Saturday Brett and I were talking about Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” I was not alive for a good chunk of that song, but I still know what the lyrics are talking about.
Earlier this year I was substituting in a high school history class and had to explicitly explain to the students that the Iron Curtain was not a physical thing like the Berlin Wall was. They were not even alive when the Wall fell.
Those same students cannot possibly remember the significance of today’s date even if they were alive for it.
They weren’t glued to the TV as much as possible that day, sickened at the similarity between the real life they were watching and the movies they’d seen in the past. They weren’t touched as they went to the grocery store in Mexico and saw American flags everywhere. Those events live in my memory, not theirs.
The fire of chaos still burns in the world. The news headlines from the day my daughter was born include a standoff at a Pakistan hospital, riot police in Instanbul, Iran reformists, Syrian rebels, and an IRS scandal.
Hopefully the fire of faith, conviction, patriotism, and brotherhood still burn as well.
I am an educator and PhD. I quilt, belly dance, run, read, and try to grow things. I am a Mormon. I am infertile. I am a daughter, sister, aunt, grand-daughter, friend, wife, and mom