The Day America Grew Up

The Day America Grew Up

In recent posts I have been discussing the process of selling a condo-on-the-beach, which Patty and I have owned for a dozen years. Most recently, I have identified the favorite experience of both Patty and me.

After writing those pieces, I decided to flip the coin over to find out it there had been any negative experiences at the condo. Fortunately, I could only come up with 2 negative events. First the simple one. I happened in our fourth year.

One fall, the Albacore fishing was especially good and I flew out there by myself for a few days of extreme fishing. I arrived late one evening and I was planning on sleeping in the next morning. Somewhere around 7:00 a.m. I got a surprise phone call from my oldest son, Adam.

After a groggy hello, Adam asked me if I was watching TV. I assured him I was not even awake, let alone watching TV. He proceeded to tell me some hair-brained fairytale about some unusual hijacking. He persisted in his story,so I turned on the boob tube just in time to watch a jet plane crash into the second building at the World Trade Center.

Later that day, after watching endless replays of the crash and the towers falling down, I realized there wasn’t anything I could do about it so I elected to go fishing anyway. Naturally, the buzz on the boat was all about the day that later came to be known as nine-eleven.

San Diego has a powerful military presence and when we returned from fishing the Coast Guard entered our boat, and others like it, to be certain there was nothing dangerous on board. I guess a fisherman could have beaten an innocent person over the head with a sea bass. Fortunately. they did not consider that to be a substantial risk so they let us enter the harbor.

I returned to the condo and the news of the time was so unbelievable that I joined the rest of the nation in shock. All sorts of experts were trying to figure out who had done that to us and why. That was the first time I heard of Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda.

The next few days we watched our new young President and the Mayor of New York try to put the pieces together for us. After that we would all learn about the people of the middle east and their religion. It was a very sobering week.

I was among the masses who still had a lot to learn about the region and its various peoples.
As you know, things have never been the same since then.

Ironically, the only other negative experience that I associate with the condo also involves a very ominous plane ride. This time, I was a passenger. I will fill you in next time.