September the 11th

September the 11th.

When one hears that phrase there is no need to add any explanation, much as June the 6th, or Hitler, or even some of the other words and phrases that exist in our vocabulary now that didn't exist then, such as Facebook or Google.

But this carries so much more to the people of today who only understand the earlier ones in history books or old movies being remade. I write this as I watch the tributes on television this morning and wipe the tears off my face, remembering just as vividly the feelings I felt that beautiful breezy morning ten years ago. I had sent my beautiful daughter off to school and was at home recuperating from a recent accident that was interfering from work duties, and had decided to turn on the television to catch up on the daily news. Like many, the view was of the first tower on fire and all the confusion as the newscasters were trying to determine what had caused this incident, and was staring at the screen when I clearly saw the second plane crash into the other tower. I immediately called my father to make sure he was watching the news and then can't remember the next time I left the television over the coming hours.

My daughter tells me that she learned of the terrorist attacks because her class was walking by the principal's open door of her office as several teachers and the principal were glued to the television in her office and expressing their own fear, which led to her own. As a mother (and a clinical social worker), of course my anger with the school was very high when I learned that they handled that so poorly with the children, but my job was to be a calm, reassuring mother when she came home that evening. I can remember that CNN actually had a professional on in the midst of the crisis of the day who told us parents that one of the worst things we could do was to keep the television flooded with the images of the plane crashes day and night. So, when she got home that night I asked her what she knew, and what she wanted to know. We knelt in our living room floor and prayed for everyone, later watched President Bush speak to the country, and then I made it my mission to make my daughter feel as safe as she could in a world that had just turned upside down.

My father began wearing a flag button on his shirt within a couple days of September the 11th.

He still wears it every day.

Space Shuttle- 25 Years Later

Time moves so quickly, yet some experiences remain intimately connected no matter how far in the past, and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger was one of them for me.

Still enamored by all events space related (I always watched the space launchings and landings starting in  childhood when the men landed on the moon on our old black and white TV), I couldn't wait to watch the launch that cold January morning.

I knew the astronauts by name (Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis, Ellison Onizuka, and teacher Christa McAuliffe) and was so impressed with NASA because of the diversity of the crew and of course that we had a teacher on board. Christa had an infectious smile and laugh whenever she was interviewed that just pulled me in all the more.

Feelings that ran from anticipation, fear, excitement, shock, tears, and anger were all part of my day. The images that have always remained with me included the dismay on the face of Christa McAuliffe's parents as they continued to look to the skies for an answer that would never come and the students siting in the auditorium with their noisemakers who appeared to believe the disaster was a joke at first, but so accurately demonstrated the emotions we all felt that day.

Who can forget the immortal words of of President Reagan that night when he spoke of how they were now
                                           "touching the face of God."

The Flood of 1937

Patricia Sides, the Archivist/Historian at Willard Library here in Evansville gave a presentation Thursday (January  27) on Evansville during the 1937 Flood titled "Water, Water, Everywhere" before approximately 40 guests as well as library staff during the lunch hour.

Pat did a very good job with the presentation, combining photographs from the ever growing collection that Willard has (many which are available for view online) with newspaper, oral, and other written accounts about the flood and the effects this devastation had on our city and so many others that were based on the Ohio River from Pennsylvania and other points east down the river to the Mississippi.

My parents were children at the time of the flood and I had the opportunity to ask my mother her recollections this week, not sure what she remembered. My mother told me that the house that she grew up in was not one of those flooded, so instead her father brought home a co-worker's family with two small boys who were not as fortunate. My grandmother was a hard worker and a spiritual woman, but I can only imagine how different that house must have been with three energetic children who my mother said would run around the circular layout of the main floor repeatedly. Mom also said that they kept their bathtub full of water everyday, which she didn't understand, and that men would come everyday and open the covers over the sewers to check the water level because they were blowing all over the city. (I learned today that because the water plant was well under water clean water was brought in for consumption, thus the full bathtub. The American Red Cross was very fearful at the time that there would be an epidemic of typhoid and/or scarlet fever, so precautions were taken very seriously),

Aerial View of Evansville (Knecht 2108) Courtesy of Willard Library

Listening to Patricia Sides in the presentation and in watching the photos, I gained a larger perspective for all that occurred here.

I didn't know that at one point the National Guard was brought in and martial law was enacted in order to protect property and people. Many people had evacuated. (Tonight my mother told me of a friend of hers that was on the last railroad train leaving the city and that water was actually lapping the wheels as they were moving down the track). I know of a family closer to Cincinnati  in which part of the family went to Indianapolis and the family never was able to reunite.

Patricia reminded us that this flooding came on the heels of a year of serious heat, a time of depression, and that the flooding was coupled with ice storms, snow, and other weather events. So much went on in this city during that time, and those of you that lived in adjoining areas know the story well. Because of the popularity of the session, Willard Library will repeat the presentation in the evening in April for those who could not attend today. I think I am going to attend again. As we all know, the more knowledge we have about the daily lives our families lived, the better.