Last night, right before sunset I took Bill for his daily ride. This time down Oyster Rocks Road to the Broadkill River.
Usually there are several vehicles parked at this dead end location of Oyster Rocks Road. Not last evening though. We had this peaceful area all to ourselves.
I timed our visit just right because the sun was just setting on that day, which was the twenty-second anniversary of 9/11 in which so many innocent people lost their lives to religious fanatics.
I video taped a few minutes of this serenity in memory of those lives lost.
Today is the 22nd anniversary of the brutal attack on our country by religious fanatics.
Like many of you I will always remember where I was when I heard/saw the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
I was working at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, PA. It was a Monday morning and my first day on my new job as a sales associate. I was waiting for "Linda" (the sales associate) to begin training me to be her backup.
I was seated at a desk in the back office, by the computer terminal waiting for Linda. To my left up in the corner of the back office (behind the front desk and in front of the manager's office) was a small screen TV. The same kind of TV that was in the breakfast room out in the main room on the other side of the front desk. One of the TV morning shows was on, I think "ABC This Morning."
Cathy, the breakfast hostess came to the back office and said "A plane just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers." My first thought was "How stupid. Some hot dog crashed his small plane into the World Trade Center."
Linda switched the channel on the back office TV to show the coverage. I remember being frustrated because now my sales associate training would be delayed while Linda and others watched the TV coverage of the crash. I looked at the coverage for a few minutes and was fascinated by the smoke coming out of the World Trade Center building. Then I went back to my computer terminal and did some practice sets on my new sales associate job until Linda could sit next to me and show me what she did in her job.
Then, in what seemed like only a few minutes later, I heard a gasp from the breakfast room and Cathy shouted "A plane just hit the other building!" I knew then that the first plane wasn't an accident. My stomach sank.
I stopped my practice set and glued my eyes to the TV in the upper corner of the back offie. Every body was gathered around outside the manager's office watching the TV coverage now as well as the hotel guests in the breakfast room were watching the coverage in the breakfast room.
As I was watching the TV reporters giving their reports I could hear "plopping sounds" behind them. Someone asked what were those sounds. The reporter hesitated before she said "Those are people jumping from the towers and hitting the ground behind her. Some of them are hitting the canopies."
I was sickened and angry at the same time. "How could this be happening?" These people did nothing wrong that day but go to work and then they were faced with a decision to either die of smoke inhalation or burn to death of jump to their death. That some would try to save themselves by aiming for the canopies stunned me.
All of us in the office continued to watch the TV coverage for the next hour or so, trying to figure out what happened. Then we heard the news of the plane crash in Shanksville, PA and the Pentagon.
My sales associate training was cancelled for the day and I left the hotel early.
Every one was stunned.
Now, twenty-two years later we know what happened. Religious extremists were responsible for the mass murders of 2,977 innocent people.
And for what? To impose their retribution on those who don't adhere to their religious views?
Of course today we have another mortal threat to our democracy with religious extremists. Yes, I am talking about The Enemy Within.
Cult followers who follow a known con man who was put into power by Christian Evangelicals.
Yes, Muslim extremists were responsible for 9/11. Now we have an even greater threat by the Republican Party and Christian Evangelicals in this country. A much greater threat than some ragged assed Muslim extremists from Saudi Arabia.
Monday, September 11th, 2011 was my first day on my new job as an assistant sales associate at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, Pennsylvania.
As I sat down at my desk, waiting for Linda, the sales director to show me how to block rooms on the computer, Kathy, our breakfast hostess came up to the front desk and said "A plane just hit on of the towers of the World Trade Center!" She saw this on the TV that was on in the lobby where she was serving breakfast to the hotel guests.
Someone said "Turn on the TV." We had a TV in the back office where I was seated, awaiting the beginning of my training. My first response was one of annoyance, because here was yet another delay in learning my new job.
I sat at my desk waiting for Linda, while everyone else in the back office was looking up at the TV which was located in the corner of the ceiling of the back office. Some of the comments were:
"What could have happened?"
"Do you think a small plane hit the tower?"
"How stupid that someone could fly right into one of those towers."
"Do you think they're be able to put out THAT fire?"
I turned around and looked and saw the smoke pouring out of the tower. To be honest, I was more concerned about getting on with my training. I was becoming more annoyed.
