From the Silence of Time, Time’s Silence borrow.
In the heart of To-day is the word of To-morrow.
The Builders of Joy are the Children of Sorrow.

(William Sharp, "Triad")

September Eleventh: the Date Without a Year

A warm, crystal-clear blue-sky, late-summer day will never seem quite the same.

"Where were you September Eleventh?" Asked that question, you don't need to inquire about the year. And not just because it was last September Eleventh. It will be the same, I think, next year, and the year after. And ten, twenty, thirty years from now:

• "What were you doing September Eleventh?"
• "I haven't been the same since September Eleventh."
• "Are you old enough to remember September Eleventh?"

Nobody will need to ask, What year? As if in The Twilight Zone, that day will stand apart, as long as we all live who can remember the day itself.

I was at the computer in the study when I first heard the news. A brief notice on the radio: a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Honestly, I thought they meant one of those little Piper-Cub kind of planes had accidentally gone astray. I have since learned that many people thought the same who didn't get the first news from television. Now and then, I heard another mention of the Twin Towers on the radio, but I didn't pay much attention.

I remained, therefore, largely in ignorance for more than an hour, when I decided to go to the living room and turn on the television, to see what was going on. That's when I found out that both towers had been struck by jet airliners, and one of them had already collapsed. Unlike many, many Americans, I was not watching when the second tower was attacked. But I was watching when the second tower (the first attacked) collapsed during live broadcast.

I channel-surfed for a while, looking for the best coverage. I found it on the FOX News Channel. I hadn't spent much time looking at FNC before, but I caught Shepard Smith broadcasting live from New York City: he was standing either on the roof or on a balcony, I'm not sure which, and I could see the devastation unfolding beyond him in the distance. He was, at the same time, quite obviously emotional and yet very restrained in his presentation, and I was very impressed.

I spent some time on the phone with my mother and with my sister. Later in the morning, I decided that this was not a day on which anybody should be alone. We were starting to hear about a plane crash somewhere in Pennsylvania, not very far from Pittsburgh. Just like us: not very far from Pittsburgh. So, I walked the couple of blocks to my sister's house: her husband was at work, and her children in school.

Some parents were driving to school to pick up their children and bring them home. Learning that, my sister decided to do the same: she didn't want her children to be left at school, with their friends gone home. We drove the few miles to the school campus. On the way there, I first really noticed what a gorgeous late-summer day it was: the trees still full of green leaves, autumnal flowers starting to bloom, hardly a cloud in the sky, the afternoon growing warm — hot, even, a bit too hot for September. The contrast between the natural beauty and the man-made horrors of the day was striking.

And a warm, crystal-clear blue-sky, late-summer day will never seem quite the same. That's what I said to myself.

Many parents were picking up many children at the school. We had to tell my nephews what was going on: the school administration had told the children nothing, and had forbade the teachers from telling them anything, too.

There was still a great deal of confusion: everybody knew all airplanes had been grounded, but there were still rumors of planes unaccounted for. The death toll, speculation said, could be in the tens of thousands.

We learned that a plane had, indeed, crashed in Pennsylvania, in an area not far away. Seven Springs Mountain Resort is near the crash site, and so is Laurel Hill State Park: I have spent many happy times at each. The Idlewild amusement park, too, is not very far away, where the annual Highland Games at Ligonier are held on the Saturday after Labor Day. In fact, my sister's family and I had been to the games, September 8, 2001, and we spent the evening in Jennerstown, with some of my brother-in-law's family, only 10 miles or so from what would become, a few days later, the Shanksville crash site.

That was a year ago. No planes had actually remained unaccounted for that afternoon. And the death toll, though horrific, turned out to be much less than feared — even much less than originally calculated by officials.

A couple of weeks ago, Saturday, August 31, 2002, I had a picnic for family and a few friends. In the morning, I sat reading on the front porch for a while. At one point, I looked up and around: the day was growing warm, the sky was a beautiful cloudless blue, and I was glad that we were going to have good weather for the picnic later — then I thought It was just like this, that day.

No. A warm, crystal-clear blue-sky, late-summer day will never seem quite the same. Not since September Eleventh.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.

(Abraham Lincoln, September 11, 1858)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/11/02 04:09:16 AM
Categorized as Classic & Most Notable.