I remember the assignment. “Class, go home and ask your parents where they were, when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot.” About three months earlier it was, “Call your grandparents and ask them if they remember where they were, when they heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Ask them what it was like.” These seemed like pretty run of the mill history, homework assignments. We had read about each event, in great detail, in our textbooks, or so we thought. It comes to me now that the harsh realities, of such events, can never be captured in words or books, and that as a parent, I will one day be on the other side, of that same homework assignment. It would seem each generation is destined to have its defining moments, both positive and negative. How then, do we teach our heirs to avoid these same pitfalls, when we ourselves, were not wise enough to learn the lessons of our fathers?

As I recall the events of the day, the first thing we heard was that a plane had it one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The Empire State Building had been hit by a plane back in the late 30’s or early 40’s, during some heavy fog. We couldn’t remember the exact year. Something was said about there being a lot of fog in the area now, but a quick check on the internet proved this false. The picture showed clear skies, and an immense, oddly angular hole, sliced into the side of the building. No one knew what the details were. In the machine shop, Carlton, one of my tool and die makers, originally from Jamaica, said his sister worked in one of the towers. Dilip, my CNC programmer, who had brought his family here from India, more than 10 years earlier, said he had a cousin there, also. We tried to remember the details and dates of the previous bombings on the buildings, and asked each other if today’s date was of some significance, in the Muslim world.

Someone had the idea to find Hank, and ask him. Hank was the only Muslim we had. He ate two kosher hot dogs for lunch each day, plain white bread, no mustard, no ketchup. He had been eating that same lunch every day for 24 years, so they told me, and in my 5 years with the company, he had given me no reason to doubt them. No one had ever heard him say a swear word, and it was generally accepted that he was the nicest damn guy, anyone was ever likely to met. With all of this working against us, we set out to find Hank, hope turning to false confidence, that while he would never hurt a fly, the rest of the Muslim world would have kept him abreast, of their plots and schemes. Hank proved to be as dependably innocent, as always. Our quest served only to anoint him, to the growing passel, whose minds were now clouded, with disparaging thoughts. Without prompting, two of the other guys headed out to tell the rest of the plant what had just happened, even though they had no details. It was clear something big was going on out there.