Then the second tower exploded. All went silent in the office. We all knew then that this was more than an accident. We knew.
Life has never been the same since.
Take a minute today to pause and reflect on those thousands of innocents who lost their lives that day just for being in the wrong place and the wrong time. Also take a minute to pause and reflect that the evil that perpetuated this crime against humanity is still with us.
All the prayers in the world aren't going to help you when evil like this is unleashed.
There are two dates embedded in my memory that I know exactly where I was when I first heard those life changing events.
The first event was John F. Kennedy's assassination. I was 22 years old and working at Lipsett Steel Products in Coatesville, PA. Lipsett Steel was a scrap metal company. I was the accounts payable clerk in the small, dingy office located in the scrapyard.
It was a Friday afternoon and I was finishing posting invoices to a ledger. This was back in the day before computers. Everything was done by hand.
My office manager, Charlie Ashe, called out of his office next to mine and said "Kennedy's been shot!" My first reaction was that I couldn't believe it. My second reaction was: would this interfere with my Friday night that I was planning to take the train to Philadelphia and hang out in the Westbury Bar with my friends, Ron and Ed? Sounds selfish, and it was.
I tried to call my Mother to tell her that I heard that Kennedy was shot. I couldn't get though the lines, they were jammed. This is the first time I ever experienced that situation.
I called my friend Ron, who worked at Girard Bank in Philadelphia and told him the news. He had already heard.
You know it's funny now, but I don't remember if Kennedy's assassination did interfere with my Friday night plans. What I do remember is the wall to wall news coverage that weekend.
I remember very clearly that it was a rainy Sunday morning and I was ironing my shirts. I had the TV on and would look up occasionally at the TV screen. Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused gunman, was being transferred from his cell to another location. The time was about 9:30 am. As I was ironing my shirt I heard a gunshot and looked up at the TV and saw a lot of commotion. I thought it was acting. Someone had shot Lee Harvey Oswald! I could not believe it.
Fast forward to that crystal clear, bright and cool day on September 11th, 2001. I was now working at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, PA. This morning was my first morning as a sales assistant. My training was to begin on the computer. I was at the computer, ready to learn new functions (prior to this I was a front desk clerk at the hotel) when Cathy, the breakfast hostess called over the front desk and said "A plane just flew into one of the World Trade Center buildings." Beth, the manager who was going to train me, left and turned on the TV in the corner of the room so we could see what had happened.
The first thing I thought was that I couldn't believe it. The second thing I thought "Was this going to interfere with my training today?" Sounds selfish and it was. I hadn't changed much over the years.
Everyone gathered around the TV that was mounted high up in the corner of the back office room and watched the smoke billow out of the World Trade Center tower. Yes, this was going to interfere with my training.
While I sat at the computer waiting for Beth to come back, another plane crashed into the second tower! Now I knew this was no accident.
Forget the training. My life and everyone else's life had just been permanently changed forever.
Today, as I look back over my life of 68 years I realize that I have always lived under some kind of threat.
When I was growing up it was the threat of the atom bomb. I remember being told that if the A-bomb or, even worse the H-bomb (how could it be worse? Aren't all bombs bad?) that we children in elementary school were to huddle under our desks. Even then my ten year old mind realized that huddling under my wooden desk with metal legs wasn't going to provide me with much protection. My ten year old mind quickly figured out that I would be burnt toast if a bomb was dropped. I was more concerned with hurting myself by squeezing in between those sharp edged metal desk legs that the East Ward Elementary School had at that time.
As I became a young man my next concern was being drafted into the Army and being forced to shoot somebody. I didn't want to do that nor did I want anyone to shoot at me. I decided to join the Army so I at least could have some say as to what I would do in the Army.
After I got out of the Army and came out as a gay man there was the Vietnam War that seemed endless. Just as growing up the Korean War seemed like it would never end. Now the war in Afghanistan seems like it will never end.
Because I joined the Army I wasn't drafted to go and fight in Vietnam like many of my peers, some of whom never came back alive. I dodged that bullet.
Then there was the window of relative peace and tranquility for me. The years from 1969 to 1980.
