There are lots of reasons not to go to New York City towing a travel trailer behind a pickup truck. It's a city. Parking would be impossible. I've been there before. You name it. The truth is something quite different.
I intentionally bypassed NYC because I did not want to go see the 9/11 Memorial.
And why else go to NYC?
I have a basic and very politically incorrect view of the Memorial and the reason it is there. I have nothing against remembering loved ones who have passed. Heaven knows that I've been in enough cemeteries lately. But the 9/11 Memorial is much more than a cemetery for people who were murdered in 2001. What is it that we remember about 9/11? Most of us are not related to anyone who died that day. In fact, we have lumped the Firefighter killed attempting to rescue one more person with the husband telling his wife he loved her and the broker attempting to close one more deal before he had to leave his office. There was a cross-section of America in those towers. As many people who we would think of as evil as those we would think of as sainted.
What we really keep alive is our hatred--our villainization of individuals, nations, and religions. We keep alive the memory of what those . . . bastards . . . did to us. And with that memory, we keep our suspicions, our distrust, and our hate alive and fueled.
It would be better if we forgot it.
Can we do that? I doubt it. We might have been able to in a generation or two, but we have assured ourselves that future generations will remember the infamy of that day. I remember distinctly joining the crowd around the television at the Pro Sports Club that morning as people watched in disbelief. We watched as the first tower fell, knowing the second would soon follow. I remember calling my wife and telling her to bring our daughter home from the skating rink and that we'd been attacked. We had no idea yet by whom. These memories are still fresh in my mind. I do not need to be reminded. I need to be healed.
I need to forget.
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