Today is a solemn occasion in the United State, a day we remember the thousands of lives lost when terrorists seized control of our aircraft and turned them against us. As a person who has grown up around public safety, I am especially bothered by the high number of police and firefighters who lost their lives simply doing their job.
One of the things that always comes up with major tragedy such as this is the question, "where were you?" These major event always seem to put a bookmark in our brains. I'm sure you might relate to the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, and the Challenger explosion. Ted and I were chatting last night about just this subject, spurned by some familiarity I had with the ValuJet crash in the Everglades (I happened to be on the same flight the day before).
Interestingly, I remember where I was on the mornings of both September 10th and September 11th. On September 10th, I was in New York, getting on a plane to head back to Atlanta after a great weekend with my friends, Joe and Beth.
On the morning of September 11th, I heard the first bits of news while I was on the entrance ramp to I-20 east bound from Moreland Avenue in Atlanta. I had just been at a construction site for my employer at the time. I was planning to be back in the office for an 11:00 meeting when I got a call from the office administrator "reminding" me that the meeting was scheduled for 10:00! In a frantic rush, I left the job site and headed back to the office. I had gotten my nerves settled down enough from the phone call that I thought I could turn the radio back on. I was listening to the "Morning X" back then with Barnes, Leslie, and Jimmy. As I got on the highway, I heard Barnes describing the scene he was watching - something about a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers. I thought maybe it was one of their radio bits, so I switched over to the news channel.
At that point, I heard the announcement that the FAA was grounding all flights. I remember calling my mom, only to get her voicemail. So I left a message like, "Hey, not sure if you've heard the news, but the FAA has grounded all flights. I know you do a lot of travel arrangements for your boss, so you might want to check into this." Little did I know the extent of what was happening at the time. My mom was not at her desk because everyone in the office was in the conference room following the news, while at the same time trying to call their satellite office in the second WTC tower.
I was in the car long enough to hear the second plane hit the second tower. I was just in shock. I remember running into the office, grabbing my stuff for the meeting, and heading up to the Division President's office (where my meeting was, which was why I was so worried about getting back in time). Everyone was just sitting in there watching the TV play the video over and over, along with all the other news coming in. The President was on the phone with the other divisions, the corporate office, the local HR/media folks, and his family. We decided maybe we could meet later in the week, and I headed back down to my desk.
The rest of the day was spent in the conference room watching the news, at least until the boss came in and sent us home. I got home and dug out my American flag, and spent a few minutes hanging a bracket on the front of the house so I could hang up my flag.
A year later, I took this picture.
So, where were you on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A Dollop of Daisy
Cara and I ventured out to the annual "Yellow Daisy" Festival at Stone Mountain Park today. Yellow Daisy (YD) has been around for many years, and has become one of the largest arts-and-crafts festivals in the south. I think they have something like 500 booths. And it's free with admission into the park.
Unlike the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, of which I am VERY familiar (being a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee has a tendency to do that to you), YD is not a fine-arts festival. In fact, most of the stuff offered for sale is more likely to have been created in someone's garage, not studio. That's not to say that the stuff is not of good quality, but you are much more likely to hear something like, "Momma 'n 'dem wood like 'dis" as you walk the paths from booth to booth.
Cara and I have very similar opinions about things, and we share a very twisted sense of humor, so hanging around with her turns into a fun event as we make "keen observations" about the things going on around us. About a third of the way into the festival, we heard Country music playing. That in and of itself is not a problem. But.... Country music also often signals the possibility of something VERY scary: c-l-o-g-g-i-n-g! And, sure enough, we round the corner to find just that! Oh no! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers? Cloggers dressed in matching outfits that look like bad Star Trek uniforms! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers in Star Trek uniforms? Hearing, "And now, we'd like to do something for you that we call 'Flashdance Remixed'"! Arghh!!! I WISH I was making this up! Of course, I can't tell you what it actually was like, because the only thought Cara and I had was "RUN AWAY!"
Another observation: we stopped to watch a woman create an impressive piece of art using scratchboard. If you're not familiar with this, it is a white board covered with a very thin layer of (usually) black wax. You use sharp tools to scratch away the wax to create your image. Now, I'm not really a fan of this technique, but I really can appreciate the skill and workmanship that goes into creating these pieces. And watching her create a scratchboard piece of a tiger freehand from a photo was pretty impressive. But I was shocked at the number of folks that, while we were standing there, made comments like "honey, here's the scratchboard" and "oh, here's the scratchboard" and "don't ya' want to stop and look at the scratchboard?" I never realized scratchboard was a destination attraction.
