RAMAPO WARD VOTE

As regular readers of my Blog will notice, today's offering is quite serious.

I have been a resident of the Town of Ramapo for a great many years. My family moved from New York City to a gorgeous little village called Spring Valley at the height of the building boom of the 1960's. The whole town could be found at Pakula's Bakery on a Sunday morning, buying rolls and pastries. We went ice skating in shifts on the pond behind Memorial Park -- the kids who owned their own skates went first. After a couple of hours, they came home and loaned their skates to those of us who had none; then we took our turn skating for a couple of hours. I was afforded the opportunity of a stellar public education by this District. As a child, I lived in safety and harmony with our diverse friends and neighbors. No one ever locked their doors at night -- there was no need. Houses are yards were tidy, if modest, and we all looked out for each other.

Somewhere along the line, I grew up and got married. I can still remember walking around the block with my then-fiancé, and running into someone who was gathering signatures for something called "The Village of Chestnut Ridge." I didn't see the need to have a separate village, and said so, but this lady seemed to think that it would somehow "protect" our area from degrading due to a certain "element." I told her that I would be proud to live next door to anyone who could afford our taxes, and refused to sign.

Fast forward about a decade and a half.

Without moving, we were now living in the Village of Chestnut Ridge. As I had predicted, the extra layer of Government had resulted in higher taxes and not much else. The quality of life in our area was still quite high, and our schools were still the pride of New York State. And then...

I had never paid too much attention to local politics, and certainly not to the School Board. We had no children so it didn't affect us. I thought. Then we began to hear rumblings of discontent from friends and neighbors who did have children in school. Test scores were going down. The graduation rate was dropping. One or two members of the school board seemed to be overly concerned with lowering school taxes, even though their own children attended private schools. Another few years passed and I began to read about troubles in our school district in the newspaper. Our taxes were staying nice and low, though. On a whim, I went down to a School Board meeting. The rest, as they say, is history.

I won't bore you all with the litany of woes that have befallen our school district in the ensuing years. You are all too familiar with them. I will, however, do my level best to convince you to vote in favor of a Ward System this day, Tuesday, September 30.

First of all, you may wonder what a Referendum is. It is a Special Election or Vote on a matter of great importance to the ENTIRE Town. Remember a couple of weeks ago when Scotland voted on its own independence? That was a Referendum. A referendum vote is so important that special pains are taken to ensure that ALL residents have a chance to cast their ballots. Remember when Scotland lowered the voting age to 16 in order to let more people vote? Under New York State Municipal Law, ANYONE over the age of 18 who can prove they are a legal resident of the Town of Ramapo can vote in this Referendum. Period. You do NOT have to be a registered voter to vote in this Special Election; this Referendum. That means that if you are a high school senior and you have reached your eighteenth birthday, you may vote in this election. Imagine that -- actually being allowed to have a say in the future of your own schools.


What is a Ward System and why should you care? I'm glad you asked. Under our current system, our Town Board Members are elected by popular vote and serve the Town "at large;" that is to say, all of the Town Board represents ALL of the Town. In theory. In reality, the Town Board is stacked with members who have a vested interest in keeping our school taxes low. What do lower school taxes mean? Lower school taxes mean an inferior public education. The graduation rate for students in the East Ramapo School District is 61.2%, compared to a national average of approximately 78%. The drop-out rate for students in East Ramapo is 17%, compared to a national average of approximately 3%. Under the Ward System, our town would be divided by area -- for the purposes of elections -- , with a representative (Town Board Member) assigned to each area. This would ensure that MORE members of our community would have their voices heard. It would be difficult, hypothetically speaking, for our entire Town to continue to elect a corrupt Town Official, such as a Supervisor, for example.

Another component of this public referendum is whether or not to expand the number of the current Town Board from Four members to six members. We currently have four members. This referendum, if passed, would increase that number to six. So we would have a more diverse population being represented in our local elections, and there would be more representatives.

