nine eleven

Today is September 11, the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks that claimed 2,975 lives at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington DC and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I think the event will be remembered by my generation, and all others who witnessed it, much as JFK's assassination is remembered by our parents' generation: as a tragedy that united the nation in shared grief and common disbelief.

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? I do. I was at home getting ready for work, finishing out the final days of a summer job before heading back to college. My mom told me that something was happening in New York; she'd heard as much on the radio. There was a lot of confusion as different sources were trying to piece together what was going on. Out of curiosity, we turned on the television just in time to see the second plane crash into the other tower. We watched as New Yorkers panicked, completely shocked, and TV news anchors found themselves at a loss for words. I remember being awestruck, almost numb in response to what was playing out before my eyes. The scale of the building in relation to the plane blew my mind and it took a minute to register what that explosion meant, how many people had died in that instant. I felt kind of powerless, detached and removed from the whole episode because New York has always seemed like it was a world away from me and my home. Even though those people and I shared a common bond as Americans, I still had trouble relating and identifying with what they were going through. It felt unreal, like a dream or something. Did you ever see the footage of Bush getting the news at some storytelling event? He kind of sits there and you can see the little gears turning in his head, slowly and cautiously. That, I can actually relate to because that’s almost how I felt: confused, unsure and partially paralyzed (reactions that are fine for a citizen but certainly not what you’d want from your president). I then drove to work, glued to the radio as a barrage of stories and explanations were offered. When I got there, we gathered around a television and watched as the towers fell, the Pentagon burned, another plane crashed in a field, and the news media sorted through conflicting reports in an effort to make sense of it all. Too, the citizens of this country were engaged in an effort to do the same.

Benches, one for each of the lives lost, are part of the new memorial at the Pentagon. Aren't they cool? I admit that once I saw the photo, I immediately thought how skateable they could be. The edges are stainless steel and the possibilities are endless. Not only could you launch off it like a ramp, you could grind up it, off it or down it. With all the technical progression in skateboarding these days, the benches offer tantalizing opportunities to switch up grinds and slides and even get some flip-out and 180-out combos going. Couple that with the fact that the ground is smooth and that there are 184 of these benches and you've got a vertiable wonderland of options for lines. Some of the sure-footed pros and hungry ams could go buck on these things. That though, would be treading on very delicate ground. It'd be pretty disrespectful to skate them and even if you tried, you can bet that somebody would be incredulously angry at you. So I say they're off-limits.