Never Forget How Much the World has Changed for Us All

 

Jeff—Saturday

If you say "Nine Eleven" to an American, inevitably the mind leaps to thoughts of witnessing in real time the World Trade Center Twin Towers crashing to earth in New York City at the hands of foreign terrorists intent on undermining the American Way of Life,  There are other dates that summon up similar once unimaginable horrors, such as "December 7"–albeit not witnessed by the nation in real time those eighty-three years ago in 1941–and "January 6th" though not orchestrated in 2021 by foreign terrorists.  But none is burned as deeply into the psyche of our generation as Al Qaeda's murderous coordinated attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11, 2001.

 

Last Wednesday marked the 23rd Anniversary of that day. On its tenth anniversary, a New York City-based newspaper, The National Herald, asked that I be part of its 9/11 10^th year commemorative issue and write about where I was that Tuesday morning.  What I didn't mention in that article was the comaraderie among Americans that sprung up out of that horrendous event.  Divisions haunting the nation since its Vietnam era vanished that morning. Or so it seemed. 

But as we've learned, they had not disappeared, and are back today with a vengeance challenging the very roots of our democracy. I hope and pray it will not require another catastrophe for Americans to regain their common bond and purpose. 

 

I've republished this article before, and when I last did I thought there was no need to run it again. But a loyal MIE blog follower wrote to me after that posting saying, "You must continue to post this every year."

 

I'm not sure I'll do that, but as this year is shaping up to be a humdinger of "Americans at each other's throat," I felt now is a time to run it again. 

 

So here it is, my take on an event I shall never forget and which most definitely shaped my life. 

I like it over here by the United Nations.  Beekman Place is different from other New York City streets; it’s more like a quiet, residential private road in an elegant European city.  My walk to my office is down First Avenue overlooking the East River and alongside the gardens and flags of the UN.  It gives me a few daily moments of serenity and escape from the often out of control state of my life as a lawyer here.

I need this walk today.  The sky is so blue and clear, except for the few smoke-like clouds on the downtown horizon.  I’m up by the UN General Assembly Building when I call my friend Panos to find out how his date went last night.  He’s frantic and says he can’t talk.  He’s waiting for his mother to call him from Greece.  I ask if everything is OK.  He says she’ll be worried when she hears that his office was struck by a plane.  I must have misunderstood him.  He works in the World Trade Center.  He says his office building is burning and he has to get off the phone.

Those are not clouds on the horizon, it’s smoke.

I tell him to get out of the building.  He says it’s not necessary.  He’s okay.  His date kept him out late and he’s still at home.  He’ll go to work in the afternoon, after the fire is out.  He hangs up.

How could a plane have hit the World Trade Center on a day as clear as this one?  Something must have happened to the pilot.  I hear sirens everywhere and move a little faster toward my office.  By the time I get upstairs everyone is looking out the windows on the south side of our building.  It has an unobstructed view of the Towers.  Now they’re both burning.  I’m told a second plane hit the second Tower.  We all know what that means—even before learning about the Pentagon.  Someone tells me a plane hit Pittsburgh, my hometown.  I can’t believe what I’m hearing.  I call my daughter, she lives in Greenwich Village.  She’s frightened.  We all are.  I tell her to keep calm. My son is in Cincinnati, I’m sure he’s safe but I can’t reach him.

We’re all glued to the big screen TV in my law firm’s main conference room.  The first tower begins to fall and we turn en masse from the television to look out our windows as it crumbles to the ground before our eyes.  It’s surreal, it can’t be happening.  But it happens again.  Not a word is said while we watch the second tower fall.   We are at war.  But with whom?

My mind can’t fix on what all this means.  I focus on a rumor that there’s an imminent biological anthrax attack and race to the pharmacy for enough antibiotic for my daughter.  That’s something I can do.  Again, I think, my son is in Cincinnati.  He’s safe there.

When I moved to NYC in 1969 my first job was blocks away from the Trade Center site.  The Towers were in the midst of construction and I saw them every morning across the Brooklyn Bridge as I’d head to work.  In August 1974 I watched Philippe Petit do his high wire walk between them, and three years later glimpsed at mountain climber George Willig scale one in the wind.  Even after moving my office uptown they were always in view from my window.  They spanned my career as a lawyer in NYC.  I can’t believe they’re gone.

 

The City is in shock.  Lines of thousands of refugees from downtown are trekking up Third Avenue toward home or simply to somewhere other than where they were.  No one is talking.  The smell is everywhere, acrid and bitter.  There seems to be grey dust on the shoes of every cop and will be for days.

