Friday Reflections: September 11th

I never saw the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, I didn't visit New York until the fall of 2009. 

I have vivid memories of the events of September 11, 2001 and the days and decades that followed.  

I was producing a regional conference on grandparents and other relatives raising children. It was our third year organizing the conference and our first year at a hotel, the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza on the northside of Lexington Kentucky.  We were just finishing the opening plenary and getting ready to move into breakouts, when Dick Cullison the executive director of Legal Aid of the Bluegrass came up to the podium to announce that planes had hit the towers and little else was known. Some moved onto the scheduled sessions, some went off in search of televisions to try to see the news. I was teaching a session on elder abuse that morning, to be repeated in the afternoon. It was a strange session, with people either withdrawing or really needing to talk, to talk about anything. By lunch it was clear that it had been a four part attack, that thousands of people were dead and injured. The afternoon was surreal,  we closed out the program a couple of hours early so people could go home. 

My office was closed for two or three days. People were shell shocked. Some went to church, some drank, others took long walks. 

It was complicated.  We wanted to define an enemy that carried out the attack, but the attack had not been from a country, organized military, a definable or really identifiable force. And yet the government went in search of an enemy, and attacked two countries over a period of time, overthrowing the governments without a clear plan to replace them. The lack of a plan, often makes things worse than before. Ultimately the leader of the rebel group was found and killed, living quietly in another country, a country we never held responsible for harboring the man who ordered the attacks.  

Twenty-five years of effort, twenty-five years of grief. 

I am going to get political. 

Look Away if you are easily triggered. 

If the bastards that flew planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a farm field in Pennsylvania wanted to destroy the United States, it has taken years, but we are letting them do so.  As a country we are more divided than we have been in 50 or maybe 150 years.  The deep distrust of one another, has allowed incredible abuse by government. The fear of others has made it easy for the racists to push an agenda of racial cleansing that makes us weaker, and turns us again one another. A rising tide of isolationism, and protectionism has empowered a trade war, with global impact. Fears have destroyed religious freedoms, and caused the death of many more people. Our local police have gone from community policing initiative that were very successful, to being militarized. In many ways, all of this relates back to the shock of that attack 25 years ago. Instead of making us stronger, and uniting us, it has deepened the divides. If we are not careful, the bastards will win. 

Pearl Harbor was the defining event of my parent's generation, sadly this is ours. 

The Thursday Ramble: Offices

 The photo above is George Washington's office at Mt. Vernon, his home office. This gets me to thinking about some of the offices or work spaces I have had over the years. 

My first office I shared with a retired CIA agent, in Titusville, Florida overlooking the Kennedy Space Center, you could see the Vertical Assembly building. John was great fun and had a lifetime of great stories to tell. After a year or so, I moved up the street to another firm and didn't have an office for a year or so, then to a new office where we were all assigned cubicles. 

Then I moved to Orlando, and went to work for a home building company. My work was in the field offices of new communities under construction.  The offices were generally in a garage finished to serve as an office.  In the seven years I was with that firm I probably worked in a dozen offices. When that firm was sold, and I was not included in the sale, I moved onto another builder. The offices there were nicer, again usually garage spaces finished to serve as an office. I bounced around for a couple of years after that job ended, doing the same work for a couple of different companies - ending up being hired by the company that bought the first builder that I worked for.  Then moved back north. 

The house in Lexington had an open loft overlooking the living room, we shared that as office space.  The first job I had in Lexington was in retail, long hours on my feet and no office. Then I was hired as a credit analyst but the work was done in a massive room filled with desks, computers and phones. I left there to start law school. I spent thousands of hours studying in that home office during law school and preparing to pass the bar exam (on the first try, once and only once in a lifetime.) 

I received a job offer in about March of my last year of law school, the job started the Monday after my last law school exam. They allowed liberal time for me to study for the bar exam. My first office there was a converted hallway, they had closed over all but one door, put in a large desk and that was where I worked for a couple of years. We moved from there to larger and nicer office space. My next office was 14 feet by 14 feet with 10 foot ceilings and a large window that opened. It was by a far margin the nicest office I ever worked in. Large, bright, private, comfortable. I worked at that first job after law school for 9 1/2 years. 

Then I moved to DC.  My first office there was in a 100 year old bank building just around the corner from the White House. I was at the end of the hall, on I think the 6th floor, with a nice window. The office was long and narrow.  The furniture was terrible, most of my work was done on a small modern table in front of the window. There were five or six file cabinets filled with all of my predecessors old projects clustering the space. I loved the location and being at the end of the hallway made it quiet and private. 