The Ramapo Town Supervisor's office is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Councilman Daniel Friedman (D, Ramapo) has taken the nearly unprecedented measure of asking New York State Attorney General Eric Schneidermann and New York State Comptroller Thomas Di Napoli to investigate malfeasance in the office of the Town Supervisor (St. Lawrence). When a member of the Supervisor's staff questioned what she perceived to be improper fiscal activities within the Office, she was defamed and suspended from her job. She is now suing Christopher St. Lawrence (and others) for $2 million in damages. In 2010, the Ramapo Town Council approved a resolution giving the town's backing to $16.5 million in bonds to be sold by the Ramapo Local Development Corp to fund the currently named Provident Baseball Stadium in Pomona. An overwhelming 70% of Ramapo voters REJECTED this resolution. Chris St. Lawrence went ahead and built the stadium anyway, claiming that it would not cost the taxpayers anything. Instead, we taxpayers are on the hook for $60 million in expenses related to the stadium.

Perhaps the greatest insult to our Town came on January 13, 2008, when Supervisor Chris St. Lawrence made this victory speech, thanking his supporters: http://youtube.com/watch?v=GzdliD9c

This is the Town Supervisor who has been elected over and over again under our current voting system. This is the Town Supervisor who would likely NOT be elected under the Ward System. This is why your YES vote is so important today. Please, vote YES for the Ward System and for the Addition of two members to the Town Board. To find your polling place, go to: http://www.preserveramapo.org Our future is in our own hands.

(If html links are not displaying properly, please check back for updates. You can reach the links by copy/pasting them into your broser. Thank you.)

Downton Bloggy

(To be read in your most posh British accent unless you ARE a very posh Brit, in which case, carry on.)

I am at my wit's end. I must - I say, I simply MUST - put two rather important letters in the post as soon as possible. However, our printer has ceased working and so I am not able to print out said letters in order to put them into the post. It is astounding that, in our advanced society, such a thing might happen. It has never - I repeat, NEVER - happened before. If one could simply call upon a service person of some sort, and have a new printer delivered and installed, one would be very happy, indeed.

As if the lack of a working printer were not enough to send one into apoplexy, there does not appear to be a single postage stamp in our household. However shall I cope? I searched the postage stamp drawer thoroughly. I even asked my spouse if perhaps, he might have a stray stamp or two that he might give me. To my chagrin, he did not.

With incredible effort, I dressed myself warmly (for it is a very cold night, indeed) and drove myself to a public printing service establishment. My cheeks burning with shame, I swiped my credit card, logged onto the World Wide Web, and printed my documents. Pulling said documents from the printer with great haste, I ran to my car, where I sat, momentarily, to regain my composure, before driving on to the supermarket to purchase a book of stamps.

As it was embarrassing enough to be in such an establishment after dark without proper escort, and fearing that the management of said establishment might look with suspicion upon such as wretch as myself if I simply purchased a book of stamps, I also purchased a loaf of bread and a bit of good, aged cheddar.

To my horror, the only cash register which was open was at the self check-out. Glancing about to be sure that none of my peers might also be in the supermarket (ridiculous thought though that was) I checked out my own items. If my unfortunate situation could possibly worsen, then worsen it did. It worsened greatly, and with terrible, swift speed, for, when I asked the clerk for a book of stamps, she replied, "I don't have any and Customer Service is closed."

Closed! How utterly riduculous! Why would an establishment have a Service for Customers if they had not the proper staff to keep it open when a customer might need it the most? Livid, and yet humiliated, I fled the supermarket for the relative safety of my car, where, without even taking the time to compose myself, I drove home straitaway.

As I will obviously be haunted by these events, and will be unable to sleep for many minutes, I have set them down in this way, in order to purge them from my feverish mind. O! If only we had servants, I would ring for tea but, as one can imagine, after this dreadful past hour - an hour of my life which I will never regain - I fear I can do nothing whatsoever except to sit upon the sofa and sigh.

A FOURTH OF JULY VALENTINE TO MY NEIGHBORHOOD

This Fourth of July has gotten me thinking about Freedom. We have so many freedoms in this country that we tend to take them for granted. We have the freedom to worship as we wish or not to worship at all. We have the freedom to read everything that has ever been written or not to read anything. We may express our politics views boldly or have no views to express. With all of the many freedoms with have, also comes responsibility. In fact, I would say that the more freedoms we have, the more responsibility we have to use those freedoms wisely.

When I was not much more than a baby, my parents moved to a burgeoning new community. It was filled with apples orchards, farms, ranches, fresh air. It was a safer and healthier place to raise a family than in the cramped city where my family had previously lived. With his status as a veteran of World War II, my father took advantage of a provision of the old GI Bill which offered veterans a mortgage with no down payment. Using every penny of their savings for the move, my parents purchased a house. Then they set about turning it into a home.

