That was then...9/11 revisited

We were sitting in the main conference room at work getting ready to start the day as we usually did - reading the previous 24 hours worth of crisis calls. Everyone was gathering slowly, making sure we all had coffee, something to take notes on, getting to our usual chairs. "Good morning", "How ya doing?", "Another beautiful September day out there!"

We were about 15 minutes into reading the calls when Gina, the office admin, opened the door and stuck her head in and said, "A plane just hit the World Trade Center in New York!" We discussed how that could be. "Must have been a small plane." "Pilot must have had some medical issues." "So weird!" And then we continued reading the calls again.

A short while later, Gina returned. This time her face was pale and she had a terrible look in her eyes. "Another plane hit the other tower!" She exclaimed, "They're reporting that they're commercial airlines plane! Jets! With passengers on board!"

Stunned, we left the conference room and started gathering in small groups around our computer screens and radios, desperate for whatever news we could get. Everyone felt it. The silent fear of not knowing what exactly was happening. The sketchy information we were getting wasn't enough. People would come in to the office for their appointments and we would bombard them with questions. What have they heard and seen that we might be missing? Another report - another plane crashed into the Pentagon and another into a field somewhere. It was suddenly clear that we were under attack. But who would do this? Why?

  And then the live images started streaming on line. The towers on fire, black smoke billowing from the highest floors. People leaning out of windows trying to get someones attention or just some breathable air. Fire fighters, EMT's, police officers rushed to the scene as civilians looked up in fright. We all stopped. We waited. We yearned to know what has happening and why but there were no answers. We stayed close together. We longed to be home with our loved ones. Then, unbelievably, horribly, terribly, incredibly - the towers began to fall. We watched helplessly as New York filled with dust, rocks, papers, crumbled cement and smoke. People ran for their lives and our hears stopped as we watched them run. It seemed the world was ending.

  It was difficult to focus for the rest of the day. The city was eerily quiet when we were finally on our way home. We sat in stunned silence watching the images over and over again on TV, getting any new information we could. Slowly the whole terrifying story unfolded. We felt scared and unsafe. We lit candles for the dead and prayed for the recovery of anyone who may have survived. Survived? How could they have survived? But they must and we held onto the notion for weeks afterward. Even when the evidence was contrary we hoped beyond hope that there would be survivors. But there weren't.

This is now...

Today we were gathering in the main conference room to start the day as we always do - reading the previous 24 hours crisis calls. We had the usual good mornings and the getting of the coffee. We all went to our usual chairs. Then we realized the date and noticed how we were all there, as we were then, and how that day impacted our lives forever.

We will never forget the events of September 11, 2001. We will always remember that feeling of helplessness and fear and the wanting to be home with our loved ones. We will have those horrific images in our minds for the rest of our lives. Time has healed and we moved on but we will never, ever forget.

Three fears and how I got them...