My job at Girard Bank in Philadelphia (my friend Ron got me in there) was one that I liked and it paid well. I was out as a gay man and lived in Philadelphia. Thus I enjoyed all the benefits of being young, attractive and within walking distance of all the popular gay night spots. I took full advantage.
Then came a time of 1980. A new malady was sweeping through the gay community. It was called "GRID" which was an acronym for "Gay Related Immune Deficiency." It was rumored that gays caught it by sniffing poppers. I sniffed poppers. Acquaintances and friends became ill and suffered horrible deaths. We're not talking "Love Story", Reclining On a Pillow Deaths here. We're talking ugly, painful and terrible deaths.
I figured I was getting a little long in the tooth to still hang at the bars and besides, I was losing interest anyway. There was more than one night when Last Call was called that I wondered why I was in a smoke filled bar, boozed up looking for I don't know what.
I decided at 37 years old to chuck that "lifestyle." I told Bill that we had to sell our home on Naudain Street in center city Philadelphia. I wanted to move out in the country where I could breath. I also wanted to live near my parents in case they needed as as they got older.
We sold our townhouse in Philadelphia and built a two story gambrel roofed farmhouse on 6.875 acres of land in East Brandywine Township, in Downingtown, PA.
We lived there for twenty-five peaceful years. My only concern was holding onto my banking job as the banks merged and my former secure banking job was now in jeopardy.
I did eventually lose my job at the bank and was collecting unemployment when I decided to apply for a night auditor job at the Hampton Inn in Lionville. When I had got out of the Army my first job was as a night auditor at the Pittsburgh Hilton in Pittsburgh. I thought to myself "I can do that job." The only reason I didn't stay at the Pittsburgh Hilton was because I was homesick for my family in eastern Pennsylvania. In Pittsburgh I was five hours away.
I applied for the night auditor job at the Hampton Inn and was hired immediately. It wasn't too long that I was asked to also fill in for some of my co-workers at the front desk. The next thing I knew I was a full-time front desk clerk. Then I was also asked to help the sales manager. That was how I came to be sitting at the computer on 9/11/2001 waiting for Beth Mancini, the hotel manager to begin training me as a sales associate.
Now here I am nine years later living in Delaware. Bill and I sold our house in Pennsylvania because I could no longer afford to pay the ever increasing school taxes of Pennsylvania. Plus, I always wanted to live "near the water."
This is where I am now. I am living near the water. The Atlantic Ocean is two miles from where I am sitting right now. Every morning I drive the six miles to Rehoboth Beach to "walk the boards." This is my exercise of both body and brain. It is amazing how refreshed I feel after walking up and down the boardwalk four times, for a total of four miles.
I recently began this wonderful, life affirming activity. I feel fulfilled after I return home at about 8 am in the morning. However, I think it is so ironic that in all my years I am still living under a threat.
Of course the most immediate threat is again one of nuclear annihilation. Not of a long range Russian bomber plane but of some nut bag suicide bomber who drops a dirty bomb in Times Square.
My second threat is economic. I never thought in my retirement years that I would have to worry about our elected representatives taking away benefits that we were promised and that we paid for. I remember very clearly having FICA taxes deducted from my pay for over fifty years. In fact, it is still being deducted. And yet our wonder lawmakers remind us that there is "no money left in the Social Security trust fund." That's because they spent it all on wars and their pet projects.
I was promised lifetime medical care, if I needed it, when I joined the Army back in 1960. When I lost my job at the bank I needed medical care. I had to have two surgeries and I had no medical insurance. The Bush administration tried to disallow my earned VA medical eligibility because I wasn't a disabled veteran. Thank goodness they never got that law changed. But, because they tried to screw me, I changed my party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
I was a lifelong Republican (my first vote was for Barry Goldwater) but I didn't recognize this Republican Party anymore. Especially since the 1992 Republican Party Convention that was held in Houston, Texas. Pat Buchanan gave a speech in which he equated homosexuals like me with what the Republican Party was against. When I saw those lily white, well dressed, Republican men and women the audience wildly cheer and raise their fists in approval, a chill went down my spine. I thought "I am not wanted in this political party anymore." In fact, those cheering "Good Republicans" reminded me all too much of those grainy pre-World War II films in which "Good Germans" give the "Heil Hitler!" salute to Hitler as he passes by during one of those big production number Nuremberg Nazi rallies. I didn't know these people, those white, clean cut, smiling Republicans cheering Pat Buchanan during and after his hateful and divisive speech.
