9/11

September 11, 2001 “The World Trade Towers have been hit by an airplane.” I heard these words over National Public Radio and turned the volume down. I was thinking Cessna. A few minutes later the NPR radio was back to music, but shortly the announcer broke in to say “I really hate to interrupt this beautiful playing of Mozart, but we are transferring to NPR newsroom for the latest on the accident at the Twin Towers. A second aircraft has just hit the towers.”

That’s how the day of horror, which had dawned so nicely for me and many others too, now slowly began to reveal its capacity for catastrophe. The hijacks became known and then the the aircraft flying into the Pentagon. About 10:30 a.m., I turned off the TV and walked out on the deck. The world was as silent as it must have been on the first day of creation. No vehicles, no farm noise, no airplanes, nothing. Total silence.

But the TV wouldn’t stay off, and as the day churned on it became obvious that there was something missing: our national government. The governor and mayor of New York were there, visible and audible all day long, but our national governmental officials were on the run. Bush showed up briefly on a political trip at a school in Sarasota dressed in a brown suit and tan tie and reading a book about a goat before he vanished. Then he was in Louisiana for a quick videotape, now in a steel gray suit, blue shirt and red tie; then he was found in an underground bunker in Nebraska with leather jacket and light blue tie. Finally, we all saw him walk off his helicopter and stroll across the white house lawn, wearing a blue suit and dark blue tie, now, elbows sticking out in a swagger, looking suspiciously around like he sensed something was amiss. Next he did a 5.5 minute run across national TV, sandwiched in between expert testimony on most newscasts, now wearing a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and presidential-blue tie. I thought he looked totally lost. Cheney was conspicuous by being totally absent and absolutely silent. Rice was not there. Colin Powell was not there (later he showed up in Peru getting ready to come home). Runsfeld was talking war - or maybe not. Senator Orin Hatch was heard to say we should “get” Osauma bin Laden; Senator John McCain was heard to suggest maybe we might want to find out who did it first. Hastert and Daschel showed up for a brief session of about 8 minutes of video time with members of congress at 7:30 p.m. almost 12 hours after the attack began. Their video was shown as a tape delay between people who had more to say on most networks.

© John Womack, 2001. All Rights Reserved.