journalman's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Five Years Later Despite my thick-cotton dress shirt and winter-grade slacks, I went back into my house this morning to fetch a fall jacket. This time of year makes me wish I owned a brown bomber jacket; I really think I could pull those off. Instead, I own a black leather pea coat from my dotcommer days. The coat itself only sees about a dozen uses per year, as almost a reminder of its frivolity. How gilded those years were. How so very pre-9/11. I feel out of place, almost guilty, wearing that coat in this day and age. I thought that maybe since today is the 5-year anniversary of 9/11, I would relate my firsthand account from that day. I never really did jot it down� minute my minute, though today seems just as inappropriate as any to revisit the memories. While waiting for my train this morning on the breezy platform, it stirred me that every 9/11 since I started noting the date has offered a crisp, clear beautiful morning. Today�s I think is a few degrees cooler than the one in 2001, and rather than take the train, I really should have ridden my bicycle. Then again, the realness of slowly going over a bridge at that time of day, on this day, would have probably been too eerie to be exactly where I was when I saw a gleaming United jet enter on one side the very tower I worked in just 3 years prior, and a fireball come out the other side a few seconds later. Killing six, 6, people I regarded to be good friends. Good people, man. It's an unacceptable figure, and will always be. I'm not the only one feeling it today; you can see it in most everybody's face. The message today is clear. Take it easy. Don�t cut in front of others, today. Offer up your seat. Nod at the Fire Department and Police. Keep your head down and barricade in the emotion. Be thankful the god-awful smell is gone. 2:57 p.m. - 2006-09-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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