The Days Following 9/11/01, Part 2.



	THE DAYS FOLLOWING 9/11/01, PART 2 (9/17--9/18) 9/17/01 The little things hit me this week, sitting in the sun at lunch, sharing words with friends, watching my dogs run and play with a toy, the taste of fresh blueberries, watching the milkyway appear in the night sky. I sit at home, staying up late, watching the events from tuesday unfold over and over every evening this week. I can't pull myself away but I am so numb I can't do anything else. At work there's discussion but also great silence as people try to work, but also turn the images over and over in their own minds and absorb the conversations of each day. No one spoke of retaliation, only of healing, only of the saddness and of the great pain of those people missing loved ones. Today we observed one minute of silence in Portland but really we have been silent all week, turning inside and out looking for answers. And I go back to the little things in life that I run by so quickly, or usually think of as not important. Tonight I spoke with nephew, Emmet, and in all his young innocence he makes me laugh and smile for the first time this week. Take care, love, --Janice Jenkins, Portland, Oregon As a parent, you know the feeling of scrambling to cover the ears and eyes of little ones. It is an instinct that we develop the minute we step into the delivery room with our wives. And now that instinct is being tested. And as we struggle with what to do to protect our children, yet assure them of a safe future, we are struggling ourselves. I have a deep admiration for what you are doing. Those same hands that protect Emmet have now become the strong supportive hands of those in need. Keep 'em lifted. Together we're stronger. --Heath Balderson I am confused by this life. Here we are, all these people living day to day, harboring beliefs and ideas and all that stuff. But I just don't know what any of it means. I am a father now, and a husband and not particularly good at either. I still struggle with the things I have always struggled with: who am I, who is anybody, why am I, why is anything? Y'know, meaning of life and death stuff. All the religion and faith and beliefs swirl around in the the collective minds of our cultures. Bo you remember the first day you met me? I remember the first day I saw you. Is that weird? I remember those kinds of things. You had long hair and and you were skating the banks near the old Body Glove spot in Hermosa Beach. I was with some other squids and we skated with you for about a minute or two and you moved on. I met you a few weeks later at the Freestylin/Homeboy office as a result of Anita Tessensohn's letter-induced friendship with Lewman. She told me she met a guy who worked at a magazine and they had some cool skate spot in their parking lot. do you remember? I got one of those charlie brown t-shirts from you. And one day I visited your house right down the street from the body glove adjacent banks. I think that was 14 years ago. I don't even know why I'm writing this stuff. I just felt the impulse to reach out after reading some of the letters on your site. I talked to Staci G. today and she told me to check it out. I stayed home from work tuesday at the request of my wife Jennifer. I was just about to leave at 10 minutes to 8am and as I walked through our kitchen she rushed into me and grabbed my arm sobbing and pulled me into the living room. My first reaction was that she had just received some terrible news by telephone about a family member or friend. But then I saw the TV was on and I just stared at it. I saw the replay of the 2nd plane striking into the 2nd tower. My mouth just opened and stayed that way for minutes. Then I sat down. Our boy, Junino, was still in bed sleeping. All I could say was "whoa." I have never felt so frozen in my tracks before. Jen was terrifed. Her sister lives in Brooklyn and all she could think about was whether she was alright. So we sat there for almost an hour watching the news. We saw the buildings collapse on live television and I felt sick to my stomach. I still feel sick today. I think I will never get that feeling out of my body. It feels like that old cliche of innocence lost. I live in Portland, Oregon, but I feel NYC. When Junino woke up and came staggering into the living room to find us, we changed the channel to PBS. But whenever he left the room I flipped it back to the news. I watched it off and on all day. Jen finally heard from her mom that her sister was OK and was in Hell's Kitchen with some friends. She ended up walking home that afternoon to an ash and debris and smoke covered Brooklyn neighborhood. I got a call from Steve Knezevich later in the evening and he was just, "whoa dude, crazy shit." He couldn't even talk straight. He was evacuated off a train in Brooklyn just as he left for work in uptown and he stood in the street with hundreds and watched as the buildings collapsed. How can those New Yorkers ever resume their lives? Maybe in a few years things will get back to normal. There should be no hurry. People always say time is money but it isn't. I don't like time. I don't like money. Both of them bind us humans to their restrictions and rules. My wish for the whole world would be for us to throw