Blog Event

Bill at Pundit Guy, who has done some great work, is celebrating his one year anniversary. Stop by and send him congrats.

I also realized tonight that my one year anniversary here came and went around September 20 and it didn't enter my mind. I doubt I would make the posts I made back then now. It was the height of the campaign season and I think I've actually grown some since. Initially, I was sort of caught up in the fighting between Rep and Dem, even though I'm not registered as either.

Anyway, I went back to my first ever blog entry at another site I started out on called -.

Just Dan

There are no conservative virgins from New Jersey. Trust me, if you're born here, you're screwed.

My first ever web log post was on 9/11/2004. Here it is:

My 9/11

I was managing a sales force in the Northeast and traveled through or had meetings in the Towers 8 - 12 times in the month or so before 9/11. Often times I would look back and up at the Towers when exiting. They really were majestic: the steel and concrete had a peculiar appeal.

On the morning of 9/11 I was working at home, about 20 miles away in NJ, and received a call to put on the television. I tuned in as one tower burned and tried to understand the incomprehensible words and pictures of the live news casts.

The second plane came in, they replayed it time and again. In between the buildings burned ... the people jumped, fire trucks screamed and unflapible news people spoke stumbled narratives of disbelief. The buildings started to come down.

My tears, like the ones I'm crying now wet a jaw clenched from a combination of disbelief, fear ... and rage. Empty to the point of feeling hollow I stood transfixed for however long time stood still while I cursed and cried and watched smoke plumes like giant storm clouds engulf a piece of the world I knew.

Phones rang, people called and cried for the dead, dying and the living. The world could never be the same. Those towers could never disappear. But they did ... they did. In a word, it was unbelieveable. I felt so innocent and so raw.

It was two weeks before I ventured back down there. And it was grey. I was grey. Two weeks later and cinders, some visible, flew through the air and choked your breath. Every street, building, fence, pole, post and window was milk-painted a powdered greyish-white from fine particles that were once steel and concrete that touched the sky. And you knew in a way you couldn't explain that death had cast a massive blanket across a surreal landscape your mind couldn't quite comprehend.

Pictures, flowers, and notes covered every wall and fence. People, some still carrying signs and fliers beckoned in futility to loved ones lost but dreamt of, though never to be seen, again. "Have you seen?" "This is my son, daughter, mother, father brother" How does one go about finding a loved one who had been vaporized, or buried, or God willing lying memory-less in some hospital ... some where?

I had no answers. I have no answers now. Confusion, anger, love, pain and hatred - that's what everyone shared as we stood and stared into a pit of holes and piled rubble framed by the still smouldering outer buildings. I noted, again, how I and everyone else seemed to lose track of time as we stood and looked, motionless, absolutely unable to understand or give voice to what we were seeing ... not, ultimately, seeing anything, really ... just standing, feeling, struggling with what we felt inside.

And then you left, but you took it with you, somehow. And that's good. Because all the noble, the innocent and the good people buried there deserve to be taken with you and your soul yearns for the comfort in the knowing that somehow they're all still here. But you also know they're really ... not.

As much as I can be with them and they with me, we all go on. Their memory fills a certain hollowness in the pit of my stomach that was created on the day I watched the Towers fall. And it will never completely go away. And time will always stand still when I think of it. And I'll cry. And then I try to look at what I can't see, and I try to feel what I can't know, and I try to understand what I can't really comprehend. And life comes in and takes you on and away from the frightening moments on 9 - 11 ... when life and time really did seem so harsh and brutal ... and stood so utterly still.

Comments

[dadreamer]

This is what I meant about blogging...you bring some perspective to the world that is unique to only you. This made me cry. Thank you for sharing it. It sort of takes you there, though, I am sure it can not compare to really being there. Excellent writing, Dan. Very, very moving.

[york gal]

i agree dadreamer. and a happy belated anniversary to you, dan. what a difference a year makes

[Cindi in PA]

Congratulations Dan

9/11 means different things to different people. I sat that morning, in shock, took a few phone calls, then had to look at the secretary of the attorney next to me. Her husbands cousin was there and never found. My own cousin was supposed to be there, but never woke up to his alarm. My friend Fr. MYCHAL died that day. All this while I sat in my safe little office. Life changed for all of us that day, regardless of who we knew.

Reading you post made me cry, all over again. Not something I am so willing to remember, it just hurts too damn much. But thanks to people like you, going out on a limb, sharing stories of interest, putting your personal opinion in place, along with your humor, it helps move things along. This is my first ever blog, I have had the pleasure to link to many blogs that you post, and I must say, I enjoy all of them. You are where you belong at the moment.

Happy ANNIVERSARY!!!!

[Muirnin]

Dan,

Thanks for sharing.

We were all "there" that day. It affected each and every one of us...to some degree. The "degree" depends on the person.

I recall that day, my hysterical sister screaming that the air traffic contollers were screwed up...leading pilots to crash into buildings. She truly believed that!

Initially, I thought the first may have been an accident. After the second crash, I knew. It was quite difficult to explain to my sister that pilots CAN see buildings in broad daylight, this had nothing to do with the air traffic controllers.

Then, she said, after finally understanding, "it is the end of the world". I wondered, perhaps it was.

Maybe, "It's the beginning of the end of the world" would have been more appropriate.

BTW Dan..
Thanks for your undying quest on keeping us informed on this blog. Wish you'd started it sooner!

Happy Belated Anniversary....
Muir

[chip]

very mioving..........
thanks for the link to your earlier writings as well...now i'll spend even more time here reading