Our community was a lovely place in which to grow up. We had huge amounts of land surrounding our cozy little cottage style houses. Many families had been neighbors in the city and had moved here for a better life. We city kids learned the joy of walking barefoot on the grass in the summertime and sledding safely down our hill in the winter. You could do that back then because everyone looked out for one another. Big kids looked after little kids, parents looked after everyone’s kids, our family dogs walked us to the bus stop in the morning and waiting faithfully to pick us up in the afternoon.

We grew and learned to ride bicycles. We rode everywhere in those days because it was safe. We explored our own neighborhood and ventured into neighboring towns and villages. We made new friends.

There was a wood surrounded our new neighborhood. We spent endless summers exploring the well worn paths that were said to be Indian trails. On one journey deep into the woods, we found an old Army Jeep. We hopped into its rusting hulk and pretended to be driving through the Ardennes or to the Russian front. We knew our history. Our fathers and mothers had lived it.

As the years went by, the inevitable suburban sprawl began to overtake our magical woods. A developer knocked down an old castle and built another development with larger houses. Some of our better-off friends moved into those newer, bigger houses. We were happy for them and went to birthday parties in those houses. For a while.

Towards the end of our elementary school days an even newer, larger development started to go up in our beloved woods. We formed a little-kid militia which we dubbed “The Cavalry,” and we rode through the new streets, shooting our water pistols at the construction workers and throwing a few rocks, too. Those were our woods. How could they keep building more houses? Soon there would be no land left.

By the time we got to high school, we had real grown-up responsibilities. The girls all became baby-sitters and the boys all had paper routes. When we learned to drive we took on even more responsibilities. We had to attend school, hold down an after-school job, look after our younger brothers and sisters. We had to start thinking about colleges. We had to start planning for our futures.

Our street had always been a dead end. They are called “No Outlet” streets today. My Dad had chosen the lot wisely with the eye of a former farmer. It was on the highest ground so there was never any basement flooding and we caught the cool breezes of a summer’s night. It also kept our little neighborhood very quiet.

One day, I noticed that there was construction at the end of our street. Developers were building more homes. These were the largest homes we had ever seen. They were so large that we couldn’t imagine who would live in them. These houses dwarfed the lots on which they rested. They seemed out of proportion. They seemed wrong. And then the unimaginable happened; they broke through our dead end street because they wanted egress to the neighboring towns.

The traffic on our quite street doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled, then we lost count. Shiny, expensive sports cars from these new houses roared through our street as if it were their private drag strip. Car radios blared late into the night. Drug deals started to go down on unlit corners in our neighborhood. We would find the paraphernalia the next day, along with garbage, cigarette butts and condoms. We called our local police and begged them to help. They explained that their job had been made very difficult by the fact that, at the end of our street, they no longer had jurisdiction. It was a different township. They tried. We all tried. Our safe, quite community became a memory.

I had moved into the upstairs of our tiny mother-daughter house after my grandparents died. I scrubbed and painted and laid flooring and turned the tiny apartment into a lovely space for myself. Of course I had to pay rent. That was the responsible thing to do.

Around this time I met my husband to be. We connected instantly and passionately. On our first date I knew that we would marry. He was living in another town at that time; a town in which I was working. I began to spend more and time at his apartment. I liked being in a town center. It had life and energy and I could walk to work. We became engaged. Then we had to decide where to live. His place was in a great location but it was a studio and was almost twice as expensive as my apartment upstairs in my parent’s house. It seemed the logical choice to temporarily move into my place and save for a place of our own. My mother doubled our rent.

The years went by and we settled into our tiny space. We kept saving but never quite got enough of a down payment together before the housing prices went up. The crash of 1987 happened and I lost a great job in the City. We had to cut back on expenses. We stayed.

Neighbors moved away. Many of their children bought their family homes and raised their own families in our neighborhood. It underwent a renaissance. It became integrated. We even had a gay couple down the street with adopted children. We adopted a dog and started walking around, learning the names of our new neighbors. Everyone had dogs. After a speeding car filled with drunken teenagers killed my parent’s dog one night, we knew it was no longer safe to let our dogs run free. Just another price to pay for breaking though our dead end street.

