Most Americans, even those who are neither Christians nor “Nones” (and mark “None of the Above” when asked for a religious preference), associate December 25 with “Christmas.” An equal number probably recognizes that the “Fourth of July” is a national holiday, even if they don’t know it’s the date on which we celebrate the signing of our Declaration of Independence – whatever that is. A smaller percentage might link “December 7” with a foreign attack on Pearl Harbor and the resulting Second World War. On the other hand, the term “Nine-Eleven” is probably known by the highest percentage of Americans who have heard about that “second day of infamy” – without knowing anything about the one sixty years previously.
Have you ever noticed that for the first three events, we tend to vocalize the name of the month and the day on which the event occurred? Yet somehow, we usually omit the word “September” when we recall the day on which the continental United States, the “lower 48,” was attacked by aircraft under foreign control. Although some might inquire: “Where were you on September 11th?” – most people throughout our nation would ask: “Where were you on 9-11?”
What imagery do we impose by using these numbers for this horrible tragedy?
Do we associate them with the 9-1-1 we use to reach assistance when an emergency occurs? Are there those who, in their mind’s eye, see those twin towers we once beheld with pride in New York City – the Towers which stood as solidly as those parallel number ones? Do we prefer to recall “September” within the context of “September Song,” when the days “dwindle down to a precious few?”
In September of 2001, I was enjoying the beginning of my second year of retirement. My life was a very happy and contented one – a time without worries, a time when Karen and I were looking forward to resuming our foreign travel. In August, we had completed a cruise from Anchorage to Seattle. Although we had enjoyed our vacation in the Northwest, we longed to return to the land of castles and cathedrals. On the evening of September 10, we were looking forward to the celebration, on the next day, of the sixth birthday of our granddaughter, Christina.
The only nuisance in our lives on that particular Tuesday morning of Christina’s birthday, was a sink clogged by some indigestible vegetable peelings which necessitated our call for a plumber to do something with the drain. When he arrived, the first thing he asked was: “Did you see the TV of that plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York? It’s all over the news.” We turned on our television. It remained on for most of the next several days.
The images we saw were totally unreal. There was a recycling of the video of American Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower shortly before 10:00 that morning. Surely this must be part of a horror-adventure movie being shown on early morning TV. But unlike the Orson Wells radio program of a previous decade, the words of this announcer were real; he was describing an event that was happening at that very moment.
As we watched, the image of another plane was being broadcast. United Flight 175 erupted in black smoke as it penetrated the North Tower. The plumber fixed our drain and left. Karen and I continued to be mesmerized as we saw the twin towers crumble, with agonizing slowness, enveloped with thick, roiling clouds. Only moments before, we had seen several people leaping from the windows. We saw the crowds streaming away from this site of total destruction. The two of us prayed for my cousin Donna who lived in an apartment building near 16th Street and Sixth Avenue, there in lower Manhattan, not far from where those images were originating, live.
The news coverage shifted to Washington, D.C. and scenes at the Pentagon where another plane had crashed. The newscasters tried to speak coherently about a fourth plane downed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Had it been headed for the White House, as some claimed?
Real-life was exceeding anything that could have been imagined in any grade C horror-adventure produced by Hollywood. We saw it. Our minds and souls did not readily accept what we were seeing. When telephone service was once more available throughout the country, we learned that Donna was safe in her apartment. Later she told us that the major change in her own life was her decision not to take a subway anywhere in the City; she now preferred aboveground buses and cabs.
Our house in Cypress, Texas, was on the flightpath for Houston Intercontinental. During the days following the tragedy, I sat on the swing I had placed on our back patio, over which I had devoted the loving care of a dedicated gardener. The trellis above my head still had its vines to block out the warm autumn sun. But there was an even greater blockage in my thoughts. As I sat there, pondering, I realized there were no sounds of airplanes arriving or leaving Houston’s major terminal. I found it was disturbing to hear “nothing.” Life, itself, had become muffled. The days passed and commercial flights were again allowed to fly over the United States. However, flights of fancy continued to be grounded. They no longer flew in happy memories which had become outdated by that one, infamous date: 9/11/2001.