The Pentagon Memorial Is Unveiled Today.....
As we all know, today is September 11th - the 7th Anniversary of the most tragic today in our lifetime.... It was good to see Obama and McCain get away from the ridiculous sniping that has plagued the last few days of the campaign - if only for one day. While most of you think of this only on today's date, 9/11 means a lot more to me than just the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Today is my dad's 84th birthday. He's still kicking, although the walk is very fragile, and he is definitely showing his age. By the way, Mom and Dad's wedding day is November 22 - the day of the Kennedy assassination, but 11 years earlier.. They didn't plan this stuff, it's just a weird coincidence......
It was also one year ago today that I completely screwed up my life, although some would say that I was on that track before Sept. 11, 2007, it just peaked on that day. I got mad at work, blew my stack, and ended up 'walking off' my $50k a year job. The past 366 days were largely spent grasping at straws, both professionally and personally . However, I am home, and even though there are aspects at work that frustrate me, I do like working there, and when i have a problem, I discuss it like an adult now, and it gets fixed...
Personally, I am stuck a bit in limbo right now. I have discovered the truth about a lot of things this month, and I'm cool with everything, but whether I am friends with everyone I care about remains to be seen. It's out of my control, so I am going on with life, getting back to where I was, and I'll see what happens. I'll say one thing though - life is a lot more fun with me in it !!
Lastly, the obvious. 9/11/01 . I don't think I posted about my 9/11 experience, so I'll do it now. It was very vivid and shocking. I was working at Florence Toyota, right next to Bobby at the service desk. The Today show was on TV, and they were showing the smoke from the first plane crash, but they thought it was a small plane. Just as we commented that it looked bigger than a Cessna..... in came the second plane. We knew America was being attacked.....
The hour or so between the crashes and the towers falling were crazy. Who did this? Why? All i thought about was all my friends who worked in Lower Manhattan, and if they were okay. Forget about calling - all the phone lines were jammed. Although I didn't know any of the victims, 11 people from my college died that day.... The first tower falling was like getting hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. I almost got sick, because I didn't know if anyone I knew was in there at that time. That, and I am a New Yorker, and in some ways, I always will be...
It's seven years later, and although Osama bin Laden is in hiding, we still haven't brought him to justice. Someday maybe... We took on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and then maybe we took a wrong step in getting into Iraq. Yes, they are free now, but whether Al-Qaeda was there is still debatable...
Soon, the memories will be more faded, and it will take on the appearance of Pearl Harbor, and JFK's assassination. Kids will start asking what it was like that day. Yeah, I'll remember 9/11, but I'll remember a lot of 9/11's.......Watch this tribute, and what I find striking is how united we were as a country that day. Seems like a million years ago now, doesn't it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHstQv8C2zQ&feature=related
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5 comments:
after the shock of it, it hit me that my cousin was living and working in Manhattan. i was on teh phone for quite awhile trying to find out how she was...ok, thank God. i also remember a girl in our parts department had a daughter involved in a car accident trying to get out of the area around the Pentagon. and...i remember Mike almost getting sick. as well as some prick customer coming in having the nerve to bitch about his car and the bad day he was having. i wanted to deck him. then i came home and loaded my gun having visions of the movie "Red Dawn".
after the shock of it, it hit me that my cousin was living and working in Manhattan. i was on teh phone for quite awhile trying to find out how she was...ok, thank God. i also remember a girl in our parts department had a daughter involved in a car accident trying to get out of the area around the Pentagon. and...i remember Mike almost getting sick. as well as some prick customer coming in having the nerve to bitch about his car and the bad day he was having. i wanted to deck him. then i came home and loaded my gun having visions of the movie "Red Dawn".
Glad Bobby has a gun we all should own several of them.
Excellent blog my brother! I was on flight from Atlanta the night before and on my way to jury duty that morning. I was locked in a courtroom until lunch and no being able to see anything of the event happening until the courthouse decided to shutdown for the day. My heart was racing the whole day wonder if Matt was ok, was Dorothy's husband (midtown cop) was ok. As I watch film of 9/11 last night it still seems surreal and wonder who could have done this to my home (NY), my family(NYer's)....as an Italian there is one rule...If you know what's good for you...don't f**k with my family!!!!!
Thanks guys, I thought this one came together nicely..
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