SEPTEMBER 11

When the terrorists drove the two big jets into the World Trade Center in New York the morning of September 11, 2001, I was living in San Francisco, about two blocks from the SF Federal Building. After the attack, sirens went all day and into the night even in San Francisco, so far from New York. My building was evacuated at least twice on the first day and I don't remember how many times on the second day after. I was very afraid of every aircraft I saw flying (not many fly over San Francisco in ordinary times; the "City" long ago burdened the outlying suburbs with the noise), but there are always a few, and there were one or two on September 11.

On September 12, I drove to SFO (San Francisco International Airport), dumbfounded by news reports that the airports were closed and all air traffic was suspended. Hard to believe, imagine, accept. I had to see for myself. I went to a little strip of parking spaces just to the west of SFO, where I had parked many times to watch the big jets taxi up and depart. The strip was closed with those orange cones, very primitive, but they kept me out. Today, eight years later, the little strip is heavily wire-fenced off and has never again been accessible to public parking.

It was just a little thing, that parking strip, but its closing-down was the first sign to me of how far-reaching the acts of September 11 would be. At the very least, I am no longer allowed to take admiring pleasure in seeing the great jets line up and soar away, symbols of engineering power and aeronautic achievement.

Now we are asked in California (and elsewhere) to be sympathetic to the Islamic peoples, to accept their very different beliefs. Right. Which beliefs? The ones that no one in the American press articulates. That Islamic law will prevail worldwide? That our U.S.A. will go down in fiery dust and ashes exactly as the World Trade Center went down? That the state of Israel will be annihilated, that Islam will be served?

No.

We need to keep on keepin' on, our Islam-supporting national administration notwithstanding. Give me liberty or give me death, or don't tread on me, or in God we trust, the words don't matter. We need to remember our heritage. And we have to hang on to something.