I stop at a restaurant halfway between my office and home.  It’s Greek and run by a friend.   It’s the only place I can think of to go.  There is no one at home and I can’t get downtown to my daughter.  She’s fine.  Panos comes in.   I try making a joke about his date from last night.  I say he should marry her, she saved his life.  It’s not that funny.

A half dozen or so young men and women of about the age I was when I started working in NYC are sitting quietly at a table along the front windows.  A cell phone rings—one of the few that must be working—and one of the women answers.  She’s a dark haired girl.  She listens, shuts her phone and starts sobbing.  She says something to the others; they hug each other and cry.

Damnit.

It’s after midnight by the time I head home.  My cell phone rings on the way.  It’s a friend from Capri in Italy.  He’s been trying to reach me all day to see if I’m okay.  I hang up and continue home.  I’m tearing.  Friendship like his is what life’s all about.  Family and friends are what matter.

A week later I drive to my farm, get in my pickup and head to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  I decide not to go back to NYC but drive south, toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I’ve never been there before, but it just seems the place to be.  I have to drive by Washington, DC to get there.  It’s only when I see the first sign for DC that I realize I’ve made an unconscious pilgrimage past the three sites of the 9/11 massacre—NYC, Western PA, DC.

 

Duck, NC is chilly in the off-season and the ocean is wild.  I lock myself in a hotel room overlooking the sea and complete my first novel.  I’m driven to make something good come out of all of this bad.  A week later I drive back to NYC.  I’m on the Jersey Turnpike heading north and close to the City, but I can’t tell where it begins.  Its southern landmark is gone.  This world is insane.

A few years later I give up my life in NYC and move to the Aegean island of Mykonos to pursue my dream of writing mysteries exploring the heart and soul of Greece.   There is no reason to wait any longer.  Is there?

NEVER FORGET.

 

Jeff

Twenty Years Ago Today the World Changed for Everyone

 

Jeff—Saturday

If you say "Nine Eleven" to an American, inevitably the mind leaps to thoughts of witnessing in real time the World Trade Center Twin Towers crashing to earth in New York City at the hands of foreign terrorists intent on undermining the American Way of Life,  There are other dates that summon up similar once unimaginable horrors, such as "December 7"–albeit not witnessed by the nation in real time those eighty years ago in 1941–and "January 6th" though not orchestrated in 2021 by foreign terrorists.  But none is burned as deeply into the psyche of our generation as Al Qaeda's murderous coordinated attacks on New York City and Washington DC on September 11, 2001.

 

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of that day.  Ten years ago, a New York City-based newspaper, The National Herald, asked that I be part of its 9/11 10^th year commemorative issue and write about where I was that Tuesday morning.  What I didn't mention in that article was the comaraderie among Americans that sprung up out of that horrendous event.  Divisions haunting the nation since its Vietnam era vanished that morning. Or so it seemed. 

But as we've learned, they had not disappeared, and are back today with a vengeance. I hope and pray it will not require another catastrophe for Americans to regain their common bond and purpose. 

 

I've republished this article before, and when I last did I thought there was no need to run it again. But a loyal MIE blog follower wrote to me after that posting saying, "You must continue to post this every year."

 

I'm not sure I'll do that, but this being the 20th year memorial, and Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) having interviewed me this week for my additional thoughts on matters raised in that article, I felt that this year I should run it again. 

 

Here is what I wrote, about an event I shall never forget and most definitely shaped my life. 

I like it over here by the United Nations.  Beekman Place is different from other New York City streets; it’s more like a quiet, residential private road in an elegant European city.  My walk to my office is down First Avenue overlooking the East River and alongside the gardens and flags of the UN.  It gives me a few daily moments of serenity and escape from the often out of control state of my life as a lawyer here.

I need this walk today.  The sky is so blue and clear, except for the few smoke-like clouds on the downtown horizon.  I’m up by the UN General Assembly Building when I call my friend Panos to find out how his date went last night.  He’s frantic and says he can’t talk.  He’s waiting for his mother to call him from Greece.  I ask if everything is OK.  He says she’ll be worried when she hears that his office was struck by a plane.  I must have misunderstood him.  He works in the World Trade Center.  He says his office building is burning and he has to get off the phone.

Those are not clouds on the horizon, it’s smoke.

