Greetings! I certainly hope your week was as good as mine. My granddaughter . . . my only grandchild . . . came up from Phoenix to visit for a few days and we had a great time. I hadn’t seen her in person for several years (it’s a long story) and it was just a thrill to hold her. She is beautiful and a real pleasure to be around and I miss her already. We made tentative plans for her to come every few months in the future until such time that I bid the devil a cheerful hello.
We didn’t do much except enjoy each other’s company. The only exception was a trip to Grand Island where DeeDee and I lived for several years, much of the time I was on the police force there. I got to show her where we were living when her mother was born and we also visited with very close friends, Connie and Dennis Osterman. Denny and I served on the PD together.
Unfortunately, the day ended with me taking a fall when we got home, winding up in the emergency room! I was so exhausted when we got home that I wasn’t sure I could make it to my apartment, and shortly thereafter I did fall. Luckily, there were no significant injuries other than scrapes and bruises, and I returned home the same night. I’m still sore in places, but otherwise feel fine.
Obviously, I had no real opportunity to view much news while Samantha was here. I did watch some of the torment RFK Jr. faced in his congressional hearing. The left is going crazy over the possibility that Big Farma is not going to be making a fortune over doubtful child vaccines. He’s being accused of endangering children’s lives! This from those who support abortion, planned parenthood, gender transitioning and communist indoctrination!
On to other things: Tuesday marks the 24th anniversary of 9-11. As I’ve indicated previously, the event affected me greatly. I hope you don’t mind me re-living it. I flew to New York on August 29, 2001 to attend a conference with federal law enforcement. As we approached, we flew over the Statue of Liberty and up the East River to land at La Guardia I glanced at the Towers, not giving them much thought. Two weeks later, I was sitting in my office when an employee rushed in to announce that one of them had been hit by a plane!
Twenty-odd minutes later, the other tower was struck! I visualized the Towers I had seen just two weeks before and it was difficult for me to believe they were gone. Then, of course, came the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania, when heroic passengers raided the cockpit and forced the crash. Three thousand people died that day and it would have been a much larger total had the passengers not been successful.
Several months later, I returned for another conference. This time, I was on the opposite side in the aircraft so I couldn’t see the damage from the air. I was taken into Manhattan by an elderly Jew driving NYC’s version of Uber. As we chatted, he told me that he was born and raised in Gaza and at that time, Muslims and Jews co-habited the same neighborhood and that he had been close to a Muslim living next door! The neighbors traded house keys with each other when one was going out of town.
After checking in, I took the subway down to Ground Zero, but high walls guarded by NYPD officers preventing anyone from using the stairs. I sweet-talked a female officer in letting me climb the stairs; however, there wasn’t much to see except construction equipment and devastation.
Later that evening I was eating supper with a Secret Service agent and his wife, both Jews. She told me that on 911 she was taking a cab downtown for a doctor’s appointment, and when the announcement was made, the taxi driver, obviously Muslim, turned and smiled at her. She made him pull over and let her out.
Years later, we returned while on vacation and again visited the site as well as other points of interest, too numerous to mention. For all of you drivers out there, you haven’t experienced vehicle operation until you’ve driven on the streets of Manhattan! Take my word for it.
Paco
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