Wednesday, September 11, 2002
What now after a year? - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Like the generations before us who ask, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’, generations of today will no doubt be asking and wondering where they were on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. That day, I’m sure, is ingrained in our minds. We all remember where we were, and what we were doing. We remember too, as we always must, what we felt.
One year later it’s easy to forget, plus it is easy to trivialise and often be melodramatic. Was it really that big a day in history? I think we can all agree it was, but is it making martyrs out of unlikely and undeserving people? Perhaps. We certainly don’t need Bruce Springsteen resurrecting his flagging career off the backs of the dead, nor do we need Peter Jennings telling us what’s appropriate listening come the Fourth of July.
A while back I was out to dinner with a bunch of friends and I went around the table asking them where they were one year ago; where they were when they found out that something was up in New York City. Alan Jackson, the country warbler, recently performed on Larry King’s program a ditty that asked the musical question, ‘Where were you when the world stopped turning?’ On the same CNN show King had the ingenious idea of replaying clips of past guests all saying where they were one year ago. In a way, as a sort of game, it’s fun to know where significant people were at the same time as yourself.
Whilst the First Lady, Laura Bush, was in Senator Ted Kennedy’s office, and President and Mrs. Ford were in Beaver Creek, Colorado; I was just waking up. I remember not having to get up until about 8:00 that morning, because my class didn’t start until late morning. But, I woke up and switched the radio in the room, tuned as always to CKNW. I was expecting to hear Frosty Forst’s unmistakable voice making fun of weather boy Phil Reimer. A tad sleepy and half awake, I awoke immediately upon hearing the voice of CKNW News Director Gord MacDonald. Gord, you rarely hear on CKNW unless delivering the station’s newscasts at the top and bottom of the hour. This was neither, and I knew by the sense of urgency in his voice that it was not business as usual. It was not just another ‘breaking news’ bulletin.
Then taking the facts given to the listener, and putting them together, I figured out a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. While trying to process the onslaught of information, I thought it must have been one of those amateur planes that people fly out at the Langley airport. Then in an unbelievable recap of the events heretofore, Gord said something like one of the Twin Towers had collapsed. By then I was bolt up in bed, fending off the sleepiness, because I knew so early in the day, this wasn’t going to be a normal day.
There’s no television set in my room, and the closest one is in my parents’ room. I went there and tuned in to see smoke billowing from the symbolic epicentre of American capitalism and finance. One remembers the bombing of 8 years earlier, and sort of puts two and two together. Then I sat on the edge of the bed -- horrified, shocked, disbelieving -- as that giant tower, once thought invincible, fall to the ground. I took myself away from the television and did about my morning business of getting ready for class. By the time I got to the Langara campus that morning, the halls were filled with people staring at the monitors, watching CNN’s live coverage up and down the halls of the school. There must have been thousands trying to soak up the history in the making.
One year later what’s really surprising to realise that it’s been a year. Naturally, as my heart goes out to everyone who lost so much, one finally comprehends that the adage ‘time heals everything’ is a load of crap. Lest we forget is the most apt of phrases. And I hope we never.
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Tomorrow, I hope to file a column on what I heard at the lecture presented by David Frum. Frum, of course, is the acclaimed and derided pundit, who earlier this year completed a term writing speeches for President George W. Bush. It was an interesting talk and in this space, tomorrow, I’ll share my thoughts on that.
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