My Dad retired and developed emphysema. I started helping with the yard work, raking leaves in the fall and shoveling snow in the winter. I liked it. It was good exercise and I didn’t have to pay for a gym membership. Mostly I liked being out in the yard with my Dad. He was diagnosed with a partially blocked carotid artery in his neck. For the first time in his life, he had to go to the hospital. He was 75 years old.

Dad seemed to decline rapidly. He had several other surgeries over the next several years and his breathing worsened. One beautiful Spring day he went out into the yard with his oxygen tank strapped to his back to clear some fallen branches. A branch scratched his arm. Due to the massive steroids that he was on for his breathing, he had very little immune system left. The scratch became infected, the infection spread to his bloodstream and he died within a week.

When the shock wore off a little, I hired an estate planning attorney for my mother and insisted that she get her affairs in order. It was no small task, as I have come to learn that my mother suffered from a learning disability all of her life. I purchased the house from her and became her housekeeper and estate manager. She continued to insist that we pay her a monthly fee because she had so little income, so we did. It was the responsible thing to do. In time, she developed dementia and then Alzheimer’s disease and is now confined to a nursing home. For the first time on our married lives, my husband and I had our own house.

Being homeowners took some getting used to. I had to try to remember all of the household repairs which my father had taught me. I also undertook a complete, organic redesign of the yard. That’s an ongoing project.

About six weeks ago, a sign appeared at the end of our street. It read “This road will be closed. New traffic pattern.” We didn’t think much of it. There had been a tremendous amount of damage from a freak October ice storm and we assumed the road needed some repair. Perhaps there were underground cables that needed upgrading and we would have to take the long way around for a few weeks.

Four days ago, a barricade was erected at the end of our street. There was a sign which read “Road Closed.” I called our Village Hall. A meeting had been held in the neighboring township to address the increased traffic flowing from our street. They didn’t like it. They wanted a private community. Our mayor spoke out against it at this meeting. Leaders of our police, fire and ambulance crews said that it would create a safety hazard. Since emergency vehicles now had to go out of their way to reach our homes, that added detour of five to seven minutes could mean the difference between life and death. The people in the big houses didn’t care. They wanted their children to be able to ride their bicycles all over the street with no sense of responsibility that cars also drive on that public street.

The people in the big houses have a lot of money. They drive expensive cars, have lawn services, built-in swimming pools, fenced yards. They have clogged the street – a public street – with cars for parties for decades. Every Fourth of July, they set off so many illegal rockets that the air is choked with smoke and one cannot see to drive. They scowl and curse at us when we drive on their street. And now they want a private community.

This Fourth of July I will be watching as these people shoot off their rockets, causing a hazard to all. They will drive up and down their street, radios blaring. They will laugh at us in our little cottages and continue to throw garbage and condoms over the barricade. Human beings are not meant to live behind barricades. There is something in our nature that longs to be free. Free to walk our dogs and our children; to ride our bicycles. Free to think that we are all equal and have the same rights. We will fight for our rights but we will lose. They live in the big houses.

So time will pass. Our street will become a dead end again. It will become quiet and safer again. We will get to know our neighbors even better. It will become what it was always intended to be: a better place to live, with fresh air, where children can walk barefoot in the summer and sled down the hill in the winter. Maybe we’ll throw a block party for the Fourth of July next year. I’m looking forward to the future of our beautiful little neighborhood. Come visit us any time. And oh yes - Happy Independence Day.

Writing my Next Chapter

First the good news: I was cast in the Metropolitan Playhouse’s production of “House of Mirth.” The bad news? Halfway through rehearsal I injured my ankle and had to drop out. Yes. Ouch.

As a female actor of a certain age, I am well aware that there are not so many roles out there for me. Of course, I play all the “mom” roles in the smaller films, and do quite a bit of festival and workshop roles. And I have my teaching and coaching, my online business and my blog to keep me busy. But still. This was “House of Mirth.” At Metropolitan. Take a guess how often that happens.

And, let me tell you, I jumped through so many mental hoops, trying to come up with a way of staying with the show. I even considered, albeit fleetingly, trying to find an unscrupulous “sports doctor” to give me a shot of cortisone so that I could walk. Then I put my ankle on ice and did what any other self-respecting actor would do in the same circumstance: I whined.

“It’s not fair! This can’t be happening! I love this show. Who does Edith Wharton anymore? My costume shoes were so pretty! I’ll never work again.”


