i was laying in bed at home asleep and ignoring a call that went to my answering machine (yes, because this was when we still used answering machines). i heard a friend coming through the speaker, laughing because 'some idiot crashed a Cessna into the World Trade Center'.
so i turned on CNN, and upon seeing the smoke called my friend Chris waking him up telling him he should turn on the TV. we each laid there in silence, watching... and then, the second plane hit.
from there, it was an epic day. my friend Alex had only been in town a few months after leaving school on the east coast against her parent's will and having not spoken to them. she came over and called her parents.
my friend who had initially called me was scheduled to give a tour of our city to visiting foreign business delegates, but none of them could focus. the rest of us sat and waited for more to unfold.
now its 10 years later.
it took 10 years, but not until the last week did i hear the story of how the hijackers gained hold of the planes... how they started by just killing a random person in first class to instill fear in those there, and then instantly afterwards rushing the cockpit, killing the pilots.
and over & over in my mind i think to myself how we can go back to a society where small kids can still visit the cockpit and meet the pilots. a society where travelers say goodbye at the gate, not rushed away by an airport cop from the drop-off lane.
but its more than that... go back to a society where people didn't live in fear of box-cutters, a society where we don't need to pawn off our security to a team of poorly educated ego hounds running invasive x-ray machines.
or maybe, it's move forward...
to a world where we're all educated and secure enough to know the balance between taking care of ourselves and that everyone deserves at least as much respect as we do. we can't hold muslims accountable for the crazy radicals any more than they can hold all Christians for the crusades. instead, we should partner with them, and together fight against the problems that leave us in the war which binds our hands today, finishing the problem as we memorialize those we lost.
so i turned on CNN, and upon seeing the smoke called my friend Chris waking him up telling him he should turn on the TV. we each laid there in silence, watching... and then, the second plane hit.
from there, it was an epic day. my friend Alex had only been in town a few months after leaving school on the east coast against her parent's will and having not spoken to them. she came over and called her parents.
my friend who had initially called me was scheduled to give a tour of our city to visiting foreign business delegates, but none of them could focus. the rest of us sat and waited for more to unfold.
now its 10 years later.
it took 10 years, but not until the last week did i hear the story of how the hijackers gained hold of the planes... how they started by just killing a random person in first class to instill fear in those there, and then instantly afterwards rushing the cockpit, killing the pilots.
and over & over in my mind i think to myself how we can go back to a society where small kids can still visit the cockpit and meet the pilots. a society where travelers say goodbye at the gate, not rushed away by an airport cop from the drop-off lane.
but its more than that... go back to a society where people didn't live in fear of box-cutters, a society where we don't need to pawn off our security to a team of poorly educated ego hounds running invasive x-ray machines.
or maybe, it's move forward...
to a world where we're all educated and secure enough to know the balance between taking care of ourselves and that everyone deserves at least as much respect as we do. we can't hold muslims accountable for the crazy radicals any more than they can hold all Christians for the crusades. instead, we should partner with them, and together fight against the problems that leave us in the war which binds our hands today, finishing the problem as we memorialize those we lost.
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You're a box cutter.
ReplyDeleteSorry, that could not be more inappropriate. Couldn't help myself.