Monuments of September 11 #WordlessWednesday

I have written a lot of 9/11 posts.  I know people who were personally affected (a man who lost his son and a man who lost his best friend) and had some indirect connections to others who died that sad, sad day.  

This year I'm keeping the post simple, in keeping with the Wordless Wednesday meme.

May those who perished, including those who died years later (and are still dying even today), forever rest in peace.  May their loved ones find healing. 

May we never forget. 

Taken September 11, 2016, at a cemetery in Putnam Valley, New York (Putnam County).  

The actual monument at the cemetery. Some 126 resident lives were lost, between Putnam County and its neighbor Westchester County.

One more monument, in Naples, New York, taken the fourth week of September, 2022.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday on this sad 23rd anniversary.

Yes One Day We Will Forget

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a co-worker which, for some reason, evolved into a discussion about September 11, 2001.

One day we will forget. 

One day it will be only the day on the calendar between September 10 and September 12.

One day, we won't remember the moments of the day.  The minute each plane hit its target.  The moment each World Trade Center collapsed.   The moment the Pentagon erupted in flames. 

The moment Flight 93 plowed into a Pennsylvania field.

One day New York won't reschedule a primary election because it falls on September 11. (Even now, in 2018, our primary, instead of today, will be held on Thursday).

No, don't be angry at me.  I will remember September 11 for the rest of my life. I remember it every year.  First, it was my father in law's birthday (although he was no longer with us on that day.)  Then, it became the day I watched in horror (after my employer hastily located a television) as the second tower fell, later finding out that one of my co workers lost his son on that day. His daughter in law was pregnant.  Other people I know lost loved ones.  13 people who went to my high school died that day.  Two of them left pregnant spouses.

Those children and others will be turning 17 in the next few months, and this is the point I want to make.  It is a point we may not like, but it is a point that history teaches us.

Our children will forget.  Or maybe our grandchildren.  It is happening right before our eyes.

Today, I think of those who are still dying as a result of 9/11.  Yes, thousands of first responders and others are still suffering aftereffects today. They are still dying from cancer and other 9/11 related illnesses, even as they fight for extensions of deadlines set by Congress:  December 18, 2020.

How do you put a deadline on cancer?  And the ironic part?  We speculate that the one plane that did not reach its target, Flight 93 memorialized above, was headed towards the Capital building when its heroic passengers fought the hijackers for control of the plane.  May they rest in peace, in a field in Western Pennsylvania, forever.

But one day, all those who experienced 9/11 will be gone, unable to give further testimony.

My son was middle school aged on September 11, 2001, and he remembers.  But those children who were two or three on that day, will they remember?  Will the 11 year olds, unless they lost a family member and 9/11 remembrance is something their families do every day?  Do you think the schools are teaching 9/11?  Some are.  Some aren't.  How about those homeschooling?  But even by learning at home or in a school building, 9/11 will never have the same meaning to them as it does to us. They live in a post 9/11 world.  The day itself will eventually be empty of the meaning we, who were alive then, give it.

And maybe that isn't totally a bad thing.

As long as we give the day meaning, true meaning, and incorporate that meaning into our daily lives, our children will remember the meaning.  But they will turn that memory into something that matters to them, the generation that wasn't yet born.  They only know a post 9/11 world. We can never truly know what that means, to know a world from before that date we observe today.

Our world isn't theirs.

They will remember, but not the way we do.  Our job is to make sure they know about the day and its meaning, and let them sort it out. Keep in mind that the children born on September 11, 2001, will turn 18 on September 11, 2019, and will be granted the right to vote.

I hope they will use that power of the vote well.

But for now, my generation, and yours, will remember those innocents who died on that day. 

(Part of this post was originally posted on September 11, 2012).

Fall Fancies - They Won't Win

The news, upon leaving work today, was sad.  Perhaps not unexpected.

Scarecrow, Bainbridge, New York

The terrorists struck against New York City again.

Blocks from where I worked so many years ago.  Not far from where my childhood best friend's son went to high school.  In sight of the World Trade Center.

