Local Tragedies and National Ones - Will We Remember?

Lamorinda Patch extends its sympathies and best wishes to all those who had their lives ripped out from under them in San Bruno Thursday. I am hearing through Patch colleagues there that the community is working hard to take care of all those affected by last night's fires, and I hope they are able to rebuild soon.

I was penning a short story on Sept. 11 when the news that a gas line explosion had killed one person and injured several others first reached me. Television images of row upon row of burning homes and rubble took me back to the day in 2001 when the nation's attention was focused on another tragedy which set us on course for a global war which rages to this day.

I was leaving for work when the first call came in that morning. "Turn on CNN," a friend murmured into the phone. The television flickered and I saw the tower, torn and ripped and burning. Minutes later the second plane struck and any notion of accidental occurrence was instantly dispelled.

"We're at war," I said.

It was one of those moments, "defining" some would call it. I wondered how drastically our lives would be changed, if there would be rationing, and gold stars hanging in the windows like they did in my parent's neighborhood during their war. On that point, at least, I was partially right as many good people began to die and solemn processions began to make their way back to towns across America. After a while, though, I got the sense that people were forgetting that awful day - a feeling borne out with a visit to a local 9-11 Remembrance and the realization that few people seemed to care any more.

I left disheartened, straightening the flag we've flown on our front porch since the day of the attacks when I got home, wondering if we really are, as someone once said, "a nation of amnesiacs."

You tell me. Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001, and what did you expect to happen when the towers fell? Or would you rather that it all just went away?