The Sky Above

Anyone who lives long enough will always mark the passage of time with some reference to a major event in their lives. My parents would always remember where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed. My high school classmates will at any reunion I've been to discuss when we were released early on November 22, 1963, not yet knowing the president had been shot.

And so it goes. I'm sure there are those younger than myself that might remember when they heard the news that John Lennon had been shot. It's usually an act of violence that etches itself in our memories, and 9/11 is right up there.

In this weekend's edition of the WSJ Tanku Varadarajan reviews two books, Garrett M. Graff's "The Only Plane in the Sky," along with "Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11" by Mitchell Zuckoff. It's 9/11 season. The 18th anniversary is just days away.

I remember Mr. Varadarajan's byline in the WSJ years ago. He is now an executive editor at Stanford University's Hoover Institute. He has a way with words.

He opens his book reviews with a  lede that tells us the professional weather people called the sky that day "severe clear." To me, that's like saying "you're awfully nice." but I'll go with it. I never heard "severe clear" before..

Mr Graff's book is described as containing an oral history of the day, as told in 64 slim chapters. It sounds like a "Portraits of Grief" spoken by the soon to be victims of the attacks, as well as by those who survived the attacks.

Mr. Varadarajan calls them "curated" stories, assembled for the future adults. He tells us the incoming college freshman of 2019  were not even alive when the planes hit.

One of my daughters who is an Associate Professor at Hofstra, is well of aware of the continuum of time that keeps putting faces in front of her her were born x-plus years after her.

Mr. Varadarajan tells us in Mr. Graff's book how people describe the sky: "a gorgeous blue;" "deep blue;" "deep, deep, blue;" "cobalt blue;" "cerulean blue;" "the bluest of blues;"  They're all good descriptions, and accurate, but after coming out of Tower One from the 29th floor I 've just always called the sky, "the 9/11 sky."

There had been a heavy rain storm the night before 9/11. And like any day after a storm, the weather is beautiful.The Yankee game had been rained out. I mentioned this to someone from Legal who I met on the stairs who I knew was huge Yankee fan, as we made our way down the stairs, as the fireman were making their way up the stairs; one lane in each direction.

Particularly at this time of the year, as fall starts to settle in here in New York, I look up at what might be a clear blue sky. I judge it's blueness, its cloudlessness, and rank it with the 9/11 sky. Only the other day coming back from the store there was a morning sky so close to the 9/11 sky that I looked at my watch and remembered where I was at that time on September 11, 2001. Because as anyone who was as close to the events of the day as I was—and the estimate is there were 25,000 people in the two towers, not to mention the other surrounding buildings in the area—you remember everything about that day.

Mr. Graff did his research, and constructed his oral history from recordings of the victims, to interviews with the survivors. I don't feel bad be never reached me. Anonymity has its perks.

I remember going to work that day, wearing a somewhat new sport coat and thinking about our New Assistant Vice President, John Harrison, who had just started the day before, Monday, coming to us from Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Newark.

But my 9/11 was just the beginning of another reference point in my life, September 16, 2002, when that same John Harrison, a person I had grown to dislike and was very wary of, became the assassin of my co-worker Isabel Munoz and my manager Vinnie LaBianca, before thankfully taking his own life in his office right next to where I was sitting, in our temporary location necessitated by the collapse of our workplace.

You won't read about that from me, but you might follow the link to the NYT story that was almost tucked away in the second section, albeit the front page of Section B. I'll only say that the speculations of a love triangle are completely off the wall. John Harrison was an arrogant, misogynist man who held a grudge at not having his advances reciprocated. He was also a man jealous of his manger's popularity.

There are many things I remember about 9/11. And the color of the sky is just the beginning.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com