(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . REMEMBERING 9 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-11 I was late for work that morning. I clean houses. I was on my way to the home of an older, Jewish couple, who took their time in the mornings, so I didn’t need to be there until ten. But I did need to be there by ten, and find a parking place, which isn’t easy in Pittsburgh’s East End. I heard some people at the coffee shop talking about an airplane hitting the World Trade Center. I assumed somebody in a private plane had tried to fly between the two towers and failed. I thought about all the people who were killed in private planes, and wondered if they shouldn’t be regulated a little more. By a miracle, I found a parking place, and headed up the hill to the triplex, where the nice, old couple lived on the first floor. A group of workmen were standing around a truck, listening to the radio. I was surprised by that, but figured it had something to do with the Steelers. I hurried into the house, to start in on the kitchen. (I always start in the kitchen. It’s the toughest job in the house.) I learned that an airplane had hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center, not a little private plane, a jet full of passengers. The couple had their television on, and we watched smoke coming out of the tower, while a voice over speculated on what had happened. As the morning passed, I kept hearing things I couldn’t believe. A second plane had hit the second tower. Another plane had hit the Pentagon. A third had crashed just a few miles away in Somerset, Pennsylvania. I could remember the Kennedy assassination. All kinds of wild stories circulated that day, most of them debunked a few hours later. But the stories I heard on 9/11 were all true. The couple worried about their grandchildren, both at school They were comforted in the knowledge that the kids’ school had a cold war era bomb shelter. They left to go shopping, as they always did. I continued my work, stopping to see what was on television, or pray for a friend who had either a husband or a son of military age. (I had two friends who had one of each.) I prayed a lot, because that was all I could do that day. My gas tank was low, but all the stations were gouging, asking four or five dollars a gallon. I stopped at the local supermarket. Shelves were stripped. People bought bottled water, toilet paper, milk, bread and all the rest of the things people buy if there may be an emergency. The “Post-Gazette” brought out a special edition, something they hadn’t done in decades. In the days that followed, there was speculation as to why all this had happened. People wondered if the terrorists were foreign or domestic. George W. Bush, who had been visiting a grade school, when all of this was going on, reading a story about a pet goat, made some highly forgettable speeches. As the days passed, I wondered what I could do. Our country was being attacked. After Pearl Harbor, my dad left his law practice, which he loved, for the army, which he did not. I was too old to fight, but there should be something I could do. George W. told me to fly the flag and go shopping. I lived, in those days, in a fourth floor apartment. I’d tried flying flags on my balcony, but the first high wind sent them straight to the Emerald City. Anyway, flags were hard to come by. I shopped. I promised myself I would give extra food to local food pantry, because times would be hard for people. I sent a box full of stuff to my friend Margaret’s Christmas toy drive, knowing many of her neighbors would be called up. I put money in jars. When the local frozen yogurt store said they would make a donation to the Red Cross for every hot fudge sundae, I was glad to eat one for the cause. My apartment building was next door to a National Guard armory. Parking was at a premium in the neighborhood. Normally no one was happy when the Guard was there, taking up parking spaces. Now my neighbors were chasing the metermaids away, explaining that the Guardsmen could park where they liked. Incidentally, a tank can take up two parking spaces without even trying. In time, I would find ways to help our troops on Michael Moore’s web page. My housemate, who was from Canada, had trouble finding work. He went back home, leaving me with boxes full of paperbacks, I sent to Books For Soldiers.com. I made scarves and helmet liners for our troops, from patterns I found online, as my mother’s friends had knitted for our troops in WWII, as my grandmother’s friends had knitted for our troops in WWI. As, I suppose, my great great great great great give or take a great or two grandmothers had knitted for soldiers in the war for independence. But that was all I could do. Bush, the “War President” didn’t ask a lot of the more comfortable citizens. No one cut back on their driving, or made any other sacrifices for the war effort. One saw blue and gold stars in low income areas. The children of affluent communities went to college, not Iraq. All the pundits agreed, after 9/11, we would be better. We would all pull together. We would be kinder, decenter, wiser. Except we weren’t. The hate mongers used the attacks to push their agendas. The conspiracy theorists used it to push conspiracies. George W Bush used it to get a second term. The nation became more divided, as the forever wars went on. That was the legacy of 9/11/2001. 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