A memorable day in many ways

 

A trio of back patio pictures.

As Jordan and I drove out of the driveway early this morning, I was pleased to see the American flag flying at the curb of many homes. People on our street remember—as if we could forget this day. (The flags are a subscription service provided on patriotic holidays by our South Side Rotary—I have been a subscriber for years.) The internet is full of memories and images and lots of “Where were you when you first heard?” or “How did you spend the day?” We each have our memories.

This year, because of the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan, this day of memory is even more poignant than usual. It has led many to speculate on why we were at war in that country for twenty years. Should we have withdrawn once Osama Bin Laden was dead? Some called it the endless war. We apparently made life easier for the Afghan people, especially the women who were heavily oppressed, but when the time for the Afghan military and government to take over came, they buckled, as though the manpower, equipment, and time put in had been for naught. Not to mention the American lives lost nor, in greater numbers, the loss of Afghan life which was astronomical. Instead of uniting us, as the original terrorism act did, this newest direction has led to further division. Sadly, like the pandemic, the withdrawal has divided us into liberals and conservatives. It is not, to my mind, a way to honor those who died. Instead of calm discussion, we have reduced ourselves to shouting and anger and blame.

Still it was a moving day. I lost myself first in the special digital edition the Fort Worth Star-Telegram issued, featuring survivors’ stories, along with features about Muslim citizens and their treatment since, and children not yet born who lost parents in the devastation. It was I thought a particularly well-done tribute. And then on the internet, I ran across a video with graphic images flashed across the screen while “The Sound of Silence” played. I was mesmerized and you may be too. It’s on YouTube somewhere if you know how to find those things.

Jordan and I went to Calloway’s for fall plants—each of us had a list She wanted to brighten up the back yard (I think in preparation for her sister’s mid-day arrival) and I wanted additional herbs for my garden. I worried of course—would we walk farther than I was comfortable with? Would I be left in the car while she shopped, a situation that makes me uneasy. None of that happened, and we had a happy good time picking out plants. I do have to say Calloway’s is not an inexpensive place to shop—but it’s convenient, and it was easily accessible for me. When I got winded, I sat in my walker, and a couple of times she said, “Feet up!” and whisked me through the aisles. As my concern diminished, my walking strength improved. We had fun.

Once home, I became a armchair expert while Jordan planted and I suggested what plant should go in what pot. She blew the leaves off the patio and the yard really does look pretty. The new herbs are still in their containers in the wooden garden—Jordan left them for Megan and me to plant.

Megan arrived from Austin barely in time to give me a quick hug and head out to the TCU football game. The game was pretty much a nail-biter. TCU triumphed in the end—but barely, 34-32. And everybody came back to the house for dinner, where Christian had been marinating steaks and shredding Brussel sprouts. Jordan had made some super Parmesan/green onion potato cakes (wiped out our rather generous supply of Parmesan), and with Megan’s help I fried bacon and we made a wilted lettuce salad, using butter lettuce which for me is a treat and a splurge. When I said to Megan that it was expensive—something like $4 for a small head, she replied, “You pay more than that for a margarita,” and expounded that honey crisp apples are so delicious but three for $12. She tells herself she’d pay more than that for a margarita too. I did not point out that I don’t drink margaritas, but I am wondering about the scales against which she balances things.

dinner with happy people

We had a jolly, happy dinner, joined by David who was in high school with Jordan and has pretty much been family ever since. I don’t see him much these days, so it was a real treat to have him with us. We sat around talking about everything from gossip to anti-vaxxers, and eventually I announced it was time for me and Sophie to go home. When I ask, “Do you want to go home?” she is always so delighted and bolts for the door. Megan walked me out and came in and visited –I cannot tell you how much I treasure those mother/daughter moments.  

So today I’ve had two outstanding mother/daughter times—at the nursery and in the back yard with Jordan and tonight in the cottage with Megan. I am so blessed. Looking forward to tomorrow—Megan will be here all day. We have a date to plant herbs in the morning.

 

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.

 

What’s wrong with America?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my country, and I’m proud to be an American. This pandemic has brought out the very best in some Americans—I see it in my neighbors reaching out to each other, I read about random acts of kindness, and hear stories thata reinforce my belief that most of humanity is basically good, kind, and caring.

