The importance of September 12

 

Yesterday was a somber one for all of us. When September 11 rolls around, images shoved to the back of our minds swim to the surface again, bringing with them the horror that is beyond imagining, a horror that made daily life grind to a halt, a horror that most of us couldn’t really wrap out minds around. People posted what they were doing when they heard the news of the attack on the Twin Towers—from traveling abroad to sitting in a classroom. I was, no surprise, at home at my computer.

It reminded me of the reaction for years to the assassination of JFK. People recalled where they were, what they were doing when those shots rang out and the news first broke. I was listening to my car radio on the main street of a small Missouri town and wondered why those news guys couldn’t get anything right. And then they got it right. It’s hard for me to believe that a whole huge segment of our population, including my four children, were not yet born by November 1963. But they will remember September 11, 2001.

I read a post yesterday by someone who said he wanted to go back to September 12, 2001. Not to relive the horror but to recapture the unity of America on that day. Led by George W. Bush, who was not my choice for president, we came together to grieve and mourn but also to declare our faith in the American way, in the survival of democracy. (That I didn’t agree with Bush’s later retaliatory actions is another matter.) We will all remember Bush, with his megaphone, at the site of the destruction.

What we got yesterday in leadership was a president who sat with his arms folded in a belligerent, bored pose during the reading of names of the victims who died at Shanksville; he didn’t seem to know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance when it was recited. In stark contrast to all political candidates since 2004, he did not pull his campaign ads for the day. Joe Biden told reporters they wouldn’t get anything from him yesterday—it was a day to honor the dead and not to campaign. He pulled his ads.

Today’s America, as many bemoaned yesterday, is far different than it was in 2001. We are a nation almost brought to our knees by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 of our family, friends, and neighbors,  economic depression worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, terrorists who turn peaceful protests in our cities into riots, and wildfires that seem to consume the western third of the nation. I wrote “almost to our knees” deliberately because I think we can still save America from those who lie to us, who put greed above human life, who are power hungry. We are too strong as a nation. It’s scary to be overly optimistic, but I have faith.

We bumped into another hardship of quarantine last night. My friend Jean came for happy hour—a delightful pleasant evening on the patio. Jean had had a down day, as many of us had, and we worked to cheer each other. As she always does, she said, “Just kick me out when you’re ready to cook dinner.” As it was, we didn’t have supper until eight-thirty, but that was another story and not all Jean’s doing. Later Jordan and I talked about it because our natural instinct is to say, “Oh, stay and eat supper with us. There’s plenty.” (There is always plenty!) But quarantine gets in the way. We haven’t invited anyone into the cottage since last March. With cooler weather coming, the patio will lose some of its appeal, and we’ll have to rethink that.

Having mourned once again yesterday, I think today is the time to recapture the spirit of September 12, a spirit of moving forward in strength, not one of defeat or anger or retaliation. I’ve been accused of always walking on the sunny side of the street, and I guess it’s true. Just call me Pollyanna.

 

A fireplace in summer

The granddaughter who just turned twenty-one

If you read this blog often, you know I love my tiny cottage. It has everything I’ve ever wanted—except a fireplace. There simply isn’t space in my 600 square feet. On cold mornings, I longed for the heat of a fireplace and the comfort of flickering flames.

Fast forward: today is my oldest granddaughter’s birthday. Sweet Maddie Moo is 21 today. With social distancing the family couldn’t gather to celebrate. And Maddie is in quarantine with her family in Frisco, so no celebrating with her friends at Colorado University. And though she planned to test out her new legal drinking age, she had to study for a remote final tomorrow. A grim way to celebrate your twenty-first, but she followed through with her usual cheerful attitude.

This afternoon Jordan and Jacob drove to Frisco to do a drive-by birthday celebration. They ended sitting on the front lawn, at appropriate distances, for about half an hour. When they came home, Jordan said, “Jamie sent  you a present.”

It turned out to be a desk fireplace! Just the thing I needed. It provides the image, and, should you want it—which I do not right now—it gives off some heat. In February, it will be great. I’m really excited about it—even as I turn on the air conditioner.

Other than that, it was an ordinary day. I laughed today when I saw a headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that proclaimed tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and urged readers to let them help plan the day. What’s to plan, I wondered? We’re quarantined, and one day blends into the next. No planning required. And that’s how my day went—1550 words on the work-in-progress, a nap, leftovers for supper. Chicken enchiladas and the remnants of a taco salad. So good—but a heaping plate that I forgot to take a picture of.

Tonight I’m watching a PBS special on the presidency of George W. Bush. I’ve been intrigued by Facebook threads since Bush made his statement last weekend urging the country to unite to fight the corona virus. “We are all in this together.” That release inspired a lot of comments. Many cannot and never will forgive him the disasters of his presidency—the Iraqi war, the devastating financial recession, the poor reaction to Katrina.

