Sometime after 9:00 am on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, I was sitting in my office at George Washington University at the beginning of the day, and as I often do when a Pokes game is coming up, I was on OSTATEILLUSTRATED reading posts, when somebody wrote "they just flew an airplane into the World Trade Center."
Then the Pentagon, that I had just passed on my way in to work. Then sitting here waiting for the all clear and traffic to be permitted to drive past the smoldering wreck of the Pentagon on the way home that afternoon.
I was supposed to leave on Thursday (or Friday? memory gets fogged up) to take up a gig as "expert" for a Smithsonian Institution tour from Prague to Berlin along the Elbe river. Of course we didn't fly on the scheduled day, but since one-half of the tour group was already on the ground in Europe, they didn't cancel it and flew us out as soon as they could. Flying over Manhattan it was still a column of smoke towering into the sky where the physical towers should have been.
On that tour, at every stop, every local person - guide, hotel manager, transfer drivers, food service people, whoever - started out before their "job" by saying how much they wanted to express their horror and sympathy with us, and how they hoped their country would support us. I don't think the US had been that popular since the end of WWII (or since, probably). And I don't think the US had ever been that united.
Of course what happened after happened. And most of that capital was expended, whether necessarily or needlessly, I'm not in a position to judge - leave that to history written by other historians.
But it was a day, and it's worth remembering the bravery, sacrifice, and innocent suffering that was a consequence.
And now, back to regularly scheduled sports programming. But maybe we can still search for ways to find unity besides the Pokes.
Then the Pentagon, that I had just passed on my way in to work. Then sitting here waiting for the all clear and traffic to be permitted to drive past the smoldering wreck of the Pentagon on the way home that afternoon.
I was supposed to leave on Thursday (or Friday? memory gets fogged up) to take up a gig as "expert" for a Smithsonian Institution tour from Prague to Berlin along the Elbe river. Of course we didn't fly on the scheduled day, but since one-half of the tour group was already on the ground in Europe, they didn't cancel it and flew us out as soon as they could. Flying over Manhattan it was still a column of smoke towering into the sky where the physical towers should have been.
On that tour, at every stop, every local person - guide, hotel manager, transfer drivers, food service people, whoever - started out before their "job" by saying how much they wanted to express their horror and sympathy with us, and how they hoped their country would support us. I don't think the US had been that popular since the end of WWII (or since, probably). And I don't think the US had ever been that united.
Of course what happened after happened. And most of that capital was expended, whether necessarily or needlessly, I'm not in a position to judge - leave that to history written by other historians.
But it was a day, and it's worth remembering the bravery, sacrifice, and innocent suffering that was a consequence.
And now, back to regularly scheduled sports programming. But maybe we can still search for ways to find unity besides the Pokes.
