My day on 09/11/2001

September 11, 2001. That Tuesday morning I was at work at MHMR at our office building at what is now North Texas Regoinal Airport. My boss got a call from Kelli, the director of our MR program, whose office was in Denison. She told Richard to turn on a television and watch the news. I had the only TV in the building in my office. The TV was just stored in there; I had never even plugged it in. Richard called my office and told me to hook it up.

My office, which was large because I needed the space to work on computers, began filling up with staff as we watched events of the morning unfold. Like everyone we went from wondering what was happening to shocked disbelief to an inability to understand.

I had just started dating an American Airlines international flight attendant. I grabbed my cordless and went out in the hallway to call her. She answered the phone crying. All day people were in and out of my office.

My son, Jeremie, was staying with me that week. He was home on leave from the Navy. I don't remember if it was that day or the next but I came home from work and checked phone messages. My caller id identified one caller as "U. S. Government". I yelled out to Jeremie and asked him if he got a call. He yelled back, "yes". It was clear to me then that the military was contacting all their personnel, even those on leave.

I Throw Kisses

Your voice says what your eyes betray

Even your grin when you begin

To get carried away – when you say

You love me

Get outta town – with this you ain’t down

And neither am I

In case you don’t see, I’m not swooning

Nor drowning in your emotional flood

I’m not gonna roll in your mud

You know, it’s not so much that I don’t care

But leave me now

I will throw kisses at your empty chair

You want to know what I do when you’re not there

I throw kisses at your empty chair

I throw empty kisses at your chair

Moving On (an unfinished true story fragment)

Time and Place: Fall 1975 - J'ville, Illinois

We’d see each other in the clubs and she’d laugh at me cause I was still in town. I’d been telling her for weeks how I was moving away for good any day now and wouldn’t be back. And she would see me around and laugh and shake her head. That was fine with me. Her face really lit up when she laughed and I’d take my sunshine wherever I could get it.

And I was the only one who knew my moving plan besides Bill. No one else needed to know. I would tell her, I’ll be a long time leaving but I’ll be a long time gone. I was born in Texas but raised in Illinois. I had enough Texas in me to quote Waylon Jennings, though. And now I was going back to the lone star state to live.

Bob thought we were going south in his 440 Charger. I knew better. This wasn’t another road trip for me. Bob and Chris and I had just got back from one of those; Memphis (trouble with the hotel staff), Texarkana (a good time with Drifter at the Banshee’s bar), Galveston (my old party place), back to the biker bar in Texarkana (to party with our now “old friends”) and back to Illinois.

It was a great time but the purpose of this trip was survival. I had to get out of the Midwest. Illinois was becoming impossible for me. I was constantly being hauled in by the law, either locals or the Illinois Bureau. The IBI guys I could spot a mile away but they were usually right behind me. I don’t know what I’d done to deserve that kind of attention but there it was. Looking back I guess my loose kind of lifestyle caused some kind of conflict of interest between me and the badges. Some people were disappearing mysterious like so I decided to vanish on my own terms.

So this next getaway was for real. This was serious and Bob was anything but real and serious. He was Indian and he came in handy a few times when we needed to find our way home in a snowstorm when you couldn’t see east or west but he was an alcoholic and had his own agenda most of the time. He was also volatile so I felt it best not to tell him I had made other plans.

Latte Silent Night

she glided by as silently as the night

a starbucks in her hand and starlight in her eyes

her silent grace played like a symphony

her symphonic crescendo the stuff of dreams

she moved as owls swooping for prey

dark on dark

her quiet power radiated like an oriental whisper or a native american sunset

as she glided by as silently as the night

I marveled at the casual precision in which she moved guided by bat-like radar

as she passed, the shadows and the cacophony of the city closed behind her

as I slurped my latte

Night Eyes

starlight in your eyes
will make you wise
in the ways of the night
just ask the old owl
when he's on the prowl
in the stars it is written
by your eyes I've been bitten
we are hidden in your darkness
in the blue-black night
your shadow denies all light
yes, drink away what's left of my life
I give in to the anesthesia of your love
your teeth sinking deep
I sink into your sleep
and I awake a new species

You're On Your Own

you're on your own
but you're never alone

just look at all the pretty faces
schmoozing in these out of the way places

if you could dial a friend
this could all end

but you can't find a name
'cause it's just not the same

and this don't feel like home

you're on your own
but you're never alone

it's hard to navigate this urban river

too many bends
one way dead ends

even the street signs seem written
in some foreign language

solitude in a multitude of eyes

reptilian eyes in disguise

you're on your own
but you're never alone

you don't want to look at the vampires
and the visigoths

little more than skulls with ill fitting wigs
these are their digs

they know the roadhouse
but they don't know you

why ask them questions
when only you hold the answers

find your center

find your path

find your way home

you're on your own
but you're never alone