This must be the place: 'The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining'
The Blue Ridge Parkway in Haywood County. Garret K. Woodward photo
Stepping out of my apartment building in downtown Waynesville on Wednesday morning, I noticed several American flags lining Walnut Street, put there by the town’s public works department. Cruising along Main Street, the flag was at half-mast at the bank and also in front of the Haywood County Courthouse.
By the time I pulled up in front of the Main Street Diner, in a slight rush to get a table and a breakfast plate before the 11 a.m. menu cutoff, I had passed by several more flags. Putting the truck in park, I turned to my girlfriend, Sarah, and made a comment about seeing all the flags.
“Why are they at half-mast? What day is today?” I muttered before it immediately dawned on me. “Oh, damn. It’s September 11.”
At 39 years old, I’ve been inundated relentlessly for the last 23 years with the “Never Forget” slogan promoted by our United States government in the wake of that fateful Tuesday morning — a sunny day in lower Manhattan when two airliners took down the Twin Towers. Not to mention two more aircraft crashing into the Pentagon and a rural Pennsylvania farm field.
And yet, there I stood, exiting the truck, realizing that I had forgotten what day it was. Now, don’t get me wrong. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, are forever chiseled in the hallways of my memory. But, as the years (and now decades) have passed, the distance of what the calendar on my kitchen wall says has kind of blurred the date into the rest of numbers on the September page.
Looking back, my late grandparents remember exactly where they were when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, ultimately pushing the U.S. into World War II. Truth-be-told, my grandfather was actually at Pearl Harbor on that day, as an infantry soldier in the U.S. Army, who first saw the rising sun emblem of the Japanese fighter planes overhead while leaving breakfast.
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Eventually, he found himself all over the Pacific Theatre, bouncing between islands and conflicts, before being honorably discharged and returning back home to the rural landscape and farmland of his youth along the Canadian Border in Alexandria Bay, New York, eventually crossing paths with my grandmother and relocating along Route 11 to Rouses Point, where I was born and raised.
Like many of the “Greatest Generation,” my grandfather was humble, stoic and wise. He never spoke much about the war, but he did do an extensive interview with the local public access channel, “Home Town Cable,” back in December 1994. You can still find the interview on YouTube: “Frank Kavanaugh & Pearl Harbor.”
And my parents remember exactly where they were the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Specifically, my mother was a young teenager walking home from school where her friend ran up to her and told her the news. She broke down and cried, soon making her way back to my grandparents’ house on Pine Street in Rouses Point, the entire family glued to the TV and radio broadcasts.
Sept. 11, 2001, started out as a normal day. For those in the northeast, it was a bluebird sky of a sunny Tuesday. One of the last reminders of summer before the cool breeze and foliage of fall would usher in a season of change.
I was 16 years old. A junior at Northeastern Clinton Central School. Champlain, New York. And it was Mrs. Trudeau’s second period social studies class when we got word of something happening in New York City.
Time stood still, at it always does in moments like that. The look of terror in the eyes of my teachers and peers. The crying and seeing the second plane hitting the South Tower live on air. The sounds of the classroom bells ringing, signaling the end of each period, but nobody leaving their seats. All focus was on the TV and this new era for our country, the world and our young lives currently unfolding.
Wandering the hallways of NCCS, countless faces in a daze. Kids lining up at the payphone in the lobby, calling their parents to come pick them up, with both sides of the conversation left in a paralyzing state of fear and confusion.
Military vehicles passing by the big bay windows of the school en route to the nearby Canadian Border crossings, just a mile or so down the road. My father, a U.S. Immigration officer, at work and entering this now unknown phase of his career. I didn’t see him much at home for months after Sept. 11, with him being assigned to nonstop overtime shifts.
All of those violent images, intense emotions and lingering sentiments about that day some 23 years ago came flooding back to me as I sat in the Main Street Diner with Sarah. Sipping coffee and dipping my wheat toast into the over-medium eggs, I spoke at-length about how much Sept. 11, 2001, still reverberated in my conscious and subconscious mindset, all while I wander and ponder this great mystery of ours, of life and of the vast universe.
In essence, I’ve never forgotten Sept. 11. But, nowadays, it’s not simply a date emblazoned in the media whenever it rolls around on the calendar. It’s memories that haunt my thoughts seemingly every single day. I’m not pulled down by the doom and gloom of that day. I am, however, keenly aware of the remembrance of those lost. And of how I carry myself moving forward, from that Tuesday morning over two decades to the here and now — kindness and gratitude.
Whatever side of the political aisle you may reside on or what kind of religion you subscribe to (or none at all), the foundation of our ongoing relationships between one another is the mere fact we’re humans, with beating hearts and vibrant souls. For me, at least, Sept. 11, 2001, and every day thereafter is a constant reminder of the fragility of life and the importance of compassion.
Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.
