9-11-2001

After hearing “9-11” invoked as the rationale for any amount of lunacy over the past seven years, it’s easy to forget the actual horror of what happened that day.

I remember walking into Compass Records that morning in 2001 to deal with some job-related task, and hearing from my buddy David Haley what had just happened in New York. Never been one to turn on the news first thing in the morning, or I would have known.

I remember thinking...“Nah, that couldn’t have REALLY happened”...even after we all subsequently saw it on TV from every possible angle, until I just couldn’t look at it any more, couldn’t think about it anymore, couldn’t look at any more pictures in the New York Times of people who had died.

I remember the tense days and weeks following making sure everybody I knew in New York (and everywhere else) was accounted for.

I remember wondering what sort of people could perpetrate such a thing. Was it a well-laid terrorist plan gone well beyond belief, was it a fluke, was it a tremendous conspiracy?

After seven years that both seem like yesterday and seem like a creeping eternity, it’s almost impossible to make any sense of what happened through all the fog of information, near-information, and outright mis-information.

Today I bow in memory to those who died, those that keep dying daily...and try to picture a reasonable end to it all. Amen.