away the Gregorian calendar and just live by the moon cycle like the Mayans once did. Man am I confused. And as more information comes out about this event, there is more insight into how much the American government may have directly influenced, financed and created this catastrophe. And Bush wants to spend all the money on weapons and blow up the world. Dude, his dad already did that. Have you ever read Nostradamus? Its just crazy. What do we do for our children? I work in a sales department for a toy company and I only do it because I have to bust 40 hours a week just to get by and it's so unimportant and uninspiring. I blew the chances I had in the past and the reality of American life caught up with me. From the cradle to the grave I am but a slave to the almight dollar. That is why I love the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album. Because its a picture of truth, and it sucks, but its the truth. The baby swimming for the dollar on the hook? That shit is classic forever. And of course the tragedy in NYC and DC is a direct result of our fucked up government/military/secret society cult muthafuckas who have allowed the rest of our planet to suffer for what Michael Moore said is our need to have a 'cool pair of sneakers.' Aw shit man, it's been years since I've even shook your hand and I used to do it every day. Peace to you and Kelley and Emmet and all your peeps. I'd like to send you some drawings I've done some day. --Shea Johnson, Portland, Oregon To Bend Staff, It's really a great great news which shock the whole world. America was attracked by the terrorists, America was attacked by the U.S. Aeroplanes under devils' control... the twin towers is over, thousand of peopl es life is over, will the whole world be over too? How can the terrorists do such things? How can they use the plane full of passenger to destoryed the whole city and kill the normal citizen? It's really cruelty!!! Although I'm just a guy in Hong Kong, I feel so angry and the terrorists are unforgivable, they are really shit! So it's not difficult to understand how angry the Americans are and they want to take a revenge. But is it really right to take revenge by attracking other countries? Can US army promise that they will never kill 1 normal citizen in the revenge action? The answer is definitely no! All we know that any war will have people died,and bring abt many social problems, so it's not worth for us to start war again to destory the civilization! US should not take a revenge on any countries but the guilty people. Coz life is a precious thing, US as one of the most modern countries in the world, should not kill any innocent by revenge action. Please think about it in deep all Americans, don't be another terrorists, don't start war pls! War can't never solve problems but only worsen the situation and the relationship among the countries!!! I really hope that this incidents can be solved by peace and negotiation, no blood,no war!!! One more thing I want to said, after this incidents, I think all of us should think who should responsible for this incidents, only the terrorist should bear it? Or Mr. Laden? Think deeply, is it only their fault? I don't think so, all of us should bear this fault no matter you are in black, white, yellow color. The incidents was not only bring by terrorists but also peoples selfishness!!! Nowadys, we can find racial discrmination, extreme nationalsim... all over the world, all these are brought by peoples selfishness. Can't people in different live as a whole? As the citizen of the United countries of earth? All people in the world are just the same, no matter u are rich or poor, black or white or yellow, we are all "Earth Citizens." So throw away your selfish, foolish and angry. Take out your love and care and give to everybody. Stop destorying the earth and develop it together. The world is belongs to all of us!!! Love & Peace Forever!!!! --Little K, Honk Kong PS Sorry for my poor English, I just want to express what I think. Hi. I'm writing this story for all of my friends that expressed concern for me. Your words have made my experience a little easier to deal with so I thank you and send you back loving thoughts... Watching this tragedy on TV might seem very surreal but in real life it was incomprehensible. You know I live 1 and a half blocks from WTC. Micheal and I were sleeping and at 8:45am we heard a very loud boom. We turned to each other and kind of joked that that was the loudest truck yet. Our neighborhood is constantly under construction so loud noises are just a part of life there. But then I heard people screaming outside. I was on the 3rd floor of our 10 story building. I jumped up and looked out the window to see the tower on fire. Shaking, I threw on some clothes and ran downstairs to my 2nd floor apartment and got a couple cameras and sprinted outside. We ran all the way to Church street right under the tower and shot pictures. Everyone thought it was an aviation accident. There was shock but mostly curiosity. After five minutes I wanted to get another lens and my video camera, so we went back to my apartment. While inside the next plane hit. This impact being much worse, glass vases crashed off my window sill. We ran outside again. This