(Note to self: Do not hit the indent bar when typing newsletter: it sends it out with no way to retrieve it.)
Sorry about that.
Now the world knows what a single day, a single event can mean to history.
My aunt and uncle's radio sits to this day in my living room in all its world-ago solid strength. I recently had it repaired, with old vacuum tubes found on the internet. I turn it on rather hoping to hear Fibber McGee & Mollie, or Bob Hope, or The Shadow, or the Lux Radio Theater. But I do not.
Nor did I hear, second hand, of the events of September 11: I, like most of the rest of the civilized world watched the incomprehensible Hollywood special effects unfold. It had to be a movie, after all--just look at those fireballs. There had to be stuntmen and special effects wizards just out of view, manipulating dials and throwing switches. But there weren't.
And so now, when those of us old enough to have been witness to Pearl Harbor say "Oh, you have no idea of how one single horrific event can galvanize a nation" the universal answer is: "Yes, we can."
And, with the thought of the unthinkable in mind, here is a poem that probably has even more meaning now than it had when I wrote it:

Questions of Valor

Had we been on the Birkenhead
could we have held our ground
and given up our chance to live
so the weaker would not drown?

Had we been in Titanic's band,
as her stern rose in the air
could we have kept on playing
to sooth the doomed souls there?

Were we one of the Sullivans,
five inseperable brothers,
could we choose, as the Juneau sank,
to perish with the others?

To giveone's life for others
is more than bravery:
it illumines words like "selfless"
and defines humanity.

The sloping decks of sinking ships
are oftentimes a stage
to show us what we all might be
when Mankind comes of age.

* * *
Those who sacrificed themselves
to save others on September 11, 2001
have shown us exactly that.

Dorien