I’M POSTING THIS NOW….
I write about a lot of things on this blog that are fun, silly, and strange. I love to post pictures of Bob the horse, and the rest of the herd and wonderful Melvin.. The squirrels and the birds and the deer and the raccoon, all bring beauty, humor, and wonder into my life. But sometimes a “different” kind of “wonder” makes an appearance.
On a recent morning, I was driving toward a particular area of Florida that I wanted to photograph….and I happened to drive by the local airport..We spend time in Venice, Florida…a wonderful “small” town…charming…..serene. The waves of the gulf wash in and wash out, marking the tides of time….I know in time the one shadow that lingers over Venice will be erased, but for now, some new additions at the airport are a reminder that for a time, evil found a home in Venice.. The terrorists of 9/11 trained to fly at our little airport…it is one of several places that they trained…..When we first found a place in Venice, one of the things that we found really neat about it was the airport…..small trainer planes would fly out over the gulf and practice their take-off and landings, “touch and goes”, flying LOW, LOW, LOW over my head as I “scooped” for sharks-teeth in the surf. Some people would spread a blanket out on the beach and wait for the planes to glide just above their heads…the landing strip is that close to the beach.
The year that all of this took place was 2001 ….we had purchased our place in time to celebrate the Millennium…at the stroke of midnight, we all stood with our toes in the Gulf of Mexico…it was a sunset to remember…half of the sky was black, the other half gold…and we were there to see it…to be part of it…marking an amazing moment in time…little did we know that the practicing that we saw would lead to another moment in time…never to be forgotten.
The flight trainer practice that we watched occurred in January and was still occurring on our return in June. We have since learned that Mohammed Atta was one of the student pilots and he and several other student pilots made quite an impression on the small sleepy town….fights occurred in restaurants, no one knew who they were, but people gossiped about a possible connection to “the mob”. Large heavy crates were hauled in and out of apartments one block off the historic downtown.
At that time, if you had the money, no questions about your background or your “plans” as a pilot, were asked. The fact that these individuals only wanted to learn how to FLY the plane and NOT how to LAND it…didn’t seem to faze the instructors….cash in hand…they were happy. Many of the people who operated this “school” just faded out of sight after 9/11.
On my way to capture images on that very recent morning, I drove past the airport and I felt a different kind of wonder from the type that I get shooting the beauty of our world…There were new signs up on the fence around the airport…where there had been open areas for people to pass through and walk out to the planes and whatever else they might want to see…there were now locked gates. These changes caused me to wonder……..why now….so many years later, are there suddenly gates, and warnings………I know one thing, and this I don’t have to wonder about….It’s all way too little and it’s far too late.
THE ONLY TRAINER LEFT OF THE GROUP USED BY THE TERRORISTS.
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IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
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Suzanne, I don’t know why you’d hesitate to post this. We all feel the same. If we don’t talk about it, the fear gets us. I refuse to be afraid, but I realize that we have lost a kind of innocence that makes us different people. We have to learn to live in a global society. Americans felt immune to the dangers inherent in living in such a world. We live in a post Arab Spring world now. Almost everything has changed, and we have to change our world view to meet these new challenges as we welcome the opportunities.
It was a good post.
August 8, 2012 at 7:10 am
Thanks George……..hate to bring people down…but we DO need to stay aware and not go backward into our little cocoon of immunity…Thank you for your support
August 8, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Great post. The terrorists win when they have us running scared in our reactive attempts to keep us safe after the fact. Living in fear is no way to live. Yes, we live in a world where we have to be mindful of the dangers around us…but hasn’t that been true of all generations?
August 7, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Very true…
August 7, 2012 at 8:30 pm
August 7, 2012 at 3:43 pm
You are SO right…
August 7, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Security will not prevent those determined to do wrong from doing so. When we allow the actions of a few, no matter how demented those actions may be, to jade us to the wonders we are capable of they win. The more attention we give them, the bigger their payoff.
