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I was in Midtown on 9/11 - 4 miles north of Ground Zero. It was a truly heartbreaking and awful day. We were worried about the other show dropping; we were getting (false) reports of a van loaded with explosives being stopped on the George Washington Bridge, and a guy with an explosives vest walking through the Lincoln Tunnell. I hugged Mrs DoodleBob and the little DoodleBobs when I finally made it home; while I wasn't near the Twin Towers or in imminent danger, I considered myself lucky.

Months later, I walked down to Ground Zero...this was when it was still a pit and debris was being removed, but there wasn't as much work remaining. What struck me was two things:

1. The immense feeling of void, of emptiness. What had been an immense and bustling complex of buildings punctuated by the Twin Towers was just...nothing. I called my wife and simply said - "they're gone." It sounds stupid, but that was all I could muster.

2. As I walked toward Ground Zero from Greenwich St, the faces of people walking back from Ground Zero had one of three looks: 1-profound sorrow - not just tears but an aching, 2-stunned nothingness, like the joy in their life had been washed away, and 3-anger and resolve...people were not just pissed, but PISSED.

I don't want to get all Liberal, but it is worth noting that the aforementioned people who looked pissed on my walk to Ground Zero were from all walks of life - old, young, white, black, Hispanic, Asian. That may have been the last time America was united...but I'll take the infighting we have today vs an attack that reunites us all. Never forget 9/11.

That was a very saddening and beautiful post.

You’d think it would get easier with the years.

To be honest, some years it just didn’t really affect me (probably avoided thinking about it) and other years it bothered me to different degrees but this year it hit hard.

Maybe being on the other side of 50 makes one more introspective.

That day changed a lot of us for good. Or bad, actually.

I will always remember the many, many wonderful trips home o the ferry to Staten Island, sitting outside and watching them as we made our way home.

And there’s nothing liberal about all Americans feeling the loss at such a horror. There’s nothing liberal about thinking all Americans should feel the same loss.

Because the flip side is that POS al sharpton saying back then that it didn’t matter as much to black folks.

Another 9/11 comes and goes.

And we will never get to taste justice.