9/11 anniversary (and aftermath)

I don't have anything pithy, remarkable, or original to say about the 9/11 anniversary.  It was a sad, strange, surreal, and scary day.  I remember that my oldest son was nine days old and I was on a "paternity leave" and staying at home with my wife.  We had a small TV in our bedroom and I groggily awoke to her watching it and saying that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  The rest of the day is a bit of a blur to me.  I do recall driving to Ypsilanti with the thought that classes somehow hadn't been canceled at Eastern Michigan.  (I'd called in the morning and someone, probably a clueless undergrad, had said that classes were still on.  Instead of calling again in the afternoon, I simply got in the car and drove to Ypsilanti.  I think deep down I knew that classes were cancelled, I just needed the catharsis of a long drive).  I'll never forget that drive to EMU (and discovering the empty commuter parking lot and that, yes--of course, classes had been called off) and the subsequent drive back to Lansing.  I've never seen I-96 and US-23 as quiet and barren as that day.  The sky was bright and sunny, mocking the horror of the day, and I drove home listening to the sports talk radio station--which had switched over to a sounding board for the confused and angry listeners to vent their feelings.  In the days and months after 9/11, I wondered what kind of world my son was going to grow up in.  It didn't seem promising.

I'd like to say that ten years later the world seems better, but it doesn't.  We have fought a war in Iraq under false pretenses, and who knows how or when the U.S. will ever get out of Afghanistan.  All of the international goodwill our country received in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 has essentially disappeared.  Meanwhile, our economy is in ruins and partisan bickering is as bad as I can ever remember it.  And you wonder why I talk about sports so much in this blog?  I need some escapism.