Ten Years Later......

I've really never been much of a bandwagon guy, when it comes to posting blog entries or interacting in a social networking sense. I usually prefer to go by the beat of my own drum. I usually have a desire to stand out, though sometimes it's interpreted as stick out, like a sore thumb. Enough with the cliches, obviously tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of a day that I would rather soon forget, September 11, 2001. Just to reflect for a moment on that day, where I was and what I went through. I hosted karaoke the night before at a bar way uptown, near Columbia University. The gig ended at 3am. By the time I packed up my equipment and drove home to Maspeth, Queens, where I lived with my parents, it was 4am. When my mother woke me up at 8:50am, I said, "This better be for a good reason". She said, "No Paul, it's not a good reason", and she turned on my TV. What I saw was shocking and it jolted me awake. the 1st plane had hit the WTC. I immediately thought of my brother, Rocco, who was driving a tow truck in Manhattan and my father, who was driving a taxi cab in town, and if this would adversely affect their ability to get around downtown. Then, the 2nd plane hit the other tower and I said "Holy S#%t, we are being attacked!" and I really became nervous for everyone at that point. I hoped that the towers were strong enough to withstand the impacts and was shocked again, as each tower collapsed and was shaken with the thought of all those people dying and also thought of the people who were there to help rescue people(the fire fighters and police) who were lost. I was saddened with the thought of losing people that I knew. My mother was very worried about my father and brother, and if this would cause them to have difficulty getting home from Manhattan. Luckily, they both were smart enough to come home and were fine.
I do have to say that one event has made me be very cynical of what we've been told about that day. Why did 7 WTC collapse? I remember from my days working in that area, including as an office temp for Cantor Fitzgerald, that 7 WTC is about a block from towers 1 and 2. I don't see why that building collapsed when no planes hit it, and there's some other things that make me shake my head, but I don't want to go on a conspiracy rant.
I'll just say that the day is of course, something we can't forget and is another reminder that we should never take our lives for granted and we should always strive to be happy, because we never know how much time we have. By the same token, don't let fear prevent us from doing what we want with our lives. Have fun!