But it’s hard during an unprecedented crisis to see so many people picketing and protesting because their rights are being infringed upon. They demand their freedom! They want to get a haircut, sit in a restaurant or a bar, go to the theatre, live life as they’ve always known it. They don’t seem to recognize that these are not normal times and all of us have to make some adjustments.

I am in full sympathy with those who call for re-opening businesses, because they cannot survive economically without a paycheck. We have to recognize how many American live paycheck-to-paycheck. But in my mind, staging protests is not the way to accomplish that goal. And as we gradually re-open (too fast for me), workers lose all my sympathy (not that they care) if they do not wear masks and take other safety precautions in this time of plague. It’s called being a good citizen, a good American.

Those who protest that masks infringe on their rights and do so while armed with assault weapons are beyond contempt. I want to say to them, “Get over yourself.” That is the most selfish act I can imagine, because they not only assert their so-called independence and reveal their inner weakness, they endanger the rest of us and put an extra burden on front-line workers. And that's not the kind of America the armed forces we will honor on Memorial day fought and died for.

A colleague posted a memory about WWII when the world, principally England, lived in blackouts. No sliver of light could show as a target for Nazi bombers. America had blackouts too, though fortunately without bombers. I was a very young child in Chicago during the war—let me emphasize very young—but I remember my uncle was a warden, and I used to go with him to be sure people were complying with the blackout and to warn those who weren’t. Today, some selfish souls would claim the blackout infringed on their rights, and whoever warned them would be at risk of being shot. Bring on those bombers!

I just finished reading The Day the World Came to Town, by Jim DeFede. It’s an account of 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, when thirty-eight jetliners, carrying thousands of passengers, were marooned there by the shutdown of American air space. The people of Gander put their own lives on hold and willingly shared their homes, their clothes, their linens, their food, and their goodwill with people from all over the world. They loaned their cars, bought toys for the children, cared for the animals who had been on board. They counseled with distraught parents, worried about the children from whom they were separated in what was a scary time for both adults and children. World tension was at a high, but you’d never have known it in Gander and surrounding small towns.

Nobody protested, nobody talked about their rights, nobody scorned the passengers as “foreigners”—one African American woman was probably the only black person on the island, and she drew attention less because of the color of her skin than because she was a tall and commanding figure and her hair touched the small of her back.

Friendships were forged, some to last a lifetime. One woman discovered that the daughter of a host family lived in the same town in the American South as her own daughter. Thousands of miles away, the two daughters got together, and the Newfoundler was able to reassure the American daughter about her parents’ safety.

Among the stranded passengers was an internationally known European fashion designer, Werner Baldessarini. When a Saudi prince offered to send a private jet to rescue him, Baldessarini turned it down. He did not feel he should be given special treatment, and he had made friends among the other passengers. He wrote:

There was no hatred. No anger. No fear in Gander. Only the spirit of community. Here, everyone was equal, everyone was treated the same. Here, the basic humanity of man wasn’t just surviving but thriving.

Those words echoed in my mind long after I finished the book. I wish every American, but especially the minority who are making themselves so prominent, could read them. And then again, I’d say, “Get over yourself. We are all in this together.”

PS: The events at Gander are the basis for the successful Broadway play, Come from Away.

Some people annoy me

I like to think I’m fairly accepting about people, but lately I’ve noticed some people want to complain about something all the time. I think they work hard to find new things to complain about. For instance, the people who want Hillary Clinton to quietly fold her tents and go away, and for gosh sake, don’t publish that book. Why shouldn’t she speak her mind? She’s been the victim of unbelievable negative scams, accusations, conspiracies—you name it. I’m not at all convinced she lost the last election fair and square—in fact, I think she probably didn’t. And I wish daily she were the first woman president of our country.

But she’s not. Still she has opinions to express, opinions that come from a wide and deep knowledge base. I truly believe some people think she should shush because she’s a woman, she’s been un-womanly all along, and why won’t she learn her lesson. God bless her for persevering. Others want her to fade into the wallpaper because she might hurt the chance for progressives to carry the 2018 election and the all-important 2020 one. I think what she has to say might help progressives, might expose some of the unfair tactics used against her. Preach it, Hillary!