time the police were pushing people back to Broadway. At this point people started to get the idea that it was a terrorist act. Cell phones stopped working, so people were lining up for the pay phones to call loved ones. We were all standing in the street in disbelief but never thinking our lives were in danger. The trains kept rolling and commuters kept streaming out of the Trade Center unknowingly. We all knew how fucked it was but stood there and stared . People were drinking coffee and watching. We could see bodys falling and the flames and smoke getting higher. About 45 minutes went by and I thought I should get some identification on me remembering that even during the ticker tape parades I needed my ID to get back home. As Micheal and I walked into my building I said in jest that maybe we better not go in cause everytime we do there is another explosion. He went to 3rd floor to change clothes and I put on the news and went to my window to film the shit that had smashed in my apartment. Suddenly, there was the loudest noise imaginable out my window. And for all of you that have been to my apartment you know how big my windows are which were wide open. After the noise people started screaming and running on the street I just turned the camera and was shooting video out the open window. Micheal ran down and screamed at me to get back from the window. He said he saw the window blow out like a bubble and right then the big grey tidal wave cloud that you see on TV engulfed my apartment. I was thrown back and everything went black. You couldn't see anything and there was no oxygen. The stuff was a mix of concreate metal drywall and asbestos dust of the finest texture. We had to find air so I thought outside. We ran to the front door and tryed to push it open. It wouldn't budge. Upon looking up at the small square window, we could see faces pressed against the glass. The small vestubule was packed with people crying and screaming covered with tons of grey debris. We yelled for them to move back and we pushed the door open. Five very fucked-up, panicked, gasping people tumbled inside. I thought to go to the roof, anywhere to find oxygen. I started running up the stairs... the 7th floor hallway had some air but I kept going to the roof. When I opening the door it was just solid grey. We ran back and into a 5th floor apartment that had their windows shut and got the people from the street calmed down and water. I ran back into my apartment to find my cats. Luts was on the loft and came right to me. I got him up to five. Then back for Dev. My smoke alarm was blaring and I couldn't locate his cries. I ripped [the fire alarm] off the wall and finally found him, [he had] crawled into the back of a dresser. I kept checking out the window to see what was happening with the air. It was the eeriest thing. There were no more sirens, no more screaming, just dead silence. The TV was saying that the tower had collasped and that the other could go anytime. We got everybody together and started down thinking to run to the East River. As we exited the building to head East people were running or walking fast. Many people were in shock like zombies. Many people were weeping and disoriented. I was shooting video without being foolish and lagging too much and we were trying to help frightened confused people many of them older woman secretaries by themselves. We went one block north and three blocks east when the next one fell. At this point everyone just started screaming and sprinting to the East River as the grey tidal wave cloud chased us. Then it was just thousands of people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and up FDR drive. Tt was like the end of the world. We were pretty much OK physically. Went to the hospital a few days later for some oxygen because it felt like someone was standing on my chest and it wasn't going away. My apartment is totally messed up and filled with an inch layer of grey stuff in and on everything. As of now, one 50 story building 50 yards from my home is still in danger of collapse. There's is so much more and it's still happening. The kindness and love that people are pouring out to each other is so moving. For me, I'ved lived there for almost 13 years and many people that I barely even know have run up to me and hugged me. Everyone is wearing masks over their mouths. Thousands of people are just lining the West Side highway cheering the emergency workers. Firemen, cops, and construction guys coming in and out with signs of well wishes and praise, food, water and towels. Nobody knows what to do, but they all want to do something. Every fire house has thousands of flowers and signs in front of them. Last night at dusk there was a candle light vigile. Micheal and I rented a tandum bike and we were cruising uptown shooting video. People were coming from everywhere walking with candles, or just coming out of their buildings or businesses and talking with their neighbors. At Union Square, thousands and thousands of people met with candles gathering around made memorials with pictures of the missing, flowers, candles, and pictures of the Trade Center, singing and praying. Seems like when I see pictures of those towers I find it hard to contain my emotions. I