9/11

9 years ago now..in so many ways it seems like longer.
As Vic and I were driving to dinner last night we were observing all of the flags . One storage place here in Venice puts flags all over the front "yard" along the highway for this day. They are big flags now and a number big enough so that you know it's something special.more than just one flag. The first year they used tiny flags, thousands of them, each flag represented a life lost. The boy scouts put them up.

The area I live in was made famous that day nine years ago. It was mentioned for something other than our beautiful beaches and luscious landscapes. Sarasota would first make the news because as the attacks took place in NYC, President Bush was at Booker High School here in Sarasota reading to school children.

Then we would make news again when it was learned that one of the pilots,Mohammed Atta , was trained here in Venice at our flight school. I remember hearing stories of the days that followed when the world was under a no flight zone, planes coming here to investigate and search his home and to investigate the school, to find out more about this terrorist that lived among us, unnoticed.

We all have stories of where we were and what we were doing that day. Most of our stories sound the same in the hours to follow...we were glued to our TVs in a state of shock. I went and stood in line at the blood bank. There was a line all the way around the building and what stood out to me is that no one spoke. Everyone was very nice and many had tears in their eyes but no one spoke. We did what little we could to help in a very helpless time.

Something I recall now , these nine years later , is how we as a country stood together. People were a little nicer for a while, we were proud to be Americans. I had American flag stickers on my cars and wore patriotic shirts a lot. We would smile when we saw other people doing the same. We came together. We volunteered, we listened to each other and offered our hugs to those that were more directly effected than we were.

I still can't hear many patriotic songs or songs about that day without crying. I can't sit in a crowd filled stadium while the pledge of allegiance is said or the star spangled banner is sung without tears streaming down my face.

I am proud to live in this country! When we stand together there is nothing more beautiful to me, and nothing so ugly as when we don't.