So here we come to today. I voted for Barrack Obama and "change we can believe in." Now I am coming to the realization that that was just empty rhetoric to get him elected. Barrack Obama is against same sex marriage. Barrack Obama has done nothing, not even a stop-loss, to prevent gays and lesbians being kicked out of the military. Barrack Obama passed a health care bill without a public option. This is a phony bill. The only thing that has changed for me is that my premiums have gone up. Now Barrack Obama is getting squishy on letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.
For the first time in my adult life I don't think I will vote in the next election. The Republicans are dangerous and only have their own self interests at heart. All they want to do is have tax cuts and deregulate. The "Every man (and woman) for themselves" philosophy. The Democrats are spineless. They are also controlled by special interests. They are part and parcel of decimating the middle class (of which I consider myself a member, the bottom rung.) They care nothing for people like me, a gay male of the lower socio-economic ladder who doesn't have children and isn't a member of the "Good Old Boy's Club." Neither political party cares for people like me. They are only interested in maintaining their power base and they do that by appeasing their special interest groups who fund their campaigns.
Every morning now I drive in the dark (I get up at 4:30 and leave by 6) to Rehoboth Beach. Except for a few other hardy souls on the boardwalk, I am in my own world. I listen to the waves crash on the sandy shore of the beach. I hear the seagulls looking for their daily meal. Other early morning sounds are the sound of sneaker clad feet pounding the boardwalk of those souls who think running is better than walking (I'm not one of them.) For a few peaceful, tranquil moments I am soothed. All is right with the world.
I walk. I listen. I appreciate the fact that I have lived a good life in spite of the many threats that have loomed before me during my Journey. If I should die tomorrow from an illness or an accident or a terrorists attack, I will die knowing that I have beat the odds. Too many friends and family have died or are dying. Either by luck, skill or a combination of bought, I got this far and I intend to keep going.
Yes, I purchased more plants today. I wasn’t planning on buying more plants but when Bill and I were at Lowe’s this morning, I saw forsythia plants at a price that I couldn’t pass up. After I purchased the forsythia plants, the floodgates were opened to filling my cart. I couldn’t leave Lowe’s with a half empty cart. I also purchased a variegated barberry bush, a burning bush and a couple sage herb plants.
Then what did I do when I got home? I unloaded the plants and then took off to Peppers to buy some annuals for color in my new raised flower beds. So I’m thinking “Ron, aren’t you spending a lot of money on plants?” I answer “Yes, you are Ron.” Then I asked myself “What would you rather do – spend a couple thousand dollars taking a trip or spend a couple hundred dollars stuffing my backyard with plants?” The answer was easy, the plants won.
I haven’t traveled since 9/11. The last time I took a plane, I didn’t have to take my shoes off before I boarded the plane. I don’t want to take my shoes off to board a plane. In fact, I don’t plan to fly again until they get rid of that ridiculous requirement. It’s phony. It's a feelgood measure by those in charge of security to convince themselves they're doing something. How many potential shoe bombers have they caught? No thank you, I'm not going to subject myself to air travel these days.
Travel these days is such a hassle. While I would love to visit my brother and his wife in South Carolina I can’t bring myself to jump through all the hoops it would take me to visit them. I would love to visit Johnson City, Tennessee and the western North Carolina mountains where my father spent the first 10 years of his life. I haven’t been there since 1996. To visit would be so difficult. I would have to either drive my car or connect with a series of flights and rent a car. I just don’t have the energy. What I do have the energy for is working on my backyard to create a natural habitat for the local birds and insects. I get immense satisfaction from working in my backyard. I love listening to the Purple Martins training their new young to fly. I love seeing the swallows gracefully swooping down on my backyard scooping up mosquitoes. What I don’t like is the stress and aggravation of travel. While I would enjoy seeing the people I visit, getting there is the problem. I also have to consider the expense. Now that my hours have been cut back to once a week, I don’t have those extra discretionary funds. My choice is obvious.
So, I will continue to look for that spot in my backyard that needs just the right plant. Gardening is my joy and passion. It’s better than a backyard pool.