As I sat there in misery, flipping through my emails on my Droid, I came across this:


Weekly Tip for 3.23.12 March 2012


Weekly Tip for 3.23.12
THE 6 MAGIC WORDS TO MAKE IT IN OUR BUSINESS.
Where were these words before?!
We often get asked, What's the secret to succeed in this business? How do I make it? What are the magic words? We've always said, No such quick answer. BUT, after a recent "aha!" moment, there IS an answer. And it is:
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I subscribe to a newsletter from Scott Powers Studios. If you’re in this business, working in New York and you don’t know Scott, you should. It’s uncanny, but it seems that whenever I need a pick-me-up, whenever I need that edge of confidence to go into an audition or callback, Scott Powers Studios sends me their Weekly Tips Newsletter and it seems to have been written just for me. I read on.

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DO WHAT IS EXPECTED OF YOU.

No excuses. No "yeah-buts." No "extenuating circumstances." No nothin'
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“Do what is expected of me?” It’s really that simple?

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Simple? No, deceptively complex. It turns out, every "issue" or "challenge" or literally everything that occurs that is wrong, a disappointment, a letdown, not getting the job, getting fired or losing representation, revolves around if somebody has not done what is expected of them. That goes for actors, agents, casting directors, managers, you name it.
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I had won the role and, through no fault of my own, was now unable to play it. I could hear the exasperation in my director’s voice when I tried to tell him that it would all be fine. I’d rest my ankle, keep icing it, take anti-inflammatories. Then somehow, a miracle would happen, and I’d be able to go back to rehearsal, still wearing the ankle brace and somehow finding a period show that would fit over it. Yeah, right. He graciously, if trepidaciously, agreed to let me sit out two rehearsals. It would all work out. I’d be all better and still get to be in this incredible production. I fell asleep with my script in hand, dreaming about rehearsals.

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Can you do what is expected of you? If you can, we have seen those before you succeed, sometimes spectacularly.

If you can't do what is expected of you? We have seen those results, too.
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The next morning I could bear no weight on my foot. With Scott Powers’ words ringing in my ears, I gave myself permission to cry a little. Then, I called the director and asked to be replaced. Believe me, that hurt more than the ankle. In my desire to please (and to work!) I realized I was justifying like crazy, trying to come up with some way of continuing on when it really was hopeless. I could not do “what was expected of me,” which was to complete the rehearsal period and perform for a month. (Yep, an entire month. In New York. Doing Edith Wharton and Clyde Fitch.) And when that realization hit me, I knew I could not jeopardize the production for my own ego. With sincere regret and disappointment, my dear director, the wonderfully talented Alex Roe, agreed that it had to be done.

Am I happy about it? Not one bit. But it was the right thing to do. Sometimes doing what is expected means stepping down. With a little luck (and a lot of physical therapy ) I hope to be able to hobble in to see my now former cast mates. It will still hurt. And it will still have been the right thing to do.

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We all write our own books. And there's nothing wrong with starting a new chapter. Like right now.
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Go out there and write your next chapter. I’ve just written mine.


www.Metropolitanplayhouse.org

www.scottpowers.com

getworking@scottpowers.com

SANTA CLAUS IS REAL

I read with dismay an article about a second grade teacher in Nanuet, New York, who told her classes that there is no Santa Claus. She said that parents are the ones who bring gifts to children on Christmas. Well, I’m here to set the record straight.

When I was little, my parents took my brother and me up to the North Pole, New York, which everyone knows is the official headquarters for Santa when he is in New York. Of course, he spends most of his time at his home in the North Pole at the top of the world, reading Christmas lists, supervising the Elves who make all the toys, and eating lots of delicious gingerbread that Mrs. Santa Claus makes for him.

As soon as I saw him I knew he was the real Santa Claus. My parents had already explained to me that Santa has thousands and thousands of helpers who go to stores all over the world during the Christmas season, writing down the names of all the children and the toys that they hope to get for Christmas. They wear the official uniform of the North Pole, which is the familiar red suit with white trim, and black boots. Many of Santa’s helpers also let their beards grow so that they are nice and long for the Christmas season. But this Santa Claus – the real Santa Claus – looked a little different from what I expected. He was wearing a plaid shirt and work jeans, and his official red uniform coat was draped across the back of his big chair. He was also wearing work boots and not his official black boots. When I asked him why he didn’t look like all of the Santa’s helpers that I had seen in the stores, he said that he only wears his dress uniform on Christmas Eve. Otherwise, he wears his work clothes, so that it is easier for him to do all the work of planning for Christmas.

