September 11

 9/11/2001

Minus Post 1

I didn’t feel well. I was up at four AM and considered calling in sick for the day. I’m not sure what made me decide to go.

On the way to school I bought something, a beverage or something, at Cumberland Farms. Leaving the store I walked between two dumpsters without noticing they were being picked up. If the operator had moved the dumpster forward I could have been crushed.

My morning of teaching was uneventful. I taught what I needed to teach for my chemistry class and when the bell rang at 9:15 the class was dismissed. I don’t know who told me to turn on the TV during the passing time but I did. They were already replaying the video of the first plane hitting the towers. At first I thought it was a Cessna that had gotten off track. Then as I realized what was going on I realized that the scale of a cessna to the towers was off. This was a big plane.

It was such a beautiful day. I went on a bike ride with a friend of mine and the silence, after a day of TV, was surreal. It was such a beautiful day.

In the days after I thought: “What if we had the balls to send peace?” Could we, would we be bold enough to execute the greatest turn the other cheek in the history of the world? Instead of attacking as everyone said we must, why not send people and love and friendship. For the first time in the world a country would not fight war with more war and -- and here I got a little crazy even for this crazy notion -- the world would follow and there would be peace. (I learned -- only this year -- that Stanley McCrystal was reflecting on the US response after 9/11 and said that he would have like to spend a year doing nothing military. A year to teach 10,000 Americans Dari/Farsi and Pashto and Arabic. A year to better understand what just happened and plan the response.)

In Star Trek First Contact, the captain explains to the people of earth’s past that after humans realized that they were not alone in the universe they stopped all wars and came together. Could 9/11 be something like that for the real humans instead of the fictional ones of the Star Trek franchise? No.

No, it could not. And as time wore on I began to think that maybe the human race won’t ever get to peace. Our ability to solve problems with one another amicably and peacefully is not only lacking -- it seems to be getting worse. On 9/11 I was in my late 20s. Now, nearing 50, I have started to think about what I have accomplished in my own life and what humans will have accomplished during my brief time here. I’m hoping for a lot more.