feel like those towers where like giants redwoods in my front yard that I looked at everyday. That was my neighborhood that I loved and photographed all the time. I loved that neighborhood because it was not about bars and restaurants and entertaining oneself, it was about workers. There are a lot of finance professionals, but way more than that... security guards, the messengers, the construction guys, the secretarys, dudes that clean the offices and take care of the buildings. These are the faces that I looked at. At night when everyone went home from work it was just you and the buildings and you could cruise around on a bike or a skateboard without cars and just weave in and out the skinny streets. No sounds of people, just the hum of machines. The weather was always different down there. The wind is crazy, the cold is colder and the heat is hotter. Extreme in everyway. This may not seem cool to most but it was to me. I've often found myself wondering of all the places you can live in the world... I lived there. It would make me kind of laugh, but obviously I couldn't think of any other place I'd rather live. I will really miss my old neighborhood and I hope maybe they make a beautiful forest of 5,000 trees in its place. I had a birthday party down there on sept 7... many people came that probably never really go down there that often. And I hope that when they left and walked to Church St. to get a cab, that they glanced up in the sky there and took in that sight one last time. Love to all, --Cheryl, Manhatten PS As of now I am still homeless. I begged a cop to let me back to get this computer. So please write me back if you want, 'cause all I have is time. Andy, I'm fine. Was very close to the situation -- was not stupid and am alive to talk about it. I was photographing the attack when the second plane hit the South Tower. My photograph of the hit is on the front cover of Time Magazine. I am very sad but honored that I was able to capture such a horrific event and be able to communicate what happened to the rest of the world. Peace to all and say prayers to those who are dead and the families that are grieving. Support the NYPD and the NYFD. Lyle Owerko, Manhatten Subject: Tonight I knocked the wind out of myself while a homeless man watched me fight for air. Friday I went to the Supply Seargent (a local army surplus store) to buy a pair of pants. I was suprised to find how crowded it was. It seems that these are the times that army surplus stores get the most buisness. Flags were selling like patriotic hotcakes. People also seemed to be interested in rambo knives and gas masks. I was browsing through the knick-knacks at the counter and getting ready to check out when two husky young men with long pointy goatees and lots of tatoos came to the counter and asked with pride where they could find the "kill 'em all" flags. I could sense that they were very proud young men and they might indeed really love to "kill 'em all," and Iwould hate to imagine how broad the spectrum of people they considered "them." iIt didn't take long for the two to find what they were looking for and they checked out ahead of me. As they were leaving the lady at the counter started bagging their purchase and one of them said "We don't need a bag," I guess to suggest that this flag was flying immediately. Scarey. (story). I'm not trying to slam patriotism in any way. I just prey that those that fly the flag do so with love for thier country not hate for anothers. (disclaimer). --Sean McGoey [This is from a friend of mine in Wisconsin. It made me feel really good... --Nathan Kaufman] Hello one and all. Just like everybody else, I have been struggling this past week to come to terms with the endless footage, sound bites, rhetoric, and emotions that have been flooding our minds, eyes, ears, hearts and souls. I've been challenged to come to some sort of conclusion as to just what the week's events will ultimately mean... to myself, to those I treasure, to a nation, and to humanity as a whole. How can anybody truly reach any rational conclusions, when the source of such turmoil is rooted solely in those deepest, most irrational wells of humanity... those vile and base institutions of fear, and of hatred... of ignorance, and of mistrust. There is no sense to be found in the actions of the insane. There is little comfort to be found in a world driven by fear. There certainly isn't an easy answer, nor is there a concrete solution. questions simply seem to beg further questions, as we all flounder about in this surrealistic, apocalyptic haze that has become our collective life... as individuals, as a nation and as a planet. The anguish, the fury, and the fanatacism bombard us all from every front. The hatred and the fear are so real, so tangible, that it seems the fury that cascaded down with the Twin Towers has covered not only Manhattan, but has been born aloft by winds of war, only to blanket an entire world with fear, and with sorrow. The dust and debris, the concrete manifestation of ignorance, and of hatred, has permeated the silk of every last cocoon that we have woven in hopes of isolating ourselves from the ills of the world... it has caked the beauty and the hope within, and has left us all as shells