|
9/11
The day was truely a day in September that we all hope to be on the water. I was walking down from Tribeca a little after 0900 that day. Heading to the WTC to take the PATH to NJ and another day in the Office. I looked to the water hoping to see a school of bass driving bait into a ball on the surface and wishing I could be in my boat chasing them. I heard animated discussion around me, looking to the south I saw near the top of the WTC flames!!!! At a distance it seemed unreal, something staged by some group to make a marketing point. In minutes, I smelled a odor of something I left years ago across the Pacific, burning AV fuel. If you have been on a carrier you know never forget that smell, I looked up turned around caught the IRT to the PortAuthority and a cab to La Guardia to rent a car and home to PVD later in the day. I never drove as fast as I had that day to see my babies, that day brought back memories I thought I had forgotten thru various means over the last 30 years. I haven't flown since I left the Forces in 1977 and it was so vivid again on that day.
We truly live, regardless of our sentiments, in a country with so much, so much to appreciate, it is difficult to accept that places in this world, things like 9/11 happen everyday. You don't know if you could be on a bus with when a bomb goes off, or a jet could drop napalm on the road you are walking along.
We are so fortunate to life in the country we are, I lost 3 people I had worked with that day. Every day I get out on to the water I think of them, it doesn't take an anniversary to think of them nor at times what may of happened when I was dirt down at 0000 with a green pickle over a full load.
Striperman36
|