Blast From The Past! 0045

My parents remember where they were when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I remember where I was when I first heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. From now on, perhaps everyone in the world will remember where they were when they learned of the terrorist attacks of September 11 on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.

When I first saw the images on TV of the gigantic smoking hole in the side of one tower, then the enormous gout of flame and debris as the other tower was hit by the second passenger jet, I was stunned and horrified. It was surreal, yet horribly, tragically real. Those images, replayed over and over on TV since that day, are forever stuck in my mind. I think part of what made them so terribly, hideously compelling was that unlike the scenes of previous horrors, like the Oklahoma City bombing, was that instead of seeing the aftermath, we were actually watching -- live, on TV, and repeated many times on tape and in increasing numbers of alternate camera angles -- an actual act of mass murder in progress. I can't think of another time when such a heinous assault has been witnessed, either in person or through the medium of television, by so many.

Many words have already been written and spoken about this tragedy, and many more will come, I'm sure. Even people who did not lose any loved ones in these terrorist attacks have been profoundly affected. I know I have. Our country and most of the world have been forever changed. My heart goes out to those who were lost in the attacks, and to their families and friends, and to the brave men and women who now have to clean up the sites, who have to bring out the dead, and to those who now have to go after the scum who perpetrated these despicable crimes.

I didn't put up a Blast From the Past last week or the week before... after the events of September 11, it just seemed so irrelevant. It still does in a lot of ways. But life goes on... so here we go...