Immediately, I did a mental inventory.  I grew up in New York City. I still have family and friends (including blogging friends) there.  Were they safe?

Facebook set up it's "mark yourself safe" function for "The Violent Incident in New York". (Did anyone else do a double take about that name?)

Many cities have felt the sting of these latest vehicle attacks now, from London, to Nice, to Berlin, to other cities too numerous to mention, and now it is my native New York City's turn again.

New York City, as one news station pointed out, is a "dense" city.  There are a lot of people crammed into a small area.  As I write this, it is the evening of October 31, and a Halloween parade will be starting shortly.  People are walking around in costumes.  They aren't staying home.

 New Yorkers will not be cowed.  It is a city that lives under the shadow of fear, and has, ever since September 11, 2001.  But life goes on, as it has to.

It brings back memories of a rumor that kept surfacing right after the 9/11 attacks, that there would be another attack on October 31.

Well, turns out the rumor was right - just 16 years late.

My neighborhood, October 27

No matter what they do, they lose, because they will not crush the spirit of humanity.

But until their cause is officially lost, there will be a lot more pain.

In Times Like These

Today, I feature a couple of flower pictures but for a different reason than most days.

Yesterday, I went to a street festival in Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University.

I watched these high school students play steel drums, and enjoyed some locally made food.

And, while I sat on a ledge, eating a locally made sausage (it was good, too!), I suddenly had a random thought. 

We were so vulnerable.  We were on a closed off street, and throngs of people were out there enjoying the  beautiful spring day you can see in the picture above. (Today, we are back to rain).  But the happy vibes could change at any moment, and that is what our modern terrorists feed on.

In London, last night, they fed again.

I have several British friends on Facebook.  I've never met any of them in person, but I read, helplessly, their posts last night.  Two lived in London until not that long ago, and were asking everyone they knew to let them know if they were safe.  Another posted that her son, who lives in London, had already reached out to her and he was safe.

Safe, yes, but traumatized.  Again.

This is our modern world.  And we have to figure out how to stop this.  We are all vunerable, but there are also solutions to all problems.

The trick, of course, is to find a solution that will not turn our democracies into dictatorships headed by strongmen who promise security, but then spread their own type of terror.  Most Americans do not know what that is like, but I grew up among men and women who knew what that was like firsthand.

Fear can do strange and terrible things to populations searching for security.

Just ask those survivors, fewer every day, who were alive during the days leading to World War II. My growing up neighbors are all dead now, but they taught me well just by their existence.  They never talked about it (trauma does that to you) but I read a lot about that era, growing up in the 50's and 60's.

Today, for us all, one more flower, bathed in the sunlight of what is called the Golden Hour in photography.  There is a cliche that it is darkest before the dawn.  I fear it is going to be darker before the sun rises for us again.

I just hope we can make our way through this latest challenge to our civilization without losing our freedom.

Music Sunday - On the Front Lines

Today, in the United States, the air waves are full of tributes to singer/songwriter Gregg Allman, who died yesterday(possibly from complications of liver cancer), at the age of 69.  It has been such a tragic week for music and music fans, starting with the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England (more on that later in this post).

Allman was one of many who were so creative, and also so self-destructive.  I constantly wonder about this combination, and why (in my view) it exists.

As tomorrow is Memorial Day in the United States, I am moving my Music Monday to today.

I will let Allman's music speak for itself.  What else can I add? 

Whipping Post.

Mellissa, such a sweet song.

And, a hit song on his own; "I'm No Angel".  He wasn't.

Rockers reacted in the modern way, on Twitter.

Meanwhile, in England, nearly a week after a terrorist bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, the singer beloved by so many teens and preteens (and even their parents) announced a benefit concert with proceeds going to the victims' families.  She announced this with a moving letter to her fans.

In honor of all those at that concert, here is a video of Dangerous Woman.

Meanwhile, Grande's mother has been placed under heavy security.