We had a long talk that day. He asked me if I had been good that year, and I had to admit that I sometimes argued with my brother. He explained to me that it’s natural for brothers and sisters to argue sometimes, but the important thing is to love each other. He said that even people who love each other can argue once in a while, but they still love each other, no matter what. Then he asked me what kind of toys I wanted for Christmas. That’s when I asked him the question that had been bothering me for a long time. I got really brave, looked him in the eye and asked,

“Do you really bring us the presents or do they come from our parents?”

He smiled knowingly and chuckled a little. Then he looked me straight in the eye.

“Suzy,” he said. “Of course I bring the toys. When you were just a baby, I brought all of your toys. When you got a little older, I asked your parents to help me, and they bought one or two presents. Then when you got much older, I told your parents that I really needed their help. I explained to them that I make sure to personally deliver presents to all children; especially the very young children. But the world is very big and I need a lot of help. So when children get a little older, I get in touch with their parents and show them their children’s Christmas lists which come to the North Pole. I tell them which toys I can bring, and they help me out with the rest. Usually, they buy the sweaters and scarves and I bring the toys that we make at the North Pole.”

I was surprised and a little disappointed.

“But Santa, “I said. “I thought you brought all the toys to all the children.”

“Well now, Suzy,” he continued. “As I just explained to you, the world is very big and there are so many children who want so many toys. That’s why I need helpers. I have my helpers who go to the stores, and I have my secret helpers – all of the parents in the world. Christmas is a very important holiday. We celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ on Christmas. As Jesus taught us, we must all help each other; rich and poor, young and old, black, white, yellow, brown, red… all the people in the world need to help each other.

“And now there is something that you can do to help me.”

“Help you, Santa?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed. When you grow up, if anyone ever tells a child that I don’t exist, I need you to tell them this story. Tell them that you met me and we talked about the real meaning of Christmas. Tell them that I am very real and I most certainly bring presents to all the children of the world. Childhood is a very precious time, and it is a very short time. Children need something to believe in. Tell them that they can believe in me.”

This year, I finally got my chance to help Santa. I am telling all the children in Nanuet, and Rockland County, and New York State – and in the whole world – that Santa Claus is real! He’s real and he’s kind, he brings the presents and he loves us very much. And I should know, because I met him when he was out of uniform!

And it Was Such a Beautiful Day

It’s almost 5:00 in the morning of September 11, 2011 and I cannot sleep. I almost feel that it’s going to happen all over again and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Let me bring you back ten years ago to that day from my perspective. My husband and I were on our annual vacation to Cape Cod. I woke up, grabbed a shower and made my breakfast to eat out in the backyard of our rented cottage. As soon as I got out there, though, I realized that it was too hot. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky and it was already about 80 degrees at 9:00 I the morning. So I came back inside where it was cooler, and put on the television to watch the weather report. I saw an image that confused me. It was the image of one of the Twin Towers, completely shrouded in smoke. Dan Rather was saying something about a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. I called my husband from the next room and said, “A small plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers. How awful.” I also noticed the now ubiquitous headline crawl along the bottom of the television screen. I started to read it, but that was long before we were used to watching an image and reading the crawl at the same time, so I soon gave up. From what I was able to glean from the crawl, it appeared that a Cessna or other small plane had gone off course and crashed into one of the Towers. We started talking about the time when a small plane crashed into the Empire State Building. We felt terrible for the pilot and any passengers, and hoped that there wasn’t too much damage to the Tower.

Concern turned to shock, though, as I heard Dan Rather say that the second Tower appeared to be in danger of collapse. I thought that it must have been a terrible jolt for one little plane to cause the other Tower to be at risk. Then I said, “Wait a minute. There’s something wrong. I can’t see both Towers. Where’s the other Tower?’ My husband, Jim, thought that it must have been hidden by all the smoke. I started to drink my coffee and eat my bagel. Then I watched the Tower collapse before my eyes. I said, “They’ve imploded the Towers. Why would they implode the Towers?” Then I heard Dan Rather say, “And the second Tower has collapsed.”