August 7, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Every time that I get on a plane…I think, there…TAKE THAT! This is my little way of defying “you”.
August 7, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Between your post and the many insightful comments, I have nothing to add, so well done Suzanne.
August 7, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Thank you Frank……sigh…….just needed to say it I guess…..seeing the new signs bothered me.
August 7, 2012 at 12:51 pm
That old saying…Horse and stable door comes to mind. .
August 7, 2012 at 8:18 am
You don’t know how I struggled with whether to use that phrase, or not..LOL!
August 7, 2012 at 12:19 pm
The world changed irrevocably after 911. Your photos gave me goosebumps. We will never forget that dreadful day, and I have memories of praying that my son was safe in Manhattan, and the sheer relief when he managed to contact me after what seemed like a lifetime, but was actually only a few hours.
August 7, 2012 at 7:04 am
OH!!! I can’t even imagine how long those hours must have been…..How awful! SO, SO, GLAD that he was o.k…..
August 7, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Wow now I don’t know how to comment on this… is this what you referred to in your last blog? If so then I’m partially relieved, yet feel your dilemma.. Having lived in Rhodesia during (born there) the war years, I’m referring to the terrorist infiltration’s and battle we had with security, it is a bit of a life style we became accustomed to… now living in South Africa, where the same happened, security is a daily thing… I must admit just after the 9/11 we visited the USA and landed at Kennedy Airport, where my first impression was actually the lack of security.. we flew out of the same airport three weeks later and again security was lacking in relation to what we are used to here.. it is tragic that these sorts could train in your very midst and then carry out such an attack, yet after the murder and random shooting in a cinema that recently took place, one wonders at the American security, is it tight enough? That a man could purchase 6000 rounds of ammunition on the internet amazed me.. It certainly made me question the security measures of the country… considering a terrorist group could actually purchase weapons and ammunition to such an extent that they could arm a small army… and having seen NY at rush hour, I could see the havoc they could create with a few well placed weapons and shooters…
I’ve lived with this type security measures most of my life and it has, to a certain extent, become second nature, this is the world we now live in and I wish there was some way I could make it better that my Grand Children could experience the type of life I had as a kid… but the realities of the situation is world wars are now a thing of the past… and infiltration a reality… fences and closed doors, security checks and searches something one has to accept… Sorry about the article on your blog, but I wanted to add my two pence worth, and I hope my words are relevant to the subject, if not just delete the comment as spam… feel for you…
August 7, 2012 at 5:00 am
NOT spam!…..Yes, this is what I was referring to…nothing else lingering in the background..please write an article any time you want..very eloquent…
Yes…I worry about security here also….I know of a case where a young TSA agent found a shaving blade, which was mistakenly left in a bag from pre-terrorist days.. she glanced around and said…”it’s o.k, just go ahead”….now I didn’t experience this personally, but I know that it didn’t make the passengers who were accidentally carrying it feel very safe, they wondered who else she would let pass…..FRIGHTENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Regarding the theater shooting….NOTHING is being done about changing the gun laws……the shooter isn’t the only one who is insane.
August 7, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Those have to be very haunting memories.
August 7, 2012 at 2:55 am
Such a feeling of sadness, and a kind of frustrated feeling…..like I wish I had somehow figured out what was going on and could have changed it…..regret….but how could one gal, with a troop of imaginary monkeys, squirrels and raccoons have changed it….sigh
August 7, 2012 at 12:36 pm
I’ve always wondered how they could have lived among us, freely – and still hated us so. What they learned there and in other places has changed every corner of our country. You’ll never wave in the window of a terminal while your loved ones watch you from the window of a Jet, you’ll never even get on a plane without being searched and prodded – every place in our nation was connected in some way.
August 7, 2012 at 2:40 am
That’s the thing that has occurred to me more than once….how could they live here, experience the freedom, and the civilized way that MOST of us behave….and still feel hate and a desire to kill? Madmen.
