The
Wisconsin
Citizen
by Richard Stark
Letters to Bucky
Badger
Dear
Bucky,
It's
morning, the second Tuesday of September. My
schedule is such that I'm off from work, not to return until the next
day. I enjoy the luxury of sleeping in, there being no
compelling reason to do otherwise. The day
starts lazily around nine o'clock, and finds me soon after padding
semi-groggily through the living room. Our two-year-old,
Alexandra, is up and, as usual, is engrossed in her Cartoon Network on
television. She pays me little mind as I pass by. Her
grandmother is in the kitchen, which is my destination, when the phone
rings.
I answer
it in the living room. It's my wife, calling from work.
"Hon,
did you hear the news?" There is an urgency in her voice that
dispels any lingering grogginess on my part.
"What
happened?" I'm not sure I want to know. It's unusual for
Marcy to be telephoning at this time of day, so it must be serious.
What in the world has occurred? A...tornado? earthquake?
mudslide?
"Two airliners flew into the World Trade Center in New York. Turn
on the T.V."
I locate the remote, pre-empting Ally's usual programming. She
doesn't protest, which is out of character for her. Usually there is
no competing with her insistent rallying cry: "I want my own show!"
Does she sense, perhaps, something is amiss? Why is Daddy concerned?
Remote in hand, the image in the living room changes from animated
characters and dubbed voices to billowing black smoke and the World
Trade Center twin towers.
Shock. Disbelief. Unable to account for
such an unimaginable live scenario, the mind goes blank. There
is little conversation as, receiver to my ear, my wife and I share the
passing moments. Then, without warning,
the boundary of disbelief is pushed further.
"Oh, my
God, Hon," I hear myself saying, "one of the towers is collapsing!"
It quickly becomes official: the United States has experienced a
terrorist attack of unprecedented magnitude.
The Federal Aviation
Administration responds, suspending all commercial flight activity. And then, for the first time since the
airline industry got off the ground and, over a half-century ago, they
began appearing in the skies high overhead, there are no vapor trails
across America.
The
rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon, is spent transfixed by
the breaking story. Two scenes become
indelibly ingrained upon the mind, appearing repeatedly as they are
re-broadcast again and again.
The first, that of a
Boeing 767 airliner gliding like a missile toward one of the towering
structures, while the other stands already in flames. The
airliner disappears into concrete and steel. There follows,
again and again, the inevitable fireball.
The second set of footage is that of black smoke and the towers
collapsing. First the one. Then, like a loyal twin unwilling to
allow its dear sibling to meet a terrible fate alone, the other.
Meanwhile, thirty miles north of our Virginia home, the Pentagon
is in flames and smoke. And an airliner has crashed into a field in
Pennsylvania.
Upon awakening the next morning, one wonders if it was all just a
nightmare. But then, grim reality settles.
And
in the days that follow, it becomes apparent how closely the terrorism
has struck. When the smoke clears at the Pentagon, the name
of a co-worker's husband is on the missing list. He is later
confirmed dead. Lianne, our seventeen-year-old, reports that a high
school classmate lost
her father. And we learn at church that a fellow parishioner also
died in the attack.
(To be continued)
***
Editor's note:
Richard Stark is
a
Wisconsin
native, ten-year
Navy
veteran, and former legislative intern in the office of
Dale Schultz.
He lives with his family in northern
Virginia
near
Washington,
D.C.
|