In times like these

by anna at 06:19 PM on April 07, 2004

What happened to Linz's post? I could have sworn I saw it here yesterday.

Anyways, I'm riding home. The Foo Fighters' Times Like These comes on the radio. I love that song. It's got a rocking riff and oblique verses. But when the chorus comes along there's little mistaking what it's about:

It's times like these you learn to live again.
It's times like these you give and give again.
It's times like these you learn to love again.
It's times like these, time and time again.

Yes, it's about the defining moment of our times. And sure I realize there are other Sept 11-inspired tunes. Bruce Springsteen wrote an entire album about it called The Rising. But that's a wimpy-sounding set of tuneless tunes that I can't even listen to, it's too depressing. Then there's that Toby Keith number and other flag-waving, we're gonna kick some major Arab ass country ditties. That simply doesn't do the tragedy justice in my mind.

My son and I were at Ground Zero Thanksgiving 2001. This was before they set up bleachers and shuttle buses for convenient viewing. There was a makeshift fence around it, plastered with hand-lettered calls out to anyone who might have seen their loved ones. We stood among a teeming crowd of gawkers in abject, reverent silence. If someone's cell had rang it might have cost them their life. There was simply nothing you could say. Strangers hugged one another. Acrid smoke wafted by. It was the most moving moment of my life, one seared forever in my soul.

Which I suppose is why it pisses me off so much to see Sept 11 being kicked around like a can in Congress. There's all this partisan finger-pointing about what was or wasn't done to avert it. This misses the point entirely. It's not why it occured, it's that it did. And immediately afterwards we found out what we as a nation are made of. People came together. Flags appeared everywhere. No planes overhead, no sitcoms, no dramas, no commercials, no songs on the radio. Nothing but non-stop coverage of what was happening in lower Manhattan and the at the Pentagon. That and silent nods.

What they ought to be debating is whether Sept 11 should be designated as a national day of remembrance. The trick is how to avoid it being commercialized in a free society such as ours.

I drove by the Pentagon recently. It is surrounded by armed soldiers and antiaircraft batteries. Maybe it's a little late for all of that. And maybe it was a little too much to expect that fleeting bit of unity and genuine emotion to live on.