REMEMBER, REMEMBER ELEVEN SEPTEMBER

Eleven years ago the United States of America were attacked by a pack of filthy, merciless savages. They hijacked airplanes full of innocent people and flew them into buildings full of even more innocent people. The screams of children in the cabins of the airplanes mattered not a whit to these deranged animals.

 

 

The weather in the Washington, D.C. area that day was  eerily like today's weather: Not too hot, not too cold, but jusst right, and not a cloud in the sky.  That day I was driving back from Fairfax, having just delivered a fare, when I spotted a jetliner flying low and slow over the City of Falls Church fiteen miles out from the airport. I didn't have the AM/FM radio on and I had no idea where that jet was going or why it was flying so low.

 

Within minutes advisorys started coming in to avoid the area around the Pentagon because of a reported fire, then a plane crash. When I pulled into an Arlington service station to refuel everyone was crowded around a television set on the cashier's counter. It was then I learned of the unspeakable horror unfolding in New York and at the Pentagon. 

 

I decided to go home and call my parents and let them know I was okay. As I drove along, getting nearer and nearer to my home a bit less than a mile from the Pentagon, wild reports were coming over the radio about hijacked Metropolitan police helicopters and explosions in the streets of Washington D.C.  Sirens sounded in the distance as I wound through side streets to reach my home.

 

About a block from my house, I saw a young mother playing with her toddler in their yard. I could tell that the kid was oblivious and its mother was trying hard not to show fear to the tot. Surreal.

 

When I reached home I was approached by a trio of women who had walked almost three miles out from D.C. and who needed to get to Bailey's Crossroads. It was almost impossible to get anywhere on the main roads. Route 50 was at a standstill, and it took 15 minutes just to cross it.

 

I made a lot of money in the next 24 hours as all the local rental cars were suddenly rented and people had to go as far afield as Richmond and even Philadelphia to get one. For three days I was busy without a pause. Then a pall fell over the entire region. Reagan National remained closed for what looked like forever until the local Congressional delegation fought to force the DOT to re-open it (and this is one of the few times I will thank Rep. Jim Moran. thanks, Bugs.)

 

Gradually we recovered, but the memories of the victims who were forced by the flames to jump to their deaths in New York and the bravery of the passengers who tried to re-take a fourth jetliner and sacrificed themselves (but succeeded in at least ensuring it crashed harmlessly in a Pennsylvania field) lingered.

 

There will be another time - soon - for another post on the way the Left soon began trying to frame events in the context of "political correctness"; and the war and its status thus far.

 

But for today, I stood in the doorway of the cab insurance office on this clear and perfect day and watched as a single bumblebee foraged for what sweet nectar was still available from the fading blooms of a stand of lilacs. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, but I haven't the eloquence to put it into words.