Even though everyone is paying attention to Hurricane Ike, a few folks remember that today is the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A very, very few folks.
Hair Balls went out and asked the downtown lunch crowd, “How did 9/11 affect you?”
Here’s a sampling of the answers:
“It didn’t.”
“Not at all.”
“It made me mad.”
“I think it showed everyone how unprepared we were for a disaster like that.”
“I’m from Britain. It didn’t affect us.”
“It didn’t.”
“My son joined West Point. He’s there now. We’re very proud of him, but we’re very scared for him too. We know that in a few months, he’ll be in the Middle East, fighting. We pray for him all the time.”
“It didn’t affect me at all, not really.”
“It made me aware of all the tensions in the world, and how close to war we always are.”
“It didn’t really affect me. I know lots of other people lost loved ones in New York and Pennsylvania, but down here, we were pretty much unaffected.”
None of the people we spoke with were planning on attending any sort of event commemorating 9/11. In fact, none of them knew of any local 9/11 events to attend. One woman told us, “I’m sure it’s because of the hurricane. Otherwise there would be some ceremonies.”
Yeah, that must be it.
— Olivia Flores Alvarez
This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2008.