Friday, September 11, 2009
It tolls for thee.
My thoughts are somewhat disjointed today, but I am going to try to blog anyway.
Back in the early years of television, CBS-TV had a weekly program called You Are There in which famous historical events were re-enacted as though television reporters had been present at the time. After introducing the event for the week, the announcer would solemnly intone, “All things are as they were then, except YOU ARE THERE.” It was usually quite informative, sometimes unintentionally ludicrous -- at least, I think it was unintentionally -- but always entertaining. History, as they say, came alive.
I thought of that line today as our nation observed the eighth anniversary of what has come to be known, simply, as 9/11. Most of us lived through it in real time eight years ago. We were there, over and over and over, as television brought it to us, and brought it to us, and continued to bring it to us. It was almost too horrible not to watch. We wanted to make sure that it was real, that what was unthinkable had actually happened. The unimaginable had occurred.
I dislike the idea of recalling tragedies because going through them once is enough, but I suppose it is necessary to remind ourselves of what was lost and to educate the young about their own past. In my parents’ generation, the remembered day was December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. For my generation, the events seared into memory are the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and of both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, the Challenger disaster in 1986, and 9/11 in 2001. Thanks to television, we were there for all of them.
Some people know exactly what they were doing and where they were when they heard that John Lennon had been killed. Some people will feel similarly about the death of Michael Jackson, I’m sure. Some people watch far too much television.
The cult of celebrity is all around us. It’s in the very air we breathe. And although what poet John Donne said is true, that any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, I prefer to save my grief for more important things than the passing of entertainers.
Today, I grieve.
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ReplyDeleteThank you for this toughtful post. It is a day to remember, but I too have trouble remembering tragedies. It was not for me personal, just very sad. I grieve,too, as I do on those other ocassions that touched my life and are a part of the memory of a generation.
That was an incredibly odd, surreal day, on so many levels. It happened to be a very intense day for me even without what happened - that just made it all even harder. I agree we can't forget, exactly. But neither can we wallow. There's a balance we must find.
ReplyDeleteP. S. I was just thinking out loud. I think we're doing pretty good so far.
ReplyDeleteVery great post. I am with you and I will always remember and grieve for this horrible tragedy.
ReplyDeletei watched a little of it buffered by my reading us tennis open from the paper as a buffer....i was waiting as they counted down to that time where i was destroyed....watching film of firemen and policemen walking toward the twin towers and then into the twin towers and hearing the 'WHERE are you, floor 40 and then that second tower collapsing, and then communication gone and then that debree and dust and nuclear waste, it seemed, i am a pacifist generally speaking about our wars except for our borders, but it made me wish the perpetrators could be apprehended....not the good people generally of the muslim nation, but the real stinkholes who diid it...i would have a nice long talk with them, let me tell you
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