Posted on 12/31/2001 2:12:16 PM PST by summer
Thx to all FReepers everywhere and Hope you have peace this year. Zip and family
My brother said that the WTC buildings, to him, had always been a sort of embodiment of capitalism: after you walked through a few huge marble lobbies and rode up in the glossy, swift elevators to a view hundreds of feet above the city, you stepped off "ready to do business."
And, of course, aside from the buildings, it was where so many good, hard-working people died horribly. At first, I didn't want to go to see it, but then I felt it would be disrespectful to the dead not to go.
So I went, and joined the many tourists, all of them solemn and many of them weeping, who walked around the huge site. The city opened a viewing platform this weekend for people who wanted to look out over work that is going on in the pit, and people waited in line for two or three hours just to stand there for a few minutes. I think we all came just to offer prayers for those poor people and to somehow solidify our bond with them and with each other.
When I looked at cartoon #3 down in your post, it reminded me again of those people and of all the things I thought about this weekend in NYC. The New York Times has been publishing little sketches of each of the dead in the Towers and the Pentagon and on the planes, or at any rate, those whose families would agree to be interviewed, and will publish it in book form (profits go to the 100 Neediest Cases) some time this spring. Read it - and weep - and then get really angry that a bunch of barbarians, filled with hatred and evil, could snatch so many of our fellow citizens away from us like that, and destroy the vibrant, dynamic microcosm that was the WTC.
Still, I'm happy to report that the people of NYC are full of determination and energy to rebuild. They do seem also to have been changed by this, and there's a lot more kindness and attention paid to one another. As in Cartoon #3, I think we all learned what was important and what would remain.
Well, Happy 2002! We're not going to forget 2001 ever, we've been changed by it - and we're going to be better and stronger and more committed than ever to our great national project. So there!
Happy New Year!
that stahler "i love you" cartoon is a real grabber.
Is that a FReeper in cartoon # 6???
WE WILL NEVER FORGET!
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