But others, and I am one of them, like Bush a lot better now that he is  not making bad decisions for the country. Perhaps it is that he has grown in character; perhaps it is that he is away from the malignant influence of Dick Cheney. He has taken up painting and done a series of portraits of wounded warriors, a series that exhibits compassion and caring. And it was not something that came easily to him—he worked at his art, he studied with artists.

Today, if you turn away from his presidency, he is usually regarded as a genuinely nice guy, comfortable, no pretense. His statement this past weekend demonstrated the man that he is today, who has perhaps put his political career behind him in retirement.

Here it comes: the story of “my encounter with a celebrity.” In this case, it’s Bush. At a Texas Book Festival in Austin, I attended a breakfast for authors in the governor’s mansion. I was at the time writing a book on strong Texas women and hoped to include Laura Bush. She was everything I expected—crisp, disciplined, organized (the profile of her never did work out). But she introduced me to her husband, who looked like he had just pulled his shirt out of the dryer and ducked his head shyly when he shook my hand.

Shows how our impressions of people change.

Note: This was supposed to be a Monday night post, but Blogger and I had a disagreement. "Twas late, and I was beyond figuroring it out, so I put it off until morning. Amazing how things that are complicated at midnight work out at eight in the morning.

An Uncertain Reputation

If you watched the service at the National Cathedral for the late Senator John McCain you no doubt saw former President George W. Bush sneaking candy to Michele Obama under the bemused glance of Laura Bush. It was a touching moment and typical of the relationship that seems to have developed between the former president and former first lady. Barack Obama, Mr. Cool, remained aloof, uninvolved in that moment.

A columnist (whose extreme pseudonym I can’t remember) recently wrote that we are in danger of making George W. a treasured national figure, a sort of charming grandfather possibly in the way that Jimmy Carter is considered. We must never, the writer warned, dismiss the atrocities of Bush’s presidency. Of the Michelle/George W. relationship, he wrote that the Obamas were forced into encounters with the Bushes and are skilled at putting the best spin on things. Hogwash! The Obamas are definitely skilled at polite but distant encounters and that is not one—there is genuine affection between those two.

That affection is one of the things that gives me pause. I too have noted the growing public affection for Mr. Bush and tried to put it in perspective. I was a strong critic of the Bush presidency, and I struggle to reconcile today’s man with the one responsible for the hasty invasion of the wrong country after 9/11, the false claims of weapons of mass destruction, the sanction of torture, the terrible loss of life on both sides of the Iraq War, the disaster of Katrina—wasn’t there a tax cut for the wealthy in there too? How can such a man become a national treasure? (There looms in my mind the unanswered question of how much he originated and how much Dick Cheney was responsible for—wish someone would write that book if they haven’t already.)

For starters, there’s George’s relationship with Michelle, which has done much to humanize him. Then, he’s done what former presidents probably should do—stayed under the radar, content with his paining and, presumably, his granddaughters. When he does emerge into the spotlight, he does so as a wise elder statesman, speaking the words of wisdom and patriotism we all long to hear these days.

Is that enough? For me, his transformation, if that is what it is, poses the old question of how much influence the media has on us. When Bush was president, he represented power, he was at the top of his game, he was a fair target and the media delighted in exposing his worse moments (“Good job, Brownie”); now that he’s settled into a senior statesman role, there’s not so much to write about or criticize

Frankly during his presidency, I wouldn’t have given you a fig for the reputation of any of the Bushes. Papa George was sort of ineffectual, wasn’t he? And he used to make those glaring gaffs in speeches—I remember laughing hysterically at an after-dinner speaker who carved a whole talk out of “Bushisms.” And Barbara—she wasn’t really the sweet grandmother she seemed, was she? In reality, she was harsh and demanding, wasn’t she?.

But by the time of Barbara Bush’s funeral, the entire family had become a national treasure. I wonder now if, out of power, the family quietly went about doing their thing. Maybe we’re the ones who changed, whose attitudes changed. And did the media lead us by the nose? The Bushes in tragedy—the death of Barbara—were once again good copy.

As you can tell, I haven’t sorted out my thoughts on this. I met George W. once, for two seconds, when he was governor of Texas. There was a reception for authors at the Governor’s Mansion, in connection with the annual Book Festival. Laura, crisply efficient in a pantsuit, greeted arrivals. She and I were chatting about a book I was doing on extraordinary women of Texas when her husband walked up. She introduced him, and he shook hands and ducked his head like a shy schoolboy. He looked as though he’d just pulled a wrinkled shirt out of the dryer.

I liked that George W. Bush, and I like the one I see with Michelle today. I’m not sure I can forget—and I know I can never forgive—the George W. who was president. It’s a conundrum.