9-11 + 6

I was visiting Mom at her home and my younger brother told me a plane had hit. I turned on Peter Jennings and reports , reports from alleged eye witnesses, said “small Cessna-type aircraft.” I stayed glued to the TV and saw live TV of the second plane…shock…I stayed until the second tower collapsed and went home…lines already forming at gas stations as panic set in. I got home and turned on Peter Jennings and stayed with it all day, drifting in and out of sleep as I worked all night long. I’ll always remember that day and my companion that whole day, ABC’s Jennings. He was great. I miss him , even though I was a Dan Rather news-watcher usually.Six years later and bin Laden is making videos to terrorize our mind. Unfortunately, he was/is not a one trick pony. What will he orchestrate next?To me, Bush is a criminal as well for not pursuing him. By now he should have been caught , tried, and executed. But Bush does not care. His mind is on biking trails and low-fat hot dogs…most likely day-dreaming through briefings of the “progress ” in al-Anbar province, asking where “they” , the ones really in charge, will send him next. “Did you say Austria or Australia?”“Oh, yeah…oh well!” [ slobberers hot dog bits and bread crumds down his chest.]Kids that were not yet born when 9-11 occurred are starting first grade. Much has passed. And Bush has let bin Laden go free all this time. He could not care less. But some of us remember

Nighhawk With No Diner

I just got back from a short early morning bike ride…nobody around ‘cept the big rig trucks passin’ thru and the morning paper delivery people…all done by cars now—when I was a kid it was done with bicycles and a large canvas bag wrapped around the handlebars. Kids still deliver the local paper by bikes in the afternoons, but the early papers outta Fort Wayne & Toledo are delivered by nimble old folks jumping outta their ancient Oldsmobile station wagons and 1979 Ford Econoline vans.
This early hour is also used by the soda machine people. Apparently there are two vendors who service these machines…once I saw the two almost come to blows over something…I guessed it was over territory…one had set in a machine in the other’s territory.
This town used to be at least a little lively; within a few blocks from home I could find coffee and conversation at 4:00 A.M at three different places…now all are closed or have restricted their hours severely. Just west of me a couple blocks was the newsstand…last month the guy shuttered it…no time to take care of business , he’s a cop who got promoted, so he shut it up.
I have looked into the possibility of taking it over, but , of course, always obstacles—in this case the building rent is about what I could make selling magazines and coffee and pancakes!