Not Another Day

At the time I worked a 7:00am to 4:00pm schedule. That meant hitting the road about 6:30 in the morning.

In mid-September, with a month and a half of Daylight Savings Time still remaining in Southern California, 6:30 in the morning is still dark with just a hint of the rising sun. Likewise, unless the Santa Ana winds are blowing in that area, last night's dew still sits on anything left uncovered.

Back then I drove the Volkswagen and my wife drove the Honda. She and it were afforded the luxury of the covered spot in the lot off Hodencamp while I parked the 'other' car in the above-ground lot off Wilbur, literally on the roof of the other apartment building's row of carports.It was a good few minute walk from the apartment to the car and as I remember it, a cool and wet morning. It was going to take another few minutes to get me and the car warmed up I recall thinking. When I climbed in and started up the car, I knew near immediately that it wasn't another day.

The radio had been left tuned to sports, as it nearly always was then. XTRA sports in San Diego booms out from Tijuana at some ungodly wattage not legal on this side of the Mexican border and beams all the way up the California coast nearly to Ventura. The morning show was a nice mindless distraction for the ride into the San Fernando Valley. But this morning was different.

No banter, rather very subdued tones. Most notable, the toss to the sister AM news station for their coverage of something very strange and rather ominous. It took most of the drive to work before I'd finally pieced together a picture of the morning's events on the East Coast.Most days I enjoyed the luxury of radio listening via the Internet at work. This morning of course there was added urgency in the desire for information. I lost the feed for the morning's usual suspects, crashing under the weight of the day's demand for information. Ultimately I settled on the ABC news feed and watched and heard Peter Jennings' descriptions of the day's events and his analysis of it throughout the day.

It's where I first saw these images and where I first heard of the horrible, heartbreaking choices made by hundreds who deemed falling a thousand feet through the air to streets below a better fate than what waited for them in the buildings. I, like most of my co-workers and not unlike most people across the country I imagine, didn't do much that day. At least as far as work is concerned.Like most, I spent the day trying to understand exactly how much and in what ways life in America had changed.

Like Dean Barnett so succinctly put it: Never again will we allow ourselves to feel the way we did that day. Never again will we be so blind to storm clouds as they gather. Never again will we choose to believe comforting lies rather than disquieting truths.