Ode to Autumn

In an effort to offset the unnerving reality that its 150-degrees outside on September 26, I have compiled an exhaustive list of all the things I love about fall...

Cornstalks
Hayrides
The cool, crisp air
Political lawnsigns
Vermont
New York City
Central Park (how you tore your dress... what a mess... I confess...)
Its dark again by five o'clock
High school football
Corn mazes
Orchards
New England foliage
Real maple syrup
New TV shows
Apples
Apple crisp
Apple cider
Apple cider donuts
Apple pie
(Hell, even Apple Jacks)
Drinking a pint of Blue Moon at a rustic old pub
Playoff baseball
The World Series
The inevitable Yankees Victory Parade!
Tractor-pulls
The plethora of traditional New England fairs
Driving around the reservoir
Pumpkins
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin seeds
Pumpkin beer
Barry Manilow's "Weekend in New England" (please don't judge me)
Our wedding anniversary
My birthday
Election Day
UConn Dairy Bar ice cream
Falling leaves blowing in the wind
Breaking out my winter jackets
Kettle corn
Watching my kids dress-up for Halloween
The smell of pot roast when I come from work
Lighting my fireplace for the first time in months
Wearing jeans
Cloudy skies
And of course: Thanksgiving.

(insert audible sigh)... I feel much better.

September 11, 2001

It may sound corny, cliché and wholly unoriginal, but September 11, 2001 started out just like any other day.

I rolled out of bed. I took a shower. I got dressed for work.

My wife and I were still technically newlyweds; no morning chaos, no children screaming for pancakes or Pop Tarts. She left for work before I did, which was typical given that she was financially supporting us (a truth I forget all too often these days). I had just finished grad school and was working as a lowly intern for the next town over. Though the pay wasn’t great, my commute was minuscule, thus giving me plenty of time to eat my cereal and read my morning paper.

The Yanks had just swept a three-game series from the Red Sox.

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s approval rating had hit a new low.

The Musketeers (a movie I can’t recall for the life of me) won the weekend box office.

It was my best friend’s birthday.

Driving to work, there was some news about a plane hitting the World Trade Center, but it was more of a curiosity than a matter of national security; something briefly mentioned between the local traffic and the previous night’s sports scores. So I parked my car in the Town Hall lot, I grabbed my leather man-purse-thing and I shut my car door… and as if triggered by some divine intervention, I looked up.

The sky over tiny little Plainville, Connecticut was beautiful.

A beautiful, clear blue. Not a single cloud; not even the faintest hint of lifted fog or stale airplane exhaust. It was like an animated cartoon, or one of those drawings my kids did in Kindergarten: just a light blue mass and a perfect yellow sun.

Admittedly, I’m not one to notice things like that. I’m too concrete. I have a hard time seeing the natural beauty in the things I take for granted like the sun and the stars and the trees and the birds chirping. But in that moment, as I stood there in the parking lot, holding my leather work bag, ready for another day on the job, I actually said to myself: wow – what a beautiful day.

Minutes later I was upstairs in our conference room watching smoke bellow from one of the two World Trade Center towers. Anchors and experts were speculating on the air about what had happened: maybe the pilot fell asleep, or there was a tragic mechanical malfunction or something wrong with the air traffic controller.

Then, on live TV, we watched as a second plane emerged from the right side of the screen and hit the second tower.

In an instant, it didn’t matter how many games the Yanks had won or how many millions of dollars some silly movie took in on Saturday night. In an instant, I forgot that it was my best friend’s birthday or that The West Wing was supposed to sweep the upcoming Emmy’s. In an instant, I didn’t care that I had to cut the lawn or pay the electric bill or buy more peanut M&M’s for the office.

In an instant, my perfect blue sky was tarnished forever.

Someday one of my kids is going to ask me about 9/11 - about what happened and where I was and who I was with and what I saw. They’ll ask the same way I asked my parents about the Kennedy Assassination, the same way they asked their parents about Pearl Harbor.

And when they do I’ll tell them: “it started out just like any other day.”