The buildings' images are poignant enough, by themselves... then think of all the people who were in them that day.

I was driving back from Somerset, PA, when the two planes hit the World Trade Centers, and didn't know until I got all the way home and my sister began calling me. She wanted to make sure I hadn't been anywhere near the plane that went down in... Somerset, PA.

That morning when I walked my dog all the neighbors were swearing that the Somerset plane, in their opinion, had been aimed at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has always been kind of paranoid about attacks, because of all the heavy industry which once was here -- but isn't now. But then we had Star Wars development going on at CMU, and somewhere near that time, the U. of Pittsburgh dug up the whole area surrounding the huge Cathedral of Learning.

(Pitt's Cathedral is a secular academic building, in spite of the name. It is called a cathedral because it's shaped like a cross when seen from above.) When workers opened up this stories-deep trench around the Cathedral, and if you peeked down you could see there were major sub-basements they were working in, silly people started saying they were putting in bomb silos, so they could launch nukes if we were under attack. It was hilarious. What was being put in were optical fiber cables for internet.

But people like to have myths about their local landmarks.


I'd just been at the Firemen's Jubilee Fair the day before Sept 11th, watching tractor pulls and stuff.

This photo is from 1979 when another sister of mine lived in NYC and I visited her.