9-11-01

Pause to Reflect

Today is one of those days. One of those days when every media outlet has it’s moment of reflection or link to something touching. It’s a date so etched in our memory that 9/11 has become its own thing with the ability to touch off sensitive emotions at its very mention. I suppose that makes this blog my own little 9/11 tribute, but I hesitate to call it that. It’s more of a reflection really. I honestly don’t think I could ever write anything that would be a fitting tribute for what happened on that day, to those families, the New York City, or to our Nation. So let’s call it a simple reflection as a way of remembering on a day none of us can forget.

It’s hard to believe that eight years have passed since that day. In September of 2001, Mrs. Rog and I had just moved in out first house. We hadn’t been here a month when the attacks happened. I was still working full time at the software firm and was just about to switch my site away from the Front Page format. The Angels had still not won their World Series. Pete Carroll had not yet turned the USC football program into the monster it is today. Britney Spears was still a teen and not yet completely insane. I don’t list these things to be glib, but rather as a reminder of all the things that have happened since then. The day may be burned in my mind, but a lot has happened since then. Some of the big events in my life have all taken place since the planes took down the towers. It feels like yesterday, but in fact eight years is a very long time. I look at my boys today and realize how precious they are, how things we take for granted can be taken away in a heartbeat and how fast the days become weeks and the weeks become months and so on.

That day is so easy to remember. Waking up to phone calls, the panic over the confused media coverage, the complete lack of perspective. Early details were so sketchy. One LA report implied that planes were headed for downtown Los Angeles. My sister worked in one of the tallest buildings in downtown and we were understandably scared. Was she OK? Were any of us safe? As the phone system was overloaded we felt vey cut off. I remember just sitting in bed for probably an hour staring at the TV and wondering just how bad things were going to get. Eventually I headed to work, but it was a lost day. Normal call volume at the office between orders and tech calls was probably close to 40 and on that day there were 2. I remember them both distinctly because the first guy didn’t mention it at all and I wondered at the time how we could talk for ten minutes about engine software without even acknowledging what was happening. The second caller laughed nervously and said he felt funny “worrying” about software on “a day like this.” He was right and yet the world has to go on. We got through the call and he hung up. I remember thinking at the time that it was one of the most polite tech calls I had ever taken. If there was one small good that came out of the evil acts of others it was the many of us were kinder to one another, more civil and more unified than at any other time in my memory. It isn’t possible for the sense of unity to last forever, but wouldn’t it be nice if we were all as civil as we were on that day? I know a lot of people want to make 9/11 a holiday and maybe they are right. I would like to think that we can all make a day where we drop the bullshit, remember what really matters and do what we can for our families, our communities, our country and our world.

A few years after 9/11 I was in New York City for a vacation and visited Ground Zero. It was a very odd experience to say the least. I had been to the WTC when I was 13 and have some great pictures I took from the top of the buildings. To see this huge hole where such massive structures had been was frightening. It was more than just the gaping hole in the earth and the eerie emptiness in the middle of huge skyscrapers packed in as tightly as possible. It would be too easy to say that there is a haunting sadness at GZ or that one can feel the aftermath of something evil. I don’t know what it was, but there was something there. Some feeling in my heart that made it mandatory to acknowledge those who died. Perhaps it was my conscience speaking to me, but I felt it as much as I’ve felt anything in my life. I will never forget the feeling I had standing there. Like all of you reading this I will never forget those who died, the heroes who sacrificed everything to save lives.

We will never forget, because we can’t.

OK here are some video tributes. Some of them are very sappy and may make you cry. Some will hopefully make you smile. All of them do more to honor this day than my words can.
Alan Jackson “Where Were You”

Daddy I Miss You: Heaven 9/11

Penn & Teller on 9/11 Conspiracies (Funny)

Budweiser Tribute: Awesome, awesome.

How to Save a Life