Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream–as it flows toward a cliff. There is often little to indicate that the stream is about to plummet perhaps 200 feet. Such is human existence. Merrily merrily we flow along in our lives, little realizing how drastically things can change in very short order.
I have always been fascinated by “the day before” the disaster. I read the newspapers from just before the October 1929 stock market crash and from the day before the Pearl Harbor attack. I actually saved the morning newspaper from September 11, 2001, the one that arrived in the driveway only hours before everything changed. Merrily, merrily we all worried about the wrong things.
In September 2001, I lived in northern Delaware. When I drove to work on September 12, the signs on I-95 flashed a warning that “All bridges and tunnels to NYC are closed.” I remember wondering if that could possibly be true. How could it be true? But of course it was.
Yesterday morning I had to drive to our local town for a doctor’s appointment. The road was ominously empty, and it was during rush hour on a Tuesday. Slowly it sinks in that this nightmare is real.
Gil Meyer 