A few years later, the organization sold the building, and we moved to leased space about 4  blocks northwest of there. The space was freshly remodeled with new or newer furniture. My office was tiny, 10 by 10 feet. And no window. The decision to not have windows in any of the offices was unpopular. I once offered to trade my office for a cubical backed up to a bay window, and she said, thanks but no thanks.  I retired from that office. 

Now my office, is a desk in the corner at the end of my bedroom. I have done a lot of work here, and continue to do so.  

What is your workspace like.  

My World of Wonders: September 9, 2026

What have I been up to in the kitchen this week? Quiche, round-steak with mashed potatoes and cauliflower, meat loaf, ham and baked beans, steak and Guinness pie. 

Where have I been this week? Mt Vernon - I needed to get out for a long walk - but it was miserably hot and humid. Aldi and Target for a little shopping. The community center for the first Saturday morning community coffee. The treadmill, the pool, 

What did I come to understand this week? A great idea, poorly explained does not come through to the reader as a good idea, and a flawed idea, well written, is still a flawed idea. 

What always surprises me? Tuesday feeling like a Monday, after a three day holiday weekend. 

Who deserves a slap this week? The idiot drivers who drive recklessly to get to the next traffic light before anyone else. Five out of Five. 

What have I been reading? Jose Andres book on the food and drink of Spain. 

How are we coming along on the next gallery show? The deadline is Saturday and I need about 10 more items. 

Travel Tuesday: Milan Galleria

 

Monday Moods: My Life Has Been A Tapestry

Show me the things you have kept, and I will know more about you, than you have ever told anyone. After my father died, I was sorting through his bedroom, in the drawer of the table next to his bed was a small wood box, probably a box a watch came in 75 years earlier.  I had never seen it. In it was a silver ID bracelet, a gift he had received  from his sister, and I never saw him wear. He was not one for wearing jewelry, a watch was about it. Also in there were the insignias from his army uniform. He was drafted near the end of World War II. He seldom talked about it. He went to basic training in Louisiana, then was stationed in New York and New Jersey for a year or so, then discharged and sent home. His seldom talking about it, leading me to think that it was a time that didn't really matter to him, then decades later I find those brass uniform icons. He had kept them. He was not a man to keep a lot, those meant something to him. Show me what you keep, and I will know more about you than you will ever tell me. 

The photo above is a tiny corner of my cabinet of curiosities. The Leprechaun is a pencil sharpener, a gift from Uncle Dick's mother, I have had it since I was a child. She did a tour of Ireland and brought that back for me. She was very kind, and had the sweetest dachshund. Next to it is a bronze I bought in Iceland. The books behind that include my High School diploma, the only volume of my grandmother's diaries that I was able to save, and my father's pilot's log books. The flat red item, was the fob for my Capital Bikeshare membership, an important part of my commuting history in DC, and how I made it home the day of the earthquake. The blue glass vase behind the Leprechaun I bought from the glassblower in Ireland, as they were closing the shop for COVID, while were there they received a phone call telling them to close to the public. I have two shelves of little things that mean something to me, the tapestry of my life. 

What is yours? 

 

The Sunday Five: Blogging

1: How long have you been blogging? (If you don't blog, why not?) 

2: How did you learn about blogging? 

3: Does your family read your blog? 

4: How much time do you spend each week, reading and or writing blogs? 

5: What is the best thing about blogs? 

My answers:

1: How long have you been blogging? (If you don't blog, why not?) 21 years, this blog is old enough to drink in the US. 

2: How did you learn about blogging? Stephen, a friend who lives in London, was blogging and urged me to read his. His original blog is long gone, he now podcasts, and I seldom listen - I don't have the patience to listen that long. 

3: Does your family read your blog? They know about it, and will look at a single post, but I don't think they visit regularly. 

4: How much time do you spend each week, reading and or writing blogs? Easily 10 hours, an hour or so each day reading posts, plus time to write. 

5: What is the best thing about blogs? I get to choose what I want to see, unlike other social media that fills my screen with what they want me to see. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: The Mirror Project

Before Blogging, I started posting on Virtual Tourist, and the Mirror Project. 

I discovered VT when I was searching for tips on visiting Paris for Christmas, and I ended up building several pages on VT with photos and travel information. Efforts to monetize that site failed and it disappeared. 

The Mirror Project posted photos containing the reflection of the photographer. The submissions were screened before posting. I had a couple rejected, and appealed with an explanation of the reflection. The Mirror Project inspired me to look for reflective surfaces and set up photos I could submit. Working towards that theme, gave direction to my work. 

Reflecting on these experiences, having a plan, a theme, gives direction to creativity.  Sometimes creativity is random, but not always. Having a theme, mission, or goal, can focus our creativity. 

What is the current theme of your creativity?