August 7, 2012 at 8:32 pm
A strange, non-fiction ghost story. I have chills.
August 7, 2012 at 1:07 am
It really is a ghost story isn’t it? They came to this world, caused horror and then, gone.
August 7, 2012 at 1:29 am
I didn’t know that they trained in Venice.
Times have changed drastically worldwide – and I think we have too. People are more suspicious of each other and rightly so, but it’s very sad that we have to live in a world like this.
August 6, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Venice was just one of the places that they trained..but they spent quite a bit of time there….It is a different world….
August 7, 2012 at 1:08 am
Do you know I have typed something here 4 times and have erased it. It seems whatever I want to say isn’t right. The world is a different place and so are we who are still here. I had not heard the story of Venice in relation to 9/11. Here we heard stories of how they lived and trained in Canada. We held our heads low for awhile thinking we had let this happen. Now everyone is suspicious of everyone. There are more locks and keys and guards than I thought possible. A border that I crossed on a regular basis with a few questions, a smile or a wave I now have to sit in 1 – 2 hour lineups on the bridge to cross. It is a different world. We are different people.
August 6, 2012 at 11:11 pm
I never knew that people were feeling badly up in Canada or that terrorists had trained there.. I’m sorry that you all suffered such feelings…Our hearts and heads were low…knowing that they had trained in Venice and that for something as insignificant as money…evil was allowed to grow and to eventually take so many innocents.
So hard that your lives have changed, that you have to pass through guards and security, as do we, in order to go about your life….Not too make light of all this…but I actually sat on a plane after 9/11 debating with myself as to whether or not I could bite someone hard enough in the ankle to stop them from doing something to harm us all.
We are different people, but I think that we notice the good in others a little more than we did before…I hope so.
August 7, 2012 at 1:28 am
Wow…
Where they trained. Weird feeling :/
August 6, 2012 at 10:30 pm
Yep…………..a fellow who’s parents lived there at the time, went down and did a lot of research…then wrote a book…..a little repetitious..etc….but…..I’ve been to the hotel where they lived while they were training..don’t exactly know why….not a good place.
August 6, 2012 at 11:03 pm
I can see why you feel the change and it is curious why these changes would take place now. Hmmm …
August 6, 2012 at 10:12 pm
I know, right? Hmmmmmmmmmmm..
August 6, 2012 at 10:18 pm
There’s always more than meets the eye, Miss Z. Be well and stay blessed.
August 6, 2012 at 10:24 pm
And the same to you Gina…..xoxo
August 6, 2012 at 11:04 pm
I can almost understand you dear Suzanne… How sad and tragical event . . The security changed in everywhere after this… now there is a serious security around the airports, there is not any chance to watch the planes and also with a camera… They (the security people) find you suspect! Thanks and love, nia
August 6, 2012 at 10:11 pm
I know exactly what you mean, nia…I took a photo of the little airport that we flew into a few weeks ago…and I was very nervous that they would take my camera..
August 6, 2012 at 10:19 pm
In here they don’t let… but in the past it wasn’t like that. On the other hand if this way will help about the security, it is good… But makes me worry always…
August 6, 2012 at 10:22 pm
I worry sometimes too….
for example, they let that crazy lady with the cat stay on the plane, even when the cat kept getting out of it’s bag and running toward the cockpit,…that would be a good way to distract everyone long enough for someone to get up to the pilots!!
August 6, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Seeing this would give a person shivers. We always think that newsworthy events happen everywhere else in the world except in our own backyards. In a way I agree that the security measures are being taken a bit late, but at least we’ve learned from the past and won’t be quite as gullible next time.
August 6, 2012 at 10:07 pm
I SO hope that you are right…just makes me wonder what has occurred recently to cause them to take these measures?….
August 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm
As you say, too little, too late but, by the same token, should we all live as though we are in jails, with fences and locks. The world needs to change, dramatically.
August 6, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Sigh…………………
August 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm