I Remember

I remember Tuesday, September 11th, 2001.

I remember driving our three young children off to school, the sky was a little overcast and a light drizzle had fallen. I stopped for gas and commented about the rain. The clerk said "It's angels crying." I had no idea what she meant. After dropping the kids off and hugging and kissing the girls for the 47th time that morning, I drove off to Sac State where I was studying for my MS and finally turned the news on. We remember.We remember. The magnitude of the event was too much to grasp.

I remember that I was scheduled to work that morning in the computer lab. Most of us were glued to the real time feed from New York. It was surreal watching the images of the burning towers, the fallen towers, the people staring in horror, the people running from the tidal wave of dust rushing through the canyons of the city streets.

I remember the decision came from the Sac State administration to close the school and send everyone home. The wait time in the parking lot was insane. I went back up to the computer lab and waited till after 1:30 before trying to leave.

I remember driving home, the news numbly drumming on my ears the staggering facts of lost and desolation.

I remember my wife worked at a Junior High in Vacaville, the opposite direction from our home in Dixon. I wasn't certain whether she would have been let out or not. I didn't even know whether our children's school was let out or not. But I drove there anyway. I need to see someone familiar.

I remember thinking about all the children who would *NOT* have parents come to pick them up.

I remember feeling the relief when I pulled up and my wife was there and our three children around her.

I remember stopping at a store the next day and there were USA flag decals for sale. I bought two. One for each car. Those decals are still attached to the windows of our cars.

I remember a classmate, a forty-something year old from Iran, told me that his mother called him waking him up. She had seen the news of the events in New York and Washington DC even before he had. She told him that she was ashamed for those despicable rogues that had killed so many.

But I also remember news images of many parts of the world dancing in glee that the mighty had fallen.

Yet I remember a sense of unity and resolve that formed from that week.

I remember getting an internship with the CEC in downtown Sac and often parking near a fire station and feeling great admiration and thankfulness for the work that those and others like them did.

I remember our politicians boldly standing together with no partisan gulf between saying "Never again!"

I remember. It was only eight years ago. Why does it seem like we are trying to remember a distant historical event like Pearl Harbor or the sinking of the Maine or the storming of the Alamo? I fear that we must remember... and act... and prepare, else we will have to remember yet more tragic images. Hiding our collective societal ostrich heads in the sands is no cure.

I remember that in the weeks after 9-11, many showed up in churches and places of worship. But that was short-lived. Instead society seems to have spun around from anything religious and rushed to drown out the echos of the falling towers by plunging into deeper dispassion and decadence. It's interesting that eight years ago in September the symbols of Western Prestige and Capitalism fell. Last year in September the very institutions of Capitalism began falling: remember Lehman Brothers? Sept 15th, 2008 they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

I remember. But it seems that more of us had better start remembering--- and learning something from these events.