We live in sobering times, and depend on those in the entertainment business to help us cope with sorrow and uncertainty.  Now, after Bataclan, and Manchester, entertainers are now on the front lines. 

At Times Like This

This is not the post I wanted to post today.

I am looking at a picture.  It's a professional photo, so I don't have the rights to post it, but it's a precious photo for me.  It shows me, my spouse, and my son with another father and son, in a whitewater raft (the only time I've done white water) on a river in Pennsylvania, as we shot out the gate and into our wild adventure. 

It was taken on July 7, 2005, minutes after we had found out about the London bombings now known as the "7/7 bombings".


The Manchester bombings of (for us in Eastern Time in the United States) early last night will now join the ranks of the millions of atrocities we humans have inflicted on ourselves, all over our world.  This wasn't just any bombing, it was quickly obvious, but one that targeted teens and children trying to have a good time with a suicide bomb full of nails.  It was timed to occur just as the concert ended, as the bomber knew well people would be crowding together to leave.

There are many other incidents, of course, that never even reach the media, people suffering as the world never knows (or, in some instances, cares).

In some ways that picture of my family and another poised on the edge of of churning water is a metaphor of our world.  The white rapids come, and they come, and they come.  All the kindness of the world doesn't seem to matter at times like this, even as Manchester mobilizes to shield the living victims and give them shelter, medical treatment, and comfort.

Now, the cycle of hate will continue.  So all we can do is voice our condemnation, and try to continue to live our lives as normally as we can.  It won't be easy.

But we must, or those forces would have won.

Falling Friday - Our World is Falling and It Can't Get Up

Too many times we in the United States have woken up to tragic news from somewhere in the world.  Paris. Baghdad.  Istanbul.  Wardak.  

And, from our own country. San Bernardino.  Orlando.  Then, yesterday morning, two more black men shot dead, by police.  Videos indicated the shootings were not justified, and protestors took to the streets. Last night, a protest of those shootings in Dallas turned into an attack on police.  Just before 9pm local time, snipers opened fire on the march.  Five police officers are dead, with more wounded, some seriously.

We don't have all the facts yet.  We don't know if it is domestic terrorism, or what we will find.  We do know there are at least three shooters in custody, with others possibly on the loose, and that the attacks appear to have been coordinated.

At times of great crisis, we can only see death and destruction, and we wonder and fear for what is to come.   One thing can come out of this now, if you, my reader, lives in the United States.

Ponder those who are running for leadership positions in our country this fall.  I don't just mean President, but members of Congress.  Maybe even your own governor or mayor.

Think about the facts carefully.  Be informed.  Think about the events of the past few months, and which candidates you would have wanted in positions of power at the time.   Don't vote just from emotion.

And, get out and vote.  Make the choices that are right for you. 

We can only hope that good will come out of what is happening, but right now, it is hard to imagine.

Orlando

Today, I woke up early, turned on the computer and opened Facebook.

There, I learned about the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.  I know people who in Orlando.  Many people think of Disney properties, Sea World and Universal Orlando, but Orlando is an actual place where real people live. 

And now, where real people died, in a terrorist attack.

Facebook activated its "emergency situation check in".  A cousin hasn't checked in yet, but I know she doesn't use Facebook a lot.  Still....

I spent about 40 minutes this afternoon, just scrolling through post after post by politicians (one of whom, Alan Grayson, went to the same high school as I did), celebrities, and just ordinary people.

We in the Binghamton, New York area know what it is like to have a mass shooting.  But what happened in Orlando eclipses what happened in Binghamton on April 3, 2009, in another world that seems so far away now.  We of Binghamton know it is going to take Orlando a long time to recover.

I know that, too, as someone who grew up in New York City and worked, one summer, just steps away from the World Trade Center.

In a type of irony, it was said that the parents of the Binghamton shooter moved to Florida.  I wonder if they moved to Orlando.

There aren't words.  We in the United States ran out of words long ago.  But we all know that our world changed years ago, and the world our adult children will inhabit is not the one we knew.

Sometimes, I wonder if our country will survive.