Where Were You?
Another anniversary! Four years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil and we’re still here, motherfuckers! You thought you’d bring us down, huh? You thought committing such an act would send us flying in all directions, attacking the wrong people, huh? You thought your actions of destabilization would do something crazy like drive global oil prices up to an insane rate! You thought we’d send so many of our soldiers off to die while fighting you that we wouldn’t be prepared for any catastrophe that came our way! You thought we’d end up bitterly divided over our country’s leadership! Well, take a look at us now!
Wait, never mind. Maybe not. In fact, forget it. Lemme start this one over.
I’ve already clearly stated my opinion of the post-9/11 political landscape in America. Needless to say, Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent fall of New Orleans – and the woefully inadequate reaction of Bush’s handy-dandy, all-purpose new Department of Homeland Security to this disaster – have only served to reinforce these views. So I’m gonna lay off of that in this column. Well, from here on in, anyway.
After a big event like 9/11 happens, people always talk about remembering where they were when it happened. I’m no different. The first large life-changing event that took place in my lifetime was the moon landing in 1969. I had just turned six. I remember sitting in the living room of my parents’ first house, sun streaming in from the picture window, as I endlessly changed my Barbie’s clothes and watched the images unfolding on the TV screen with my mother and little sister. I watched the clunky space-suited men bounce along the surface of the moon while an odd-looking orb – Earth! – loomed in the black sky behind them. I heard their disembodied voices as they communicated with somebody they referred to as "Mission Control". My little sister, three years old at the time, left my mother’s side on the couch to come sit on the floor with me. "Lemme play," she yelled, yanking Barbie from my hand.
Damnit, that doll was MINE! I’d just gotten it, literally the day before. "Give it BACK!" I screamed. And just like that the moon landing was forgotten and battle engaged.
Fast forward to the Bicentennial seven years later. I don’t know how many of my fellow Americans reading this remember the bells. All up and down the Eastern Seaboard any edifice with a bell – church, municipal building or what-have-you - was to synchronize and begin ringing their bell at the same moment. I think six pm was the agreed-upon time. As usual, we had the TV tuned in to Cronkite and the door open so we could hear our local bells joining the chorus. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere with the nearest bells seven miles away, we heard them as we watched and listened to footage of all the other bells from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to DC to Atlanta to Miami. As I stood in the doorway trying to hear the local bell my sister came up to me. "I don’t want to go to fireworks," she fretted. "Something’s going to hit me."
"Nothing’s going to hit you," I scoffed. "Now shut up, I’m tryin’ to hear these bells!"
"You shut up!" she cried. "Fatso!"
I suppose I should point out that I had no ammo with which to respond to this – I WAS a pretty fat kid. So I did what any other self-respecting fat kid would have done. I clocked her.
Elvis Presley’s death, the ascension of Pope John Paul I, John Lennon’s murder, the Reagan assassination attempt, the razing of the Berlin Wall…I’ve been privileged to grow up in a historically rich era, and technology has made it possible for me to witness so much of it firsthand without leaving my tiny town. Through it all I’ve enjoyed the common thread of two companions – the TV and my sister.
9/11 was no different.
It was a perfect late summer day - warm and sunny, with a serene, cloudless, almost obscenely blue sky overhead. My daughter had gotten up early and been ready for school early, so I’d allowed her the privilege of fifteen minutes of TV before going out to the bus stop. I still had another two hours after she left to get ready for work, so I began my usual routine and changed the channel on the TV to my favorite yoga show. About ten minutes later the phone rang.
"Are you watchin’ TV?" my sister’s voice barked at me.
"I have my yoga on," I told her.
"Well, quick, put it on the CBS morning news," she cried.
"What’s going on?" I asked, changing the channel. The sight of the World Trade Center’s twin towers billowing smoke greeted me, while a frantic announcer’s voice babbled something about a hole in the side of the Pentagon. "Why are they talking about the Pentagon but showing the World Trade Center?" I asked.
"Because they BOTH got hit!" my sister shrilled. "Some crazy bastards hijacked a bunch of planes and started flying them into buildings all at once."
"What, like terrorists?" I asked rather stupidly.
"I guess," she said. "Man, you know who I hate?" she asked, suddenly shifting gears. "Bryant Gumbel. What a horse’s ass!"
"What’s Bryant Gumbel got to do with this?" I asked.
"Some lady just phoned in when that first tower got hit, and he didn’t believe her. He kept asking all these stupid questions like, ‘Ma’am, are you sure the plane hit the tower deliberately?’ Talking to her like she was stupid or something."
"Well, it is kinda confusing," I said. "Who’d do this?"
"Somebody who decided it was our turn!" she cried.
And there it was. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that statement, or how perfectly and eloquently my sister cut to the heart of 9/11. She’s not the kind of person who broods over politics or lets them chew on her like I do. She’s like most Americans; going with the flow, just trying to get through another day, perfectly aware without really being aware of it at all that the big movers and shakers have truly little impact on her day-to-day existence. But she was able to reach a truthful conclusion that all of the posturing talking heads and policy wonks failed to see – that 9/11 was just a bigger-budget version of something that’s almost a daily occurrence in other parts of the world, parts of the world that we see from a safe distance and can turn our backs on with the flick of a remote. As somebody without a vested interest in any of it one way or the other, my sister was able to view this tragedy as a logical conclusion to the law of averages. Sooner or later it was bound to happen to us. In a way it was only fair – that we get our turn.
As I write this it occurs to me that I haven’t talked to my sister this week. I wonder what she thinks of all this hurricane business. I should call her to see if she can provide a quick sound bite for my next column. She’s a better political analyst than I am.
