15 Years Ago

We celebrate and memorialize…

Special Memories. Milestones. Anniversaries. Events. Experiences. Things we store in our heart and mind. Tragedies. Treasured moments. Births. Deaths. Separations. Coming together.

We hold treasured items that represent something from that previous moment. From a rock where my dad served in Germany, to that cigarette box his brother had during his service in WWII … I have bibles, notepads, books and memorial announcements… Everything connects me to another person.

Solomon said there was a time and a season for everything.  A time to pick up, and a time to lay aside. A time to remember and honor…and at other times I simply keep that memory alive in my heart.

Reading an article about 9/11 this morning about the last of the artifacts from Hangar 17. For the past 6 years pieces of the destruction were distributed across the nation to places where First Responders came from… Did you know they did not find every body that died in the terrorist attack?  This this one sobering quote stopped me…

“That’s where the DNA is. Neither my cousin or anybody else from Squad 1 was ever found, but it’s in that steel,” Hodge said. (Read Article Here)

Hodge was named after his cousin, a firefighter lost in the towers collapse. The steel and concrete pulverized everything it fell on. His comment is thought provoking. If you experience a piece of steel from that day, you are experiencing something that should give you pause. A person’s DNA is found in the creation, construction and destruction in that artifact. Take a somber and reflective moment.

Someone told me that they are now adding this tragedy to American History in High School and the students taking the course of study were not alive when this event happened… This is how far removed into the future we are.

Back in the early 90’s the traveling Vietnam Memorial wall came to our little corner of the world. Humble, Texas. I barely missed the draft season for this war. I knew students from my school who had served. I have a man in my church who was wounded in country. Though I have visited the memorials on the Mall in Washington, DC, there was something special about stopping next to that open field and visiting the traveling memorial late in the night. Sobering.

Through the years I have visited the graves of loved ones and felt the sadness of their passing. Or the monument where a big battle was fought. Won. Or lost. Sobering.

Sunday will be 15 years since 9/11/01. I remember the morning well in Anchorage, AK. The startling news coming across the airwaves. The shut down of all commercial air traffic across the country. The military jets thundering across the skies over our house, breaking the sound barrier as they went on patrol. Sobering memories.

Back in the early 90’s I spent several trips in Manhattan for work. The Tein Towers was a special attraction. One morning I’m down in the basement watching the trains unload deep in the bowels of transportation tunnels under the Towers. One morning I’m on top of one of the Towers having breakfast at the 109th floor and then strolling outside on top of the Tower on the observation deck. One trip I stayed in the Hotel nestled between the Towers that was later torn down because of an underground attack in a parking garages in 1993. 

For a variety of reasons, this weekend makes me want to travel to the new tower and the memorial site… A must do. Soon.

 

 

13-11-09-01

Thirteenth Anniversary

Okay, so it was a no brainer… The numbers are simply the countdown view of the numbers used in the anniversary of the Terrorist Attack we commonly call 911. This is the 13th Remembrance of 09/11/01.

I chose this picture from the myriad of photo’s available because I want to remember the Twin Towers as they were, not what they became…

Often thought to be an unlucky number, the thirteenth of anything I handle very well, thank you very much. Since my birthday is the thirteenth of a certain month. I have faced many birthday celebrations, even on the nefarious Friday the 13th! In fact, according to my calculations, I have had 9 birthdays on a Friday the 13th since my birth. I was born on a Thursday – so that means my very first birthday celebration was on Friday, the 13th!

Today is the 13th remembrance of the terrorist attack on American Soil that killed thousands of people in just a few moments of time.

I never had a business reason to be in the Twin Towers, but I have had some enjoyable memories of time spent in NY back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

The bank I worked for, Texas Commerce Bank, had entered into some agreement with Chemical Bank (and then the mergers and acquisitions started and now it’s JP Morgan Chase) and we were beginning to migrate our data processing over to their systems. So, a number of us went several times to start the planning process.

That first trip allowed me to stay in the Vista Hotel that nestled between and at the foot of the Twin Towers. That hotel was later demolished after a terrorist bomb in the parking garage made the foundation weak. 

For my several trips there, the evenings often availed opportunities to become the visitors and tourists we truly were – Central Park, Wall Street, Broadway, Time Square, Empire, Tavern on the Green , Lady Liberty, Battery Park – a host of traditional events rounded out some really hardworking trips.

On one trip we took an afternoon off to go see a Broadway Show, Cats. What a phenomenal event!

As I am a loner and introvert by nature, it was especially the early morning hours that I enjoyed solo strolls through the city. One morning, I ended up at the restaurant on the 109th floor of one of the Towers (I truly did not know their names or numbers). Setting at the window I enjoyed the rising sun over the city. Beautiful morning. Then, a few steps up to the top of the building and I hiked around the observation walkway on top of the building. You were about 25 feet from the edge of the building, but what a spectacular site and feeling – 110 stories above the street on a beautiful morning!

Another morning found me underground, beneath the Twin Towers, sitting at a little coffee shop – overlooking the multiple storied escalators as people poured out of the underground rail system. Like poking an ant hill with a stick, people would swirl up out of the ground on their way to another busy work day.

Those days are gone. I did not remember whether I too my trusty 35mm camera with my to NY. I can find no pictures to mark my journeys. Yet, the power of those days nearly 30 years ago are fresh in my mind and this morning I pay respect to those who lost their lives on 9/11/01.

No terror can take away my memories of those visits and no attack will make me feel any less proud of my country.

Thirteen years later and my memories of that morning are real. A phone call from a friend. The horror of what was done. Lives lost. We were in Anchorage that day. Planes were being grounded everywhere. Fighter jets were circling the cities, ready to protect our lives.  This was before the days of Twitter and Facebook. Most communication was by phones and email.  As we watched the destruction, we could only hope and pray for that everything would turn out alright.

Today we remember… We will never forget.