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. I could barely breathe. I tried to speak but no words would come out. When I was finally able to mutter something I said, “Those Towers hold fifty thousand people. Fifty thousand people.” I could feel the bile rise into my throat and I ran to the bathroom to vomit. When I came back out, Jim told me that there were several other planes in the air which appeared to be heading towards Washington, D.C.. One had reportedly crashed into Camp David. And then I knew. I whispered, “We’re under attack. My God, we’re under attack.”

As we watched, sketchy reports began coming in. The White House had been hit. No, it was Camp David after all. I asked, “Where is the President?” but Jim didn’t know. No one knew. Time stopped. My husband’s face was ashen. I asked, “What’s happening?” and he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Who could have done something like this?” I choked out the words, “Bin Laden. It could only be Bin Laden.”

We stared at the television screen for hours, too shocked to cry and barely able to speak. We saw people jumping out of windows. Jumping out of 110 story windows. I wondered if they were showing the same footage in New York. I wanted to call my parents who lived about 25 miles north of New York but I didn’t want to tie up the phone lines for the emergency workers. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to New York, my beloved New York, the city of my birth, the city of my ancestors’ birth. I wanted to do – I don’t know what. Help rescue people? Help clean up? Help somehow? Jim said that we needed to stay put until we had more information. I felt the need to be with people. I needed to go to the beach. Jim said, “Let’s go do something normal for a while. I can't stand watching this anymore. Let’s go play mini-golf.” I didn’t want to play mini-golf. I wanted to go to the beach. I wanted to be with people. I wanted to go home. But we went to play mini-golf. Like two zombies, we bought our clubs and asked the man at the desk if he had heard. We told him we were from New York. He laughed and said, “I bet you’re glad you’re not there now.” I said, “No. I wish I were there now, helping my City.” He looked confused. We played mini-golf. Then we drove around aimlessly. We found ourselves in Chatham, wandering around. We stopped into the only store which was still open. The owner was about to close. She said that a man had come in earlier, also stunned and wandering around. He said that he worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and was on vacation. He said he had nothing to go back to. Everyone he worked with was dead. We drove somewhere else; I don’t even remember where. A store. Maybe a department store. I must have bought something. I don’t know what. While I was on line, the two women ahead of me were talking. One said to the other that her husband worked at Otis Air Force Base and they had gotten the order to scramble.

As we drove back to our cottage, we saw hastily made, hand-written signs for a candlelight ceremony on the beach that night. I asked Jim if he’d like to go. He said “No.” We put the television back on when we got in. Someone was saying that there was no truth to the rumors that fighter jets had scrambled to try to intercept the jets that were flying into buildings. We learned that the Pentagon had been hit, but apparently the White House had not. There was another plane in Pennsylvania that had crashed. We finally managed to put a call in to my parents. My father said that there had been an enormous jet flying low over their neighborhood, flanked by F-16’s. My father would know because he had been in the Army Air Corps during WWII, and in the Air Force Reserves for some years afterwards. I told him that we had heard on the news that the President had ordered Air Force One to fly over the World Trade Center site, and that he must have seen Air Force One. Then I asked him if this was what it was like when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He said, “This is worse.” At that point, I began to tremble because that was the first time in my life I had heard fear in my father’s voice. He said that they could see the smoke all the way from lower Manhattan, that fighter plans were flying overhead and they were terrified. I told him that I wanted to come home and help with the rescue effort. He said, “Don’t, Sue. You’ll destroy your lungs. Don’t go down there.” I told him that I loved him and would call again the next day. I could hear a catch in his voice as he said, “Love you, too.”

I went to the candlelight ceremony on the beach by myself that night. It was beautiful, I guess. Someone handed me a candle and someone else handed me a rose. We lit the candles, said some kind of prayers and then cast the roses into the ocean. Someone was filming for the local news. He asked me where I was from and I said “New York.” He couldn’t say another word.

******

Two weeks later we were back in New York. Jim had gone back to work and I went to the City. I could only take the train down to 14th Street, so I walked the rest of the way downtown. It looked like a war zone. It was a war zone. Tanks and jeeps were in the streets, National Guard were everywhere. I didn’t recognize anything. Everything was closed, boarded up, destroyed. I asked a National Gaurdswoman where I could go to pay my respects. She said, “You can’t get any closer than Trinity Church, ma’am. It’s not safe.” I thanked her and tried to find my way to Trinity Church amid the smoke and ash. I kept looking up, as if I expected to see the Towers. I kept closing my eyes, then looking up, hoping that it had been a dream. But all I saw was smoke and ash. When I got to Trinity Church, dozens of people lined the barricades, looking in the direction of the Towers. I fell to my knees. They were gone. They were really gone. Some people sobbed, some people spoke in hushed tones. Most people prayed.

