crime-time 9/11/2001 Changes & Hopes: written by- tomevans

September ll, 2001" I was laying in bed on that day. One child was at school, the other one, Lenzie Kay, was running through the house like a wild banshee'. I was in one of those "in between doz-ee & sl-ee-p-ee" modes, just about to drift off and my wife yells from the living room that a plane hit a building in New York. Truth is, the last thing that entered my mind was terrorism, Al-Queda, Osada bin-Laden, it didn't register for one split second. I switched the t.v from something silly like Gomer Pyle to MSNBC and about the time I did, the 2nd plane was gliding around and headed straight for the second tower. It was a "surreal" sight. That big jetliner looked as if it were floating, like a giant seagull- flying patiently over the oceans coast- instead of just being seconds away from a display of EVIL, unlike anything we have ever witnessed........................

The billowing smoke, flames that looked out of a nightmare, and the massive hurricane of drywall, tiny shreds of paper, dust and dirt that lived within' the walls of the Trade Center towers- began to play a terrifying game of 'hide & seek' with thousands, running fiercly for their lives, some, for the lives of others..........

We watched as these masses of people, people like you & me, ran hysterically to find shelter or daylight. We began to cry at the moment we realized that the lst tower was falling and raining metal fire down upon the rescue workers, and the people inside of the towers as it fell, one floor at a time. That big black haze following it to the ground...........

As the big inferno blasted from the gaping entrance in the second tower, and the massive balls of fire bursts through the glass and out the side of that huge structure. You could see the people waving their handkerchiefs, their briefcases- in anguish and desperation. If you concentrated hard enough on the 20th or 30th replay, that's where the people jumping from the Trade Center blurred through all of the mayhem. I remember thinking to myself, how will Hollywood ever make any kind of movie, epic, blockbuster, whatever? That could come close to the footage that we have permanently transferred to our brain. It is the Vietnam of the new Millenium, the Pearl-Harbor of 2001, the D-Day of the biological/computer phaze of civilization. They will never be able to reconstruct the tragedy and the horror of the moment that 9/11 took place. Bruce Willis couldn't stop this Armagedeon, for this was not an event where Steven Segal or Charles Bronson goes on a rampage, and you feel better, because he guns down or beats to death- all the bad guys. No there were bad guys from farther out than just the neighborhood, although a few comes from the neighborhood..................

Then with each day after 9/11, the gray puffy smoke slowly lifted, but never totally faded, and people walked the streets. They walked carrying photographs of loved ones, with dazed looks on their own faces. Looks of confusion and pain. One by one, searching for the most important people in their lives. The one that they talk to about their 'bad days', the ones they share everything with. One by one, with their flyer or picture in one hand, and a story or brief sypnosis in the other, just wandering around, searching........That made me sad.

Children, grandparents, mothers, uncles, friends, brothers & sisters, cousins, fathers- so unsuspecting and not a chance to grab that one last hug, that one last touch. Not one more moment to make ammends or fix a broken heart: We found ways to make the attacks on New York positive and for the betterment of our own safety and vulnerability. The day lives in an eternal class. It was so altering, at least to our mentalality. It did teach us to treasure life and the gifts of life, to love those close to us, and appreciate what life we do have left to live out............

peace to all of you: tomevans/

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