The other night as I was sitting at my desk typing a spider decided to slowly make his way from the ceiling to my desk on a single thread right in front of my face. EW! I hate spiders. I hate all creepy crawly things, actually. And that got me to thinking about what else I was afraid of and why. Turns out that I have what I will refer to as My Big Three. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Spiders and bugs in general - I know exactly how this fear came to be. I was a little kid living with my family above my Dad's bar. I got a new bed and I was so excited about it. It wasn't really new. It was a hand me down from a neighbor but it was new to me and it was HUGE! I lay in the middle of this great big comfy bed covered by mounds of blankets and started to drift off by the slight warm glow of the light coming from the kitchen. I was just about asleep when, not one but TWO spiders suddenly dropped from the ceiling, landing directly on my face. My mother came running to the sounds of the blood curdling screams coming from my bedroom. If that wasn't enough to make me terrified of crawly things I had another skin crawling incident just a couple of weeks later. This time I was walking home in the evening, just after that measure of time for all kids back then - the street light went on, time to go home - and I was just passing the side entrance to my Dad's bar. Over the side entrance there was some kind of beer sign which was usual in those days. As I passed underneath something dropped onto the top of my head with a slight thud. It felt like an acorn or a pebble but it didn't roll off, it stayed there. I reached up to see what the heck it was and discovered a large, prehistoric looking June bug stuck in my hair. From a distance what happened next probably looked like either a very creative interpretive dance or like I was having a seizure. The screaming only added intrigue, I'm sure. Since then I can honestly say that I not only fear insects, I hate them with a passion. As an adult, I haven't become one of those squeamish run out of the room types when a bug gets in the house. Though I do admit, if Alex is around he's the chief insect remover in our family. If I'm alone, I get a sort of Special Ops resolve to my demeanor and that room is not big enough for the bug and me. One of us is leaving - dead. I have been known to turn over furniture in an effort to find a spider that got away because, frankly, my fear of the spider itself is no match for my fear of knowing that there's a live one in the house - somewhere - just waiting for the right time to scare the crap outta me! 
2. Clowns - Now, I'm not exactly sure where my fear of clowns came from. I'd like to think it was when I read "It" by Stephen King but that was actually written much later than the manifestation of my fear. There is just something inherently creepy about the whole idea of the clown. When I was a kid, I was a big Bozo the Clown fan. Well, I like the show, anyway. But even back then when I watch Bozo, Cookie and that super creepy Whizzo I couldn't stop myself from thinking they were all drunks and probably killers in real life. Even nice clowns like the one Jimmy Stewart played in "The Greatest Show on Earth" have a deep dark past. He supposedly killed his wife. I just don't trust clowns. "It" just confirmed what I always knew. Clowns are evil. One time, just for something to do, a friend and I took a drive to Delevan, WI - about an hour from here - and went to the Clown Museum. It was full of old clown photos and costumes. They were dusty and sweat stained and worn and it was the most frightening place I'd ever been. I started to think, "What happens if we get locked in here?" OMG - I would die. One summer I went camping at Devil's Lake near the Wisconsin Dells. We went to Baraboo, just near the Dells to the Circus World Museum. Ew....again...dusty, sweat stained...frightening. And then, for crap's sake, they had a real circus with real clowns that my sister made me sit through. Good lord, when the clowns came out it took every bit of my will power not to run screaming from the tent. Remember that scene in "Poltergeist" where the little boy can't sleep because of the storm and the lightening keeps lighting up that scary clown doll and then all of a sudden the doll is under his bed trying to drag the kid underneath? Yeah...never trust a clown. 
3. Strangers - I'm a pretty rational human being most of the time and I love meeting new people so me being afraid of strangers is kind of weird. I mean, everyone is a stranger before you know who they are. But, again when I was a kid in school at St. George Elementary, the good School Sisters of Notre Dame thought it would be good to teach us "Stranger Danger". In other words, they felt it necessary to show us film reels of small children being abducted from their parents and later found dead. Yes, they showed us this! I think I was 7 or 8 years old and, let me tell you, it scared the bejeezus out of me! I would have a similar feeling years later when my driver's ed teacher showed films of actual accidents with the dead people still lying in the wreckage with their limbs hanging off or their head gone! Sheesh! So at 7 or 8, anyone I didn't know became the object of instant suspicion. I was sure that everyone that was passing me on the street was going to grab my hand and pack me into the trunk of their car. Years later, I actually had something like this happen! I was an adult living in Chicago. I was walking to work at the theatre in broad daylight, on one of the busiest streets in Chicago. When I passed the entrance to a building a man reached out and grabbed my arm and attempted to pull me into the building. This ass hat was not ready for the commotion I was about to cause. Neither were the other people on the street! But it worked. I scared him off and got their attention and the police were called. He got away though which was too bad. Apparently he didn't even live in the building and he took off running when I started yelling. 

I sometimes think it's funny to know that I have these fears because I love scary movies and love to be scared. I guess the difference is that I like to be scared on my own terms. That's one reason I hate Haunted Houses at Halloween time. I can't control what happens in there. At a scary movie, I can choose not to look. But I can't control the creep crawly, clown, strangers of the world and that's why these three things scare me to death! 

So another week is due to begin...

It took me awhile to wind down from last week. This week will prove to be just as horrible. I decided to spend the weekend doing something that took no thought, was for shear pleasure and might be mildly amusing. It was time for some scary movies.

I rented a bunch and settled in. The first I watched was "Shutter" which was a pretty typical ghostie story that takes place in Japan ala "The Grudge". It wasn't all that interesting and not even very entertaining. The second was "Prom Night" which I chose because I knew it would be a bunch of high school kids getting offed in various gory ways. In this it did not disappoint. It wasn't that scary but I sure didn't have to think about it. I took a break from the would be scares to watch "Kinsey". This wasn't a bad film it just became tedious after a while. It's about the Kinsey report, of course, and all the research and head ache that went with it. After a while, I wanted to shout "Okay! I get it! It was groundbreaking!" and move on.

I have one more movie to watch but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it. I know it's bound to be horrible. It's something called "Dead Clowns". But here's why I got it in the first place. I hate, loathe and despise clowns. I always have. I have some weird clown phobia. There's just something truly creepy and unlikeable about them. They give me nightmares. So I'm thinking watching a zombie clown movie might be a sort of therapy. Maybe I can face this illogical fear head on and get over it. Maybe. Or maybe it will send me right over the edge. I still haven't decided whether or not to watch this thing but I have until Thursday to decided. That's when they're due back at the store.