Another big difference between YD and the Dogwood Festival is the number of food "crafts" for sale. Things like pickles, beef jerky, stone-ground meal, honey, fudge, nuts, and all kinds of soup and dip mixes. Mind you, these are above and beyond the regular carnival food vendors. These are thing you can take home and put in the cupboard. I give them credit - a lot of the stuff is pretty tasty. One vendor, selling drink and instant coffee mixes, has a line of sugar-free mixes made with Splenda, and paid attention to his target audience. I was impressed that he had the marketing savvy to post a "zero Weight Watchers points" sign on his booth. Remember, a large portion of the visitors to this festival think nothing of putting a pink pig made from a propane tank on the front porch of their trailer (and, sadly, you can buy such a thing here). Often, these folks are, shall we say, "big boned?' Needless to say, they were quite drawn by the marketing sign.
To be fair, there were a decent number of genuine artists and craftsman there, and the whole thing gives you plenty of things to look at. I bought a few things at the food booths, and an item that might end up as a gift for a friend. And considering that the park admission of $10 per car was split in two, it was a pretty inexpensive way to have a lot of fun.
I still think the beaded palm tree yard art would be perfect for Cara, but she disagrees....
Unlike the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, of which I am VERY familiar (being a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee has a tendency to do that to you), YD is not a fine-arts festival. In fact, most of the stuff offered for sale is more likely to have been created in someone's garage, not studio. That's not to say that the stuff is not of good quality, but you are much more likely to hear something like, "Momma 'n 'dem wood like 'dis" as you walk the paths from booth to booth.
Cara and I have very similar opinions about things, and we share a very twisted sense of humor, so hanging around with her turns into a fun event as we make "keen observations" about the things going on around us. About a third of the way into the festival, we heard Country music playing. That in and of itself is not a problem. But.... Country music also often signals the possibility of something VERY scary: c-l-o-g-g-i-n-g! And, sure enough, we round the corner to find just that! Oh no! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers? Cloggers dressed in matching outfits that look like bad Star Trek uniforms! But wait, what's scarier than cloggers in Star Trek uniforms? Hearing, "And now, we'd like to do something for you that we call 'Flashdance Remixed'"! Arghh!!! I WISH I was making this up! Of course, I can't tell you what it actually was like, because the only thought Cara and I had was "RUN AWAY!"
Another observation: we stopped to watch a woman create an impressive piece of art using scratchboard. If you're not familiar with this, it is a white board covered with a very thin layer of (usually) black wax. You use sharp tools to scratch away the wax to create your image. Now, I'm not really a fan of this technique, but I really can appreciate the skill and workmanship that goes into creating these pieces. And watching her create a scratchboard piece of a tiger freehand from a photo was pretty impressive. But I was shocked at the number of folks that, while we were standing there, made comments like "honey, here's the scratchboard" and "oh, here's the scratchboard" and "don't ya' want to stop and look at the scratchboard?" I never realized scratchboard was a destination attraction.
Another big difference between YD and the Dogwood Festival is the number of food "crafts" for sale. Things like pickles, beef jerky, stone-ground meal, honey, fudge, nuts, and all kinds of soup and dip mixes. Mind you, these are above and beyond the regular carnival food vendors. These are thing you can take home and put in the cupboard. I give them credit - a lot of the stuff is pretty tasty. One vendor, selling drink and instant coffee mixes, has a line of sugar-free mixes made with Splenda, and paid attention to his target audience. I was impressed that he had the marketing savvy to post a "zero Weight Watchers points" sign on his booth. Remember, a large portion of the visitors to this festival think nothing of putting a pink pig made from a propane tank on the front porch of their trailer (and, sadly, you can buy such a thing here). Often, these folks are, shall we say, "big boned?' Needless to say, they were quite drawn by the marketing sign.
To be fair, there were a decent number of genuine artists and craftsman there, and the whole thing gives you plenty of things to look at. I bought a few things at the food booths, and an item that might end up as a gift for a friend. And considering that the park admission of $10 per car was split in two, it was a pretty inexpensive way to have a lot of fun.
I still think the beaded palm tree yard art would be perfect for Cara, but she disagrees....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
