So it’s been 23 years….

It’s been 23 years since September 11. I remember getting up at my apartment in The Hamptons in Puyallup, flipping my nightstand TV on to catch the news, and seeing the first tower on fire then the second tower get hit, and realizing that this was an act of terrorism. In my shock, I realized that life still happens, and the Mrs. Fields at the Westlake Center still needed to open. So I got on the bus and headed to work. This was pre mobile web (I had it on my phone, but it was text only, and it counted against my cellular minutes, so I didn’t use it). And on the bus on the way up, I heard from another passengers that both towers had collapsed. Got there, started to open the store, and asked if the mall was actually going to open. IIRC, just as we were opening, it was announced that the mall was closing, so I cleaned up, and went home. Stopped at the South Hill Mall (only a 20 minute walk from my apartment), and went in to visit my friends at the hobby shop (closed 5 years later). On my way in, I passed by the Radio Shack, and I finally saw the footage of the towers collapsing. So after talking to Bob and Ray, I went home and spent the rest of the day watching the news. Sometime after I went home, the South Hill Mall closed for the day. The other thing I remembered that day, was that the next WWE broadcast went on as scheduled (it decided that the show must go on). Like was thrown into turmoil for a while, but in the coming days and weeks, normalcy tried to return. Some things will never return to what they were, as one can tell if you’ve travelled via air. There was the passage of the Patriot Act, and an erosion of civil rights in the name of ‘security’. And there was the invasion of Iraq…..

Since then, we’ve gotten out of Iraq. We got out of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was unalived. There are memorials and rememberances. But I’ve found the best way to show the terrorists that they didn’t win the day is by conducting business as usual. Yes, in a quiet moment, I will remember the day, and all that we lost (especially the innocence). But in letting the show go on, we won’t lose….