An Appeal To My Countrymen

It’s really tough to believe this was all 25 years ago. I remember that day very clearly, because of the obvious reasons, but also because of my timeline when I found out what had happened. It seems to me that most everyone found out what was happening in New York, DC, and Stoneycreek Township in real time as it transpired. I didn’t actually have any idea until about 6 hours after the fact. It just so happened that I’d planned to remove the engine from my ‘59 Cadillac that day; coincidence which left me in the garage all day, listening to CD’s so I’d missed any radio announcements made about the chaos as well.

It was a little after 3 in the afternoon that I got a phone call from my girlfriend, asking what I’d thought about everything that had happened that day. She realized rather quickly that I’d missed everything, and told me to go in the house, turn on the television, and then call her back. I asked which station; she said it wouldn’t matter.

I remember standing there, frozen in absolute shock.

Not being politically engaged at the time, I really had no idea about the why. My mouth dropped to the floor because the first plane had hit; I sat down in horror when the second one took its target. All of the events from the day just kept coming like a terrible flood; the towers in New York, the Pentagon, and that lonely field in Pennsylvania. So many questions, so much sadness and so so much anger. I sat and cried for quite some time about it, then as I do while writing this.

Life was different after all the tragedy of that day, and it just feels so petty of me to even say that - people - thousands of them - people lost their entire lives that day. It makes me feel ashamed to even distinguish a difference for me in the comparison to it. But I think life changed for everyone that day. My weekly music residencies saw the crowds vanish. We went from having a few hundred people at each show to 10 or less. People stopped going out, stopped spending money, and stopped doing anything. They stayed home because this tragedy was far beyond the scope of anything the world had ever seen, and it stopped us in our tracks.

I realize there are entire generations now who grew up never seeing the World Trade Center across the Manhattan skyline. Entire generations who never knew the familiar sight of the Twin Towers across the city landscape. They never knew the picture of parallel accomplishment those two pillars came to represent. And they never had to sit and stare with helpless incredulity while dozens of people jumped out of skyscraper windows, or as the fires blazed and filled the sky with the black smoke of finality, right up until the steel groaned and gave way and the earth shuddered as both twins came down.

There is something else about that day though. Beyond all the tragedy, chaos, anger and sadness, something else happened that we need to teach about.

Everyone came together.

Nobody asked what political affiliation you were, they just dug in and helped. No one hoped people would get hurt just because they voted differently. No one sat it out because they were more worried about their own neck. No one laughed and blamed trans people for it. No one turned around and went home because someone’s skin was a different color, their accent was different, they wore a skirt instead of pants, flew a rainbow colored flag on their desk, hadn’t been naturalized yet, wore a red hat, or anything else. They just fucking helped, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. We saw our fellow humans in danger and we showed up, because that’s the American way. What goes on today, with all this hate and division, all this destruction of our democracy - it’s bullshit and you know it. That’s not America and that’s not American.

9/11 was a whole lot of things, like suffering and tragedy, and hell on earth; but it was also one of our best moments too. It was and still is a shining example of American heart and spirit, bravery and showing up to help because that’s what you’re supposed to do. As Americans, that’s what we’re all supposed to do, so the sooner we can put hate and division aside, the sooner we can set this country on a path to actually be great, again. Now that it has been taken over and trashed by the most self serving, hateful and corrupt exploitationalists to ever walk the earth, we need to come together with those who have seen the truth of this regime and the propaganda lies they spread and take our country back.

God bless the heroes and the fallen from September 11th, 2001. May we never forget them, and may we never again forget what it truly means to be an American.