then nearly knocked each other over to pop out the CD and find live reporting.
It was like being stuck in a black and white Raymond Burr horror movie. All we could get was AM radio, and the reports were as confused as the day. The further we went up in Maine, the stranger the reports got, the Pentagon? The President was missing??? The Towers were collapsing?
In 2001 we couldn’t find a business with a TV…..
In Camden, Maine we finally found a small black and white ( in keeping with the day ) and saw the image of smoke…because that’s all there was at that time. These seemingly mundane events are seared into my memory and drawn upon often.
We turned around. We knew people in those buildings….and even if we hadn’t….we turned around – birthday forgotten…family and Country on our minds.
What followed in the weeks and months after that horrible TERRORIST ATTACK (NOT “man caused disaster”) showed the absolute magnificence of America – of its people, of its compassion, of its raw power…It was something to behold…you remember now don’t you? YOU remember where you were standing….what you were thinking…..YOU REMEMBER.
Lately I wondered if it had ALL been forgotten. Listening to the constant drumbeat of vicious attacks on the Bush Administration. Listening to the apologies about who we are as a nation. People doing everything in their power to destroy “That Shining City on a Hill” as Reagan coined it. The celebrities who wouldn’t recognize the greatness of our nation if it bit them in the proverbial ass.
And then yesterday….a “photo op” with a presidential jet shot in the skies of lower Manhattan…without proper warning, without due consideration…without just BASIC understanding.
Listening to the screams of people running as the plane banked by skyscrapers made me hope perhaps WE have not forgotten…
Listening to the absolute lack of understanding over the incident come out of Washington made me realize…they haven’t just forgotten…
They never understood in the first place…and they’re in charge.
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