Ok, I'll do it too

I wasn't planning to do this.

10 years ago I was asleep. Not the metaphorical sleep that so many have tossed about, I was aware of terrorism, and new the outlines of what was going on in Afghanistan; I was much more informed about Iraq.

No, I was in my bed, sleeping. Maia's mother called back on the intercom and said I might, "want to put on [my] funny clothes, because someone just blew up the World Trade Center".

I looked at the clock, it was about 9 in the morning. I did what any smart soldier does at a time like that (the "funny clothes she was talking about were my BDUs, the greens/browns and black of summer in Germany/Central Europe that was the everyday wear of the US Army/Marine Corps/Air Force in 2001), I went back to sleep.

"If they need me, they'll call".

I was, of course, recalling the earlier bombing, which had been dramatic, but nothing to call out the Guard for. Maia got up to use the bathroom, and when she came back she asked, in a sleepy voice, what might have caused the World Trade Center (which she'd just been to that previous April) to fall down.

And, as I faded back to sleep, I thought, "Shit, that means the wine cellars of Windows on the World are gone."

Woke up, called the armory was told to have my uniform handy, but not worry about it. The sky was quiet. That was odd. We lived near an airport, as I've lived near an airport most of my concious life. the sounds of small planes and jets was an ever present background noise... sometime in my middle teens we moved near Vany Nuys Airport, which had a MAC wing, so I got to know the sound of the old warbirds which made that airport home (AT-6s,a and P-51s, mostly, but the occasional visit from P-47s, B-25s, A-26s, and the rare; but glorious, B-17s. I saw the F-17 up close, and personal, as it made a couple of runs through the pattern before it was set up for the Van Nuys Airshow. I went up to the roof, and got to look into the gear wells. It was still so closely guarded that armed Air Police were patrolling the taped out perimeter; you could take photos but try to get closer than about 50 yards and they'd arrest you). The quiet was alien.

We had jobs at the LA County Fair, in the Dairy Exhibition. We weren't scheduled to work, but I figured we ought to go in. One, I was going stir crazy in the quiet, and the television was an hypnotic horror. They said nothing, and the collapse was a loop just barely more bearable than the babble on the screen.

We were practically the only people to show up. Mostly what we did was shovel shit, today we milked. Then Maia's mother's cell-phone rang. I needed to go to the Armory. Civvies, uniform out of sight.

Spent the day being cooped up. Antsy. The urge to "do something" was palpable. We spent some time chasing shadows. We talked. We kept bitching at the television, for saying not a damn thing of import.

I wished I was with the cows. That had been meaningful. They didn't care what was going on. They needed to be milked. The world went on.

In the middle of the morning, as Maia and I were getting ready to head to the Fairgrounds the radio put Wynton Marsalis, and the English Chamber Orchestra playing my favorite movement, from my favorite symphony, Haydn's Trumpet concerto.

The sound was (is) incredible. I find it fills all of space with hope. It's not joy, but hope; strong, and painful. It's probably colored now by the memory of that day, but there it is. The world is made up of those associations.

So there you have it. My memories of "That Tuesday".

A wine cellar I never get to visit.

The need to milk the cows.

The strains of vibrant hope.

All the rest... ephemera.