The most vivid memory I have of that day is the smell. As I got closer and closer to the site, I kept smelling something horrible. The ash became so dense that I had to cover my nose and mouth with a cloth. A wave of revulsion hit me as I realized that I was smelling still-burning, decomposing bodies, and that the ash that I was breathing in had once been three thousand human beings.

After a time – I don’t know how long – I went into the only shop that was still open that far downtown; the Au Bon Pain Pastry shop. I ordered a coffee and a chocolate croissant. Nothing has ever tasted so good before or since. Amid the destruction, the rubble, the ash and smoke, life was going on. The clerk told me that they had stayed open continuously, making gallon after gallon of coffee for the First Responders.

******

It has now been ten years since that horrific day. As I said at the top, I keep feeling that I can someone stop it from happening. That I know now what’s coming so I can warn someone. But it already happened. It happened a long time ago. It happened a moment ago. And it was such a beautiful day.

FREEDOM

I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom lately. What does freedom really mean? Does it mean different things to different people? Can there be any one definition of the word?

235 years ago, freedom meant that a group of British colonies, suffering under enormous tax burdens and the tyranny of a far away King, wished to chart their own course. They wished to break away from their mother country, the country in which many of them were born, and to live as a new, independent nation. Benjamin Franklin spoke of how we had already become a new nationality – we needed a new nation. He was talking about change. Evolving needs for an evolving people.

Thomas Jefferson’s brilliant Declaration of Independence became a shell of its original form as compromises and changes were made to the document. Certainly the greatest of these changes was the institution of slavery. The entire economy of the Southern colonies was based on this unspeakable institution. Indeed, without the removal of the abolition clause, it is most probable that Independence would not have come into being. It would take nearly another hundred years, and a bloody civil war for this horror to be abolished. And it would take all the way into the Twentieth Century until civil rights legislation passed Congress and was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

But this new nation was still not much more than an idea. White, male, land-holders were full citizens. Africans and women were property. There was still a revolutionary war to be fought and won, and win it we did, against seemingly impossible odds. Now we had our new nation – and nobody seemed to be able to agree on what sort of nation it ought to be.

The United Colonies evolved into the United States. Wise men evolved their thinking to include Africans and finally even women as full citizens. We expanded westward and fulfilled our manifest destiny. And we decimated an indigenous population along the way. Towns and cities began to spring up. A railroad stretched from one end of the continent to the other. The industrial revolution drove a growing economy. And we went to war again. And again, and again, and again.

Today, we face a new kind of war. A war based on the corruption of religion. A war which would catapult women back into the Nineteenth Century; A war which has shut down access to basic reproductive care in several states. A war which would define marriage in the most narrow of terms. This war seeks to deny science and the discovery of new medicines and new treatments for devastating diseases. This is a movement which is turning back time; turning back our nation to a time before Evolution was proven to be a fact. Turning back time to a point where religion was not separate from the State. Where the personal, religious beliefs of a bunch of white, land-owning males are the basis for deciding what is best for everyone. Where civil rights are trampled in the name of “security.” Our every movement is caught on camera; our every keystroke recorded for posterity. And why? Because “our God” is better than “their God.” Our shiny new nation, filled with such hope for the future and yet tarnished by such corruption, is evolving once again. This time, it appears to be evolving backwards.

But I see a glimmer of hope over the horizon. I see New York State, the site of our nation’s first capitol, standing once again as a beacon of equality. I see people taking to the streets to protest rights which are being stripped away from them. And I hear a voice, way in the back of the crowd, saying “But I’m not really free. I’m not really an equal citizen. That’s wrong, and that has to change.” What is freedom, America? To me, it means respect for every human being, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. It means compassion for those in despair, both in our own nation and around the world. It means no longer denying oppression and despotism when it occurs around the world. Freedom means choice. Freedom means that the State doesn’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own body, or who I can or cannot marry. It means being able to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July in public with my newly engaged gay friends. It means to me what it meant to John Adams; “All Americans, free forevermore.”




What does freedom mean to you?