9-Eleven Day

What is it about September that brings disaster? Perhaps it is the waning of daylight time which allows the gremlins of the night to appear an hour or so earlier to wreak their havoc on the world.
History suggests that:

The Great Fire of London occurred in September 1666. King Charles II had a baker that liked French cooking, apparently.
Blackened.

In September 1894, the Great Hinkley Fire killed 800 and burned 200,000 acres of Minnesota forest land in 4-hours.

The Great Storm of 1900 wiped most of Galveston off the island in September of that year.

And in September 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City were toppled by Al Qaida thugs commandeering two jet liners and flying them into the buildings.
The co-conspirators hijacked two other jets, crashing one into the Pentagon in Washginton, D. C., and the other augured into a cornfield in Shankstown, Pennsylvania.

I’ve written six columns about 9/11 in the Septembers following that fateful, horrible day. I never grow weary of the telling of that gruesome tale, because it embodies all that is good about America: sacrifice, honor, bravery, valor, flag, and country.

A past column of mine appears in today’s edition of an on-line publication, The Cypress Times.

From the ashes of the World Trade Center arose renewed patriotism and purpose in this country. I fear we have allowed that ardor to cool over the past seven years. Oh, it’s still there, and just you try to take a swipe at us and you’ll still see what Americans are made of. But the public outpouring has diminished somewhat, I fear. Perhaps that’s just the Septemberness showing in those emotions…

Is it now the autumn of our expression of appreciation, gratitude, and reverence for those who were taken from us, those who gave themselves to save them, and those who remain behind, and bear the scars even today of that ignoble date in our nation’s history?

How ironic on this 9/11 Day we along the Gulf Coast of Texas are bracing for another one of those natural disasters that are a part of life in these climes.

Will we again be called upon to sacrifice?
Will we again be asked to persevere as we suffer?
Will we be up to the task as Hurricane Ike bears down upon us?
I think so.