Anniversary

Twenty years ago today I has on my morning commute to the Day Job and listening to Tom Clark's show on Wisconsin Public Radio WHAD.  I do not recall the subject - but Clark  was interviewing a guest located in Manhattan, NY.  

The interview was interrupted when the guest remarked to the host that first responders were answering a call following the report of a small plane crashing into a downtown skyscraper.  

Details were scant.

Arriving at the office I found several of my pals surrounding a conference-room television featuring smoke pouring from one of the World Trade Center towers.  It had indeed been struck by an aircraft.  Without notice we witnessed the crash of a second aircraft into the previously undamaged second tower.

Transfixed, we watched the events unfold including the collapse of the second tower shortly followed by the first.  

All the evacuees still in the building.  The first responders rushing into the chaos.  The ambulances and equipment positioned in the adjacent streets.  All of it crushed in the collapse.

Words cannot explain the shock and disbelief.  

Later that evening, I gathered my wife, daughter and family together.

Dad remarked that this was reminiscent of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  

In sorrow and anger, Americans were more united in the weeks after the attacks than they had been in years. President George W. Bush’s approval rating exceeded 85 percent.  It is puzzling to see how our citizenry has fallen since with division, generalized anger and resentment and embrace of lies and conspiracies.

Sigh.

Some photos of the WTC from a business trip to New York back in the early 1980s including a fabulous dinner at Windows On The World one evening. 

Fond memories from a more peaceful time beforehand.

Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges

View South From the Observation Deck