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Remembering 9/11
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 On the fifth anniversary of the September eleventh attacks, we reflect back on what you remember about that day in 2001, where you were, what you were doing...and if you had family or friends directly involved. We also want to see where you are at today, with your thoughts and feelings about the 9/11 attacks. It's open phones today as we reflect back. We'll also hear from Dan Colgan, Operations Manager for NHPR, who was engineering that day, Jeff Weir, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor who went to New York in the aftermath of the attacks and worked with some of those who were in the World Trade Center on 9/11, Betsy Gardella, President of NHPR who was working at WNYC Radio in New York when it happened and former New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen. Web resources:
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In extremis:
I heard about it first driving across state to work in Durham, from NPR reporters, who sounded dazed and unsure. Then at work, knowing after the second attack that terrorists were involved, we clustered around a radio. Before we knew the extent of casualties, the reporter said that 50,000 people worked in the trade center. I mumbled that this exceeded American casualties in Vietnam; a colleague next to me said, "Too bad they didn't get Yankee Stadium." I looked at him, stunned. But he was young – I suppose a sense of the appropriate comes with age.
In the weeks that followed, I watched the unfolding of visible anger along my commute. First the miniature flags fluttering furiously and ragged at the ends of automobile antennas, like graphical representations of road rage. Then I noticed the signs, in front of businesses and private homes; many were heartfelt memorials, or fervent prayers. But then there were the others.
A furniture store: "Special Sale - God Bless America"
A candy store: "Love America Or Leave It!" – then on the next day, "Special On Fudge"
A self-storage company: "God Bless America – ACLU take note!"
The pièce de résistance: on my commute I would first drive my daughter to school. Our route took us past a house that the owner regularly used as a billboard for his opinions on the issues of the day. 9/11 raised the level of his rant by orders of magnitude. On one day:
"Kill! Kill them all! Let God sort them out!" Such a legacy, this phrase, passed from thirteenth-century France, through Vietnam, to us now. Then on the next day:
"Kill them all! Where are you, Mrs. Calabash?" Why on earth this poor soul should have invoked Jimmy Durante's mysterious lady is a puzzle – was she to be first?
Events like 9/11 call forth extremes – sometimes the best in us, sometimes just extreme.