I tell him to get out of the building.  He says it’s not necessary.  He’s okay.  His date kept him out late and he’s still at home.  He’ll go to work in the afternoon, after the fire is out.  He hangs up.

How could a plane have hit the World Trade Center on a day as clear as this one?  Something must have happened to the pilot.  I hear sirens everywhere and move a little faster toward my office.  By the time I get upstairs everyone is looking out the windows on the south side of our building.  It has an unobstructed view of the Towers.  Now they’re both burning.  I’m told a second plane hit the second Tower.  We all know what that means—even before learning about the Pentagon.  Someone tells me a plane hit Pittsburgh, my hometown.  I can’t believe what I’m hearing.  I call my daughter, she lives in Greenwich Village.  She’s frightened.  We all are.  I tell her to keep calm. My son is in Cincinnati, I’m sure he’s safe but I can’t reach him.

We’re all glued to the big screen TV in my law firm’s main conference room.  The first tower begins to fall and we turn en masse from the television to look out our windows as it crumbles to the ground before our eyes.  It’s surreal, it can’t be happening.  But it happens again.  Not a word is said while we watch the second tower fall.   We are at war.  But with whom?

My mind can’t fix on what all this means.  I focus on a rumor that there’s an imminent biological anthrax attack and race to the pharmacy for enough antibiotic for my daughter.  That’s something I can do.  Again, I think, my son is in Cincinnati.  He’s safe there.

When I moved to NYC in 1969 my first job was blocks away from the Trade Center site.  The Towers were in the midst of construction and I saw them every morning across the Brooklyn Bridge as I’d head to work.  In August 1974 I watched Philippe Petit do his high wire walk between them, and three years later glimpsed at mountain climber George Willig scale one in the wind.  Even after moving my office uptown they were always in view from my window.  They spanned my career as a lawyer in NYC.  I can’t believe they’re gone.

 

The City is in shock.  Lines of thousands of refugees from downtown are trekking up Third Avenue toward home or simply to somewhere other than where they were.  No one is talking.  The smell is everywhere, acrid and bitter.  There seems to be grey dust on the shoes of every cop and will be for days.

I stop at a restaurant halfway between my office and home.  It’s Greek and run by a friend.   It’s the only place I can think of to go.  There is no one at home and I can’t get downtown to my daughter.  She’s fine.  Panos comes in.   I try making a joke about his date from last night.  I say he should marry her, she saved his life.  It’s not that funny.

A half dozen or so young men and women of about the age I was when I started working in NYC are sitting quietly at a table along the front windows.  A cell phone rings—one of the few that must be working—and one of the women answers.  She’s a dark haired girl.  She listens, shuts her phone and starts sobbing.  She says something to the others; they hug each other and cry.

Damnit.

It’s after midnight by the time I head home.  My cell phone rings on the way.  It’s a friend from Capri in Italy.  He’s been trying to reach me all day to see if I’m okay.  I hang up and continue home.  I’m tearing.  Friendship like his is what life’s all about.  Family and friends are what matter.

A week later I drive to my farm, get in my pickup and head to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  I decide not to go back to NYC but drive south, toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I’ve never been there before, but it just seems the place to be.  I have to drive by Washington, DC to get there.  It’s only when I see the first sign for DC that I realize I’ve made an unconscious pilgrimage past the three sites of the 9/11 massacre—NYC, Western PA, DC.

 

Duck, NC is chilly in the off-season and the ocean is wild.  I lock myself in a hotel room overlooking the sea and complete my first novel.  I’m driven to make something good come out of all of this bad.  A week later I drive back to NYC.  I’m on the Jersey Turnpike heading north and close to the City, but I can’t tell where it begins.  Its southern landmark is gone.  This world is insane.

A few years later I give up my life in NYC and move to the Aegean island of Mykonos to pursue my dream of writing mysteries exploring the heart and soul of Greece.   There is no reason to wait any longer.  Is there?

NEVER FORGET.

 

Jeff

 

On a lighter note, this month my tenth Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis novel, THE MYKONOS MOB, is available across all e-book formats for $1.99 via this link.

 

 

This Day Sixteen Years Ago

Annamaria on Monday, September 11th

I have never written it down before.

It was an early day for me, that glorious September morning—a seven-thirty appointment at the gym, physical therapy for a torn rotator cuff.  It seemed a painful way to have to start such a lovely day.  Little did I know.