within shells... emptiness, encrusted within the facades that we have all erected to protect our fragile souls from the atrocities of life, and of death. And yet, amidst all of the anger, and all of the hatred, there is something else so real and true that exists, that it cries out for us to take notice... for if we all pause to think about the implications of this manifestation of hatred, we must all realize that it cannot exist without something with which to compare it to. And that, my friends, is love. Mountains are forged, and in time, crumble under their own weight. Fires burn with fury and savagery, until they consume so much as to leave nothing more to fuel their abandon. In time, all things pass... all things, but love. Love is eternal, and more than anything else in this life, it is what we need to survive. And so today, as you go about your life, attempting to come to grips with our collective reality, remember that we forge our destinies with our thoughts and with our actions. Let them be forged with love. --Steve, Wisconsin Last Friday my biggest fear came true. I found out that I had lost a friend in Tuesday's terrorist attack. His name was Danny Lee and he was on American Airlines flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center with 81 passengers and 11 crew onboard. He was on his way home, using a two day break in the Backstreet Boys tour on which he was a crew member, to help his wife deliver their second child into the world. Danny and I worked together on Lollapalooza in 1997. It was my first time working on a concert tour and I was both nervous and excited. Within the first week of the tour, Danny became a new friend and a peer who helped me along the way. He made me laugh, eased my stress, helped me get work done, and taught me and others the ropes. He loved the road, which often took him away from his new family for many months of the year. But it was the life he had chosen and he enjoyed it. Some of you may have seen his and his family's story on the news this week. His wife, Kellie, delivered a beautiful girl, Allison Danielle, a day after the incident. She also has a 2 year-old girl, Amanda. As some of you may not know, freelance work like Danny was doing often does not come with medical or life insurance. He had neither. I am asking you as a friend, or maybe as someone who cares, to reach out and help Kellie and the girls. Maybe you wanted to help in some way during the past week, but did not know where to begin. For those of you who have done something already, like donate to the Red Cross or give blood, thank you so much. Here's another way that you may want to help. Kelli's parents have set up a fund, both to pay for her medical bills and to fund the girls' college tuitions. If you can donate anything, even if it's a dollar, please do so. DANIEL LEE FAMILY FUND c/o Tom Whitford 731 Cliftod Dr. Erie, PA 16505 Please pass this email along to your family, friends, and coworkers. By doing so, you will be able to directly impact this family's future. Thank you for allowing me to share Danny's story with you. Sincerely, --Mark Sperling 9/18/01 If our nation were a Twinkie, I'd be floating in cream filling. Or, to be more exact, I'm in Wichita, Kansas. This is one of those places that you feel you will never be able to "make it" in. But then the world goes to Hell and you somehow find a sense of success and accomplishment. It's funny, as a designer you look at places like New York as a Mecca for your group. But now, I feel that the most sacred place on this planet is in the arms of my wife and children in something that my son refers to as "family hug." --Heath Balderson, Wichita, Kansas I was reading a kid's story this morning called "The Little Fox" by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. It seems to have some meaning to what's going on in our world. It goes like this....... At one point in this story, the little prince meets a fox. The prince is very lonely and wants the fox to play with him, but the fox says that he cannot play unless he is tamed. The little prince asks the meaning of the word "tame." The fox explains that it means "to establish ties" in such a way that the fox will become unique to the little prince, and the prince unique to the fox. Later, after the fox has been tamed and the little prince must leave him, the fox also tells the prince what he calls "my little secret, a very simple secret," which is, "it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." --Rob Abeyta, Los Angeles A Sobering Essay [Dear Friends. The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. --Gary T.] Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity,they were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban -- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time. So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the West. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the West would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? --Tamim Ansary, UC Berkeley THE DAYS FOLLOWING 9/11/01, PART 1 : 9/11--9/14 THE DAYS FOLLOWING 9/11/01, PART 3 : 9/19--9/18 Please send Bend your thoughts or forwards or links, if you are so inclined. Please let us know where yo uare writing from. Be safe. Spread love.