And then there are people who criticize the journalists who brought us on-the-spot reports from the middle of Harvey and Irma. I think particularly of one image of a young man in blue fighting the powerful winds of Irma and being blown back. Some say that was grandstanding, entertainment for the masses. Really? Who finds a storm of that magnitude, with all its destruction, entertaining? I worried, instead, that the man should have a guy rope to keep him from being blown helplessly away. I admire journalists who take those chances--many of their colleagues lost their lives in dangerous situations, and they know it. But they do their job, bringing us news up front instead of from behind a desk.

What have you found to complain about today? On this day of national remembrance, we should all be grateful that our nation survived the 9/11 attacks, albeit not without loss of life that grieves us to this day. But as a nation, we were not crushed, as our enemies hoped. We will come back from these devastating storms too, dragging all those complainers with us.

My mom taught me we each have a choice between happiness and unhappiness. I would add a third choice in there—anger. Which have you chosen? I know which choice calls me.

Y’all have a blessed night. In North Texas, the temperature is in the 70s, though I hear the cicadas, which I always think mean hot weather. While much of the country suffers through storms, we are blessed with wonderful weather. It almost makes a person feel guilty—oops, no, that’s a word I’m erasing from my vocabulary.

A somber day of remembrance

Reminders of 9/11 have been everywhere today—on the TV and radio, in the newspapers, on Facebook, and in our hearts. As if we could ever forget, we have seen a barrage of photos of the horror and heard again first-person survivor accounts. In some ways I think the most eloquent tribute came from a friend who said she would post no pictures of planes or towers but simply say that the best way to honor those who died is to vow to respond in love, not hate, and to build bridges, not bombs. We will never forget.

But we have forgotten the sense of unity that brought the country together in the aftermath of that horrible, unbelievable day. People sensed that we were all in this together, and they reached out to each other. Since then, we have become, perhaps more than in decades, a people divided by race, religion, gender, origin. We have been manipulated by fear, instead of, as we did that day, vowing to stand up for our country and our fellow countrymen. We have forgotten that America is a melting pot. I pray to God that we can recover that sense and work together in brotherhood.

Son-in-law Christian came in tonight for a glass of wine with Jordan, me, and a neighbor. He proposed a toast to all who had lost their lives that day and we observed a moment of silence.

Although I have had enough of those fear-inspiring pictures, I have to say that my favorite picture of the day was of the sixteen-year-old Labrador, the oldest surviving rescue dog who participated in the mission to save people at the World Trade Towers. I hear he was treated to a plane ride, a limousine, a suite, and a hot dog for dinner. Love it!

My favorite story to come out of the horror came from a flight attendant on a plane headed to the US when they were told air space was closed and to land at the nearest airfield. They landed at Gander, Newfoundland, along with over 50 other planes. Gander, a town of 10,000 some, suddenly had an equal number of refugees on their hands. Towns within a radius of 75 kilometers opened schools and other public building for shelters; the elderly were housed in private homes, as was one very pregnant woman who was in a home directly across from a medical clinic. The people cooked for their guests and took them on tours. By the time, the passengers were able to leave Gander, they had bonded into one big family. And it was all amazingly organized—all passengers returned to their correct planes.

Those are wonderful stories to come out of a horrific event. Let’s all take them to heart and practice the same kind of humanity in our daily lives—especially in this contentious election season.

Blessings to all.

Is 9/11 fading from memory after 13 years?

This morning a flag flying at the foot of my driveway reminded me, as if I didn't already know, that this is the anniversary of 9/11. The flag is courtesy Fort Worth South Rotary, through a program I enrolled in, and I was grateful to see it all day.
I found it hard though to recapture the emotion I felt that day thirteen years ago. Every one of us remembers where we were--I was at my desk, with the TODAY show on as background while I worked. Suddenly I was riveted to the TV, though even then I found it hard to wrap my mind around the stark horror of what had happened. Today I grieve intellectually, and I feel emotional when I see interviews with survivors and families of those who died. So many have moved on to do such good in this world--good does indeed come out of evil. But somehow I have distanced myself a bit from it.
One of the most moving things I saw was a 15-year-old Golden Retriever who is believed to be the last surviving rescue dog from that day. Her handler talked us back to the post-tragedy days when they were on duty, and I found myself staring at an incredibly loyal and brave and well-trained dog. I admire both dog and handler.
A friend, whose husband is teaching in Hungary, said that over there the day is nothing special. It carries none of the emotional impact it does for us in the U.S. Last year, when she taught freshmen in this country, few had any memories of the day, and she surmised that it is becoming like December 7, a day of infamy that lives in the minds of our parents and grandparents but is rapidly forgotten by younger generations. A colleague, a fellow historian, answered that is the way of history and maybe it's a good thing, it's human beings movin' on. But there's also something very sad about it.
I would agree, but I also agree with all those posts on Facebook today that said, "Never forget." Today we face more threats--who knows if they will reach our shores or not, but who expected Al Qaeda to touch us in such a catastrophic way? I, the liberal peace-monger, think it's important to teach younger generations what these days mean in our history, lest they fade into total obscurity. They remain object lessons for us, lessons again complacency that are hard to balance against a desire for peace.
When we came home from school Jacob asked about the flag in my driveway. "Do you know what day today is?" I asked. He didn't, and I explained. He didn't seem remarkably impressed, but I'm not sure an eight-year-old can grasp the enormity of what happened on 9/11. I'll keep reminding him.
 

Insignificance

This morning as I came through the house in the early daylight I saw a flag at the curb and momentarily wondered—it’s a Wednesday, not a Monday, not a holiday that I could think of. And the flag looked a bit incongruous between two garbage carts. But then I remembered—it’s 9/11. Perhaps the second—or third—day of infamy in our national history, on somewhat of a par with Pearl Harbor and JFK’s assassination. At least those are the moments that stand out in my living memory—and I’m not sure I remember Pearl Harbor, just hearing where I was when the new came.

Like most Americans I remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001—sitting at the same desk I am now. I’d stayed home from work because a workman (worker man one of my granddaughters used to say) was coming to refinish the bathroom sink (bad idea—just buy a new sink). I was working but had the TODAY show on and remember clearly the first announcement that a plane had flown into of the World Trade Towers. At first, everyone assumed it was a small private plane, seriously off course. The awful truth of course soon was evident. I kept running into the bathroom to update the worker man, who was strangely unmoved by it (he was a taciturn and not very pleasant individual who left a mess behind him). At the end of the morning, I tore myself from the TV, dressed and went to work. My colleague called in to say he couldn’t leave his TV.

The next few days were a blur of unimaginable tragedy and horror, sadness so great I hate to think about it but like our nation I can’t let myself forget—and the flag in front of my house is a poignant reminder.

Today I sat in the same spot, with the TODAY show on until I got serious about working. I wrote almost two thousand words on my work-in-progress—a commendable accomplishment for an author. But somehow it struck me as insignificant to work on a cozy mystery when all around me—especially on Facebook—were strong reminders of what this day means to us as a nation and, tragically, to so many people as individuals who lost loved ones or their health or whose lives were forever changed.

Does it put the Syrian crisis into perspective? I don’t know. I’ve been struggling to find some link, some parallel for the two but so far couldn’t do it. I may have an “Aha” moment later, but for now I’m just relieved that diplomacy has a chance. It’s like the song, “Give peace a chance.”

This afternoon when Jacob came home from school I intended to ask if they talked about 9/11 at school, but on the way up the drive he grabbed the flag pole and said, “Don’t ask me, Juju. I know what this is for. My dad told me on the way to school this morning.” They didn’t talk about it at school, which seemed sad to me.

Today ended as well as any such day can. Elizabeth, Betty and I took Jacob to The Star (the restaurant Betty and her husband own) and had a good dinner. Jacob loves the grilled cheese there. On the way home, we drove through downtown and Jacob marveled at the twinkly lights in the trees. Then, straight ahead, we saw a tall building with the top decorated in red, white and blue…and we were reminded once again of the significance of the day. And I thought about the insignificance of much of what we daily do, in the face of what happened twelve years ago.