Plus One, the private gym that David and I belonged to, was downtown—a big single-room space, just about a perfect square with a twenty-five foot ceiling.  By 9 AM, I was lying on a mat on the balcony, icing after my session, waiting for the pain to subside.  Down on the gym floor a few people were working out with their trainers, chatting quietly while they did their reps or running on the treadmills, which faced a big TV screen.

I was trying to relax, reminding myself of what my father had said on the phone the evening before, in answer to my complaint about the pain.  “Any therapy worthy of the name is painful, Sweetie.”

Suddenly, the gym went strangely silent.  I stood up and looked down over the railing.   A group of six or seven people—trainers in black and white Plus-One t-shirts and black shorts, clients in various colors of Spandex or baggy cotton—were gathered in silence near the treadmills, looking up at the TV screen.  The sound was off as usual.  The image was of smoke pouring out of the one of the towers of the World Trade Center—a plume drifting toward Brooklyn, dark against the beautiful blue sky.  I shed my icepack and joined those gazing at it.

“What happened?”

“A plane hit it?”

“On a day like today?”

“They think it was a small plane,” someone called out from inside the tiny corner office.

“How awful!”  It might have been me who said that.

Then the other plane hit the other tower.

“It’s terrorism,” I said.  Maybe not exactly out loud.

Without showering, I got dressed.  The battery was going dead on my tiny portable radio.  Cell phone service was already out.   I begged a crack at the landline from the gym’s staff.  There was no dial tone.  I could not reach my daughter.  I told myself she was with her children.  She was okay.

With the radio to my ear, I walked a block toward Broadway.     The entrance to the subway was already barricaded and guarded.  Just under a mile to the south, smoke was billowing in the sky.  People were streaming up Broadway, weeping, terrified, uncomprehending.  A pudgy guy in an ill-fitting light grey suit asked it he could listen to the radio.  I handed it to him.  “There is only CBS,” I said.  “The battery is very low.”  He took it and put it to his ear.

A fire engine that said “Valley Stream Fire Department” on its side went screeching down Broadway.  All the way from Valley Stream, Long Island already?

 

Two tall African-American women came to me, tears running down their faces.  “People are jumping from the roof,” one of them choked out.

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“They are,” the other woman insisted.  “What’s he saying,” she demanded of the man in grey, pointing to the radio.

He shook his head and handed it back to me.  “He’s not making much sense.”

Then there came a loud cracking and rumbling sound.  We turned to look toward it.   One of the buildings was collapsing.  Each floor on top of the one below.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom. Boom.  “We’re losing it!  We’re losing it,” the voice on radio was screaming into my ear.  A dense grey cloud was roaring in our direction up Broadway.  We turned and ran with the rest of the people.

Somewhere around Houston Street, my cell phone rang.  It was David.  He had talked to our daughter.  She was safe at home with her babies.  He had told her to stay in the house.  Her husband was on his way to her.  “We need you here,” he said.  “The employees don’t know what to do.”

 I was the CEO of Clark-Mackain, a small direct marketing company that he owned along with his partner Lorrie.  Straight up Broadway.   As I passed Grace Church at 10^th Street, the bell was ringing, mournfully, like a death toll in some medieval village.

In the office at Fifth and 20^th, the computers were still online—such as the Internet was in those days.  David had sent someone to buy a portable TV, but not much was coming through on it.  Tom, the Financial Manager, was waiting for me to find out what I knew.  He needed to go and rescue his wife who worked below the Trade Center on Water Street and was seven months pregnant.  I told him about the barricades I had passed, guarded by policemen carrying rifles.  “I’ll find a way through,” he said and took off.

 The rest of us huddled in the conference room.  Rob was worried about his father who had worked in the WTC.  They lived on Staten Island.  There was no way to get to the ferry.  Martha’s husband George was driving down from the Bronx to pick up her and anyone else he could help on their way north.  Except for George’s car, for us, walking was the only way to get around Manhattan.  I told them all that David and I would take in anyone who could not get home.  They took down our address and home phone number.  Many started to leave.

I looked into Carrie’s eyes.  A recent college grad, she had moved out of her parents’ house in Connecticut just ten days before.   I sat down next to her and took her hand.  “I want to go home,” she said.  She did not have to tell me what “home” meant at that moment.  No trains running.  No way home for her.

“Come with me,” I said.  “You can help me get some food prepared if any of these folks wind up coming to David and me for the night.  You’ll be there first, so you’ll get a proper bed and your own bathroom.”  Her rather wan smile said yes.

Rob went back to his computer one more time to see if he could get any information about his father.  Emails were coming in to all of us from all over the country, from all over the world.  On the website of some news outlet—I don’t remember which—Rob saw a picture of people escaping by running over the Brooklyn Bridge.  And there among them, his father’s face!  He headed out, sure he would find his dad at a cousin’s house in Brooklyn.

Once Carrie and I had braved the crowd at the grocery store, we walked home west on 11^th Street.  There along the south façade of St. Vincent’s Hospital—the nearest to WTC and the designated place to bring the wounded—was a long line of people waiting to donate blood.  There was a volunteer at the end of the queue, telling new arrivals that the hospital could not take more donors—only those with rare blood types.  He directed others to the Red Cross installation further uptown.  As we passed those waiting in the sun to give their blood, we encountered other people coming toward us.  They had gone to the deli to get snacks and juice for the people waiting in the line.   A little further along, we met a young guy who had gone to the drugstore and gotten sunblock.  He was doling it out to the blood donors to protect them while they waited their turn.

None of those people at the hospital had been instructed to go there to give blood, or to care for the people waiting to do so.  They had just shown up.  They had figured out what was needed, and they went and did it.

Taped to the lampposts all around my neighborhood was a typed message.  I wish I had a copy of the real thing.  I had wanted to take one, but I left them in place for others to read.

The message was to this effect:

Dear Fellow New Yorkers, our precious city has been attacked by people who seek to terrify us.  They likely chose our city because it represents everything the terrorists abhor.  New York is a symbol, all over the world, of freedom.  It always has and always will welcome every sort of person who wants an opportunity to become all they can be.

The attackers want us to be terrified.  But they have picked the wrong people.  Many, if not most of us have come to New York from other safer, easier, less challenging places.    We came here because we are willing to take risks to be who we are and who we want to be.  We need to mourn our dead.  But let’s also show those who wish to destroy us who they are dealing with.  A people who refused to be cowed.  We are New Yorkers.  Let them see our mettle.

And we did!

A Bit of Inspiration, Make that Two Bits.

These days, searching the news for anything positive about Greece makes me appreciate the position of social director on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg: it’s all about the crisis, stupid.

But if you look hard enough, you’ll find what assures us who know and love Greece that no matter what happens in that tortured/torturing bit of central Athens known as Parliament, Hellas will survive.

This week I found my inspiration through the Greece-Ellada Facebook page of my Mykonian friend, Milka Milada Piccini. 

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou

It was an aerial video tour high above some of Greece’s most beautiful and enduring landscapes.  I’ve seen longer versions of the film before, some with subtitles and a guidebook soundtrack, others set to the music of Vangelis.  You don’t know Vangelis?  Think Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner and of one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time. 

But this is the best one I’ve found at capturing in fifteen minutes the essence of what is Greece.  Done in high definition video and set to largely traditional music, it briefly touches upon the environs of Athens, then drifts out to sea and on to Mykonos and Delos before soaring on to other islands (mostly Cycladic) and mainland sites, passing over Macedonia, Mount Athos, Meteora, Delphi, Olympia, and so many others. Here it is:

By the time it’s over I promise you will be at peace.  To remain that way, I suggest you stay away from all news for as long as you can stand.

I have one more inspirational site/sight for your consideration.  It’s a photograph I took three days ago from the same window in my New York City office as I watched the World Trade Center Twin Towers crumble on 9/11.

Centered in the photo is the new One World Trade Center on its way to reclaiming a dominant position in Manhattan's skyline.  Ninety floors up, fourteen more to go.

God Bless America.  God Bless Greece.

Jeff—Saturday

BOUCHERCON HIATUS: My September 11, 2001

We’re still at Bouchercon, doing all the things that make hanging out with friends and fans worthwhile, but I’ll leave the telling of those tales to others.  After all, “What happens in St. Louis stays in St. Louis.”  Though I must admit, Dan, I'm having a really hard time not saying at least something about Ysra bringing that sheep's head into the hotel bar.

Today’s post was written at the request of a New York City-based newspaper to be part of its 9/11 10th year commemorative issue.  I was asked to talk about where I was that Tuesday morning.  Here is what I wrote. 

I like it over here by the United Nations.  Beekman Place is different from other New York City streets; it’s more like a quiet, residential private road in an elegant European city.  My walk to my office is down First Avenue overlooking the East River and alongside the gardens and flags of the UN.  It gives me a few daily moments of serenity and escape from the often out of control state of my life as a lawyer here.

I need this walk today.  The sky is so blue and clear, except for the few smoke-like clouds on the downtown horizon.  I’m up by the UN General Assembly Building when I call my friend Panos to find out how his date went last night.  He’s frantic and says he can’t talk.  He’s waiting for his mother to call him from Greece.  I ask if everything is OK.  He says she’ll be worried when she hears that his office was struck by a plane.  I must have misunderstood him.  He works in the World Trade Center.  He says his office building is burning and he has to get off the phone.

Those are not clouds on the horizon, it’s smoke.

I tell him to get out of the building.  He says it’s not necessary.  He’s okay.  His date kept him out late and he’s still at home.  He’ll go to work in the afternoon, after the fire is out.  He hangs up.

How could a plane have hit the World Trade Center on a day as clear as this one?  Something must have happened to the pilot.  I hear sirens everywhere and move a little faster toward my office.  By the time I get upstairs everyone is looking out the windows on the south side of our building.  It has an unobstructed view of the Towers.  Now they’re both burning.  I’m told a second plane hit the second Tower.  We all know what that means—even before learning about the Pentagon.  Someone tells me a plane hit Pittsburgh, my hometown.  I can’t believe what I’m hearing.  I call my daughter, she lives in Greenwich Village.  She’s frightened.  We all are.  I tell her to keep calm. My son is in Cincinnati, I’m sure he’s safe but I can’t reach him.

We’re all glued to the big screen TV in my law firm’s main conference room.  The first tower begins to fall and we turn en masse from the television to look out our windows as it crumbles to the ground before our eyes.  It’s surreal, it can’t be happening.  But it happens again.  Not a word is said while we watch the second tower fall.   We are at war.  But with whom?

My mind can’t fix on what all this means.  I focus on a rumor that there’s an imminent biological anthrax attack and race to the pharmacy for enough antibiotic for my daughter.  That’s something I can do.  Again, I think, my son is in Cincinnati.  He’s safe there.

When I moved to NYC in 1969 my first job was blocks away from the Trade Center site.  The Towers were in the midst of construction and I saw them every morning across the Brooklyn Bridge as I’d head to work.  In August 1974 I watched Philippe Petit do his high wire walk between them, and three years later glimpsed at mountain climber George Willig scale one in the wind.  Even after moving my office uptown they were always in view from my window.  They spanned my career as a lawyer in NYC.  I can’t believe they’re gone.

 

The City is in shock.  Lines of thousands of refugees from downtown are trekking up Third Avenue toward home or simply to somewhere other than where they were.  No one is talking.  The smell is everywhere, acrid and bitter.  There seems to be grey dust on the shoes of every cop and will be for days.

I stop at a restaurant halfway between my office and home.  It’s Greek and run by a friend.   It’s the only place I can think of to go.  There is no one at home and I can’t get downtown to my daughter.  She’s fine.  Panos comes in.   I try making a joke about his date from last night.  I say he should marry her, she saved his life.  It’s not that funny.

A half dozen or so young men and women of about the age I was when I started working in NYC are sitting quietly at a table along the front windows.  A cell phone rings—one of the few that must be working—and one of the women answers.  She’s a dark haired girl.  She listens, shuts her phone and starts sobbing.  She says something to the others; they hug each other and cry.

Damnit.

It’s after midnight by the time I head home.  My cell phone rings on the way.  It’s a friend from Capri in Italy.  He’s been trying to reach me all day to see if I’m okay.  I hang up and continue home.  I’m tearing.  Friendship like his is what life’s all about.  Family and friends are what matter.

A week later I drive to my farm, get in my pickup and head to Pittsburgh to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  I decide not to go back to NYC but drive south, toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I’ve never been there before, but it just seems the place to be.  I have to drive by Washington, DC to get there.  It’s only when I see the first sign for DC that I realize I’ve made an unconscious pilgrimage past the three sites of the 9/11 massacre—NYC, Western PA, DC.

 

Duck, NC is chilly in the off-season and the ocean is wild.  I lock myself in a hotel room overlooking the sea and complete my first novel.  I’m driven to make something good come out of all of this bad.  A week later I drive back to NYC.  I’m on the Jersey Turnpike heading north and close to the City, but I can’t tell where it begins.  Its southern landmark is gone.  This world is insane.

A few years later I give up my life in NYC and move to the Aegean island of Mykonos to pursue my dream of writing mysteries exploring the heart and soul of Greece.   There is no reason to wait any longer.  Is there?

Jeff—Saturday