I was driving to work listening to sports radio on 9/11/01. Except they weren't talking sports - the hosts, a couple of wiseacres named Dan Bernstein and Terry Boers, were not cracking wise on that morning, they were watching and commenting on the events unfolding before them. It was a different perspective from the newsradio or tv stations. A couple of sports talkers talking about and reacting to something that was real and important and disturbing in a way that no sports story ever could be. A couple of familiar personalities "out of their element" so to speak.

I remember getting to work, and of course the talk was all about what was happening in NY and Washington DC and in the middle of some Pennsylvania field. There was fear - people cancelled their appointments not wanting to go out. People told me they weren't going to go anywhere near the Joliet Mall, as if that would be a high ranking target on some terrorist's list.

I remember that in Joliet, Illinois, it was a beautiful day, surreal in a way because of the news coming over the radio and TV's.

I remember being a little afraid myself, not because I thought terrorists were going to target anything near me or because I might know someone (I didn't) but because I am married into a Moslem family, and how were AMERICANS going to react to someone with a middle eastern last name? I remember a friend of mine (southside Irish, converted to Buddahism) calling me, asking if my wife had gotten any hassles at her office and offering to go over there if we needed to act as sort of a bodyguard. These latter fears were baseless. No one every harassed or threatened them or anyone they know in any way shape or form, which continues to make me proud to call myself an American.

I remember thinking that we (the United States) were finally going to have to take the lead in wiping out these rat's nests of terrorists, but that it wasn't the kind of thing you can do militarily, any more than you would send in the Air Force to combat an inner city gang problem. It was going to take covert ops and good old fashioned police work, and lots of cooperation. (I'd say that events have proven that assessment to be accurate.)

Most of all, I remember feeling unsafe in the United States for the first time in my life. (Nothing that's been done since has made me feel safer, which is disappointing since I thought they were on the right track in Afghanistan.)

I and (I'm sure) everyone else still mourn the loss of life on that day five years ago. Hopefully the day will come when the world comes to its senses and life itself isn't such a war over things that only bear this heightened significance in a handful (relatively speaking) of people's heads...