Tag: history

Today I was thinking of memories of 911.

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When the tragedy happened, people were stunned. For those who worked there or had friends, it was unimaginable. Although I didn’t live in New York at the time, for a moment, we were all New Yorkers. As the years passed and the museum and new development progressed, I often thought of visiting, but didn’t want to, perhaps because my memories of the buildings were too strong, making it hard to believe they no longer existed. 

For a couple of months, I worked temporarily in one of the towers. Coming and going was a mad rush of people going in and out. Our offices were on the 90-something floor. Going up was unusual; we could hear the whooshing of air as the elevator flew up to our floor.

After putting it off for years, on a visit to New York City around my birthday, I did head to the museum for a long-overdue tour. It was time. As I visited the museum, the buildings’ memories, the vibrancy of the activity in and around them, and the subsequent devastating loss of life were overwhelming. There are so many memories – and they all came flooding back the second I walked into the exhibits. The young and newly married husband of my daughter’s high school friend was memorialized there forever. She was 3 months pregnant with their daughter when he died, and while their lives have gone on without him, his name is carved in stone as a constant reminder of horrific and unnecessary loss.

There are artifacts, remembrances, photos, voices, clippings, steel pieces, and concrete at every turn in the museum. In the background, through the silence, everyone hears the song “Amazing Grace” played softly and so well by a bagpipe musician. It isn’t a museum of paintings and sculptures created hundreds of years ago — it’s a living, breathing, and powerful reminder of people, places, and an event that was (and is) unimaginable to everyone. Please don’t miss this experience. It will remain in your thoughts forever.

When the Berlin Wall came down, I was there with my hammer.

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I recently read an interesting article about the many lifestyle changes happening in Germany. Just like in other countries, including the USA, it seems that many people, especially new college graduates, are not focusing much on the events that shaped their country’s history. I’d like to share an event that occurred during a time of significant cosmic change.

For many years I’ve attended a travel conference in Berlin, and on one memorable occasion, it was held around the time the Berlin Wall was coming down. I knew I wanted to see the wall again, especially as it was actually being taken down, so when I planned my trip to Berlin, I included a small hammer and chisel in my bag.

Sure enough, one day, a friend and I went to the Wall to see what’s up. Everywhere we looked, people were trying to knock out a piece of the wall. People were renting ladders and hammers from forward-thinking entrepreneurs, but I was ahead of the game. I brought my stuff with me. I asked one of the people there if I could borrow his ladder for a short time. He agreed, and I began hammering into the wall and chiseling pieces off. Let me say right now that was one hard wall. It was solid concrete, reinforced to an extreme degree. This was Class A, East German concrete.

I was teetering on the ladder right above where my friend took this photo. I was pounding the wall, and small pieces began to fall off. I managed to hack off several pretty good-sized pieces with minimal damage to my knuckles. I brought the pieces (and my equipment) back to San Francisco. As luck would have it, one of my daughters was studying the fall of the Wall in school. I gave her a handful of brightly colored concrete to take to school for show-and-tell. To put it simply, she earned an “’A “on that project. I still have several pieces of the wall on my desk. I hope that this is the only Wall that restricted anyone’s movement anywhere in the world.

An average of 150 WW2 vets die every day.

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My friend, Fred, was one of them.

I stood alongside members of Fred’s family and friends to honor my friend for the last time. He was a neighbor, church companion, daredevil driver, an enthusiastic gardener, and a wonderful dad and husband.

He lived right up the street from me; he and his lovely wife, Ruth, drove by endless times each week. If they could see my car in the driveway, they’d invariably stop by to “visit,” as they say in the South. In Church, Ruth would often sit behind me, and Fred, in his self-appointed role of photographer-in-chief, would busy himself snapping photos of anyone who came into his view. They were loved and respected by everyone.

While Fred had so much to be proud of, he spoke most enthusiastically about an “Honor Flight” that he and other veterans were able to take to Washington, DC. The flight and all expenses are paid by a local merchant. The group flies round-trip to DC on a chartered plane and is met by volunteers who take them on extended guided tours of the military monuments and sites in Washington.

He simply could not stop talking about the trip and what it meant to the group, as well as to him personally. I happened to be at the airport here when one of the flights was boarding for a trip (not Fred’s). Before boarding, the veterans were like children on their first outing; they were so excited they couldn’t sit still. When the plane taxied out for take-off, two airport fire trucks came alongside, giving them a gigantic 2-barrel water cannon send-off. It was a beautiful sight; everyone around me cheered as loudly as possible for them.

Fred, I miss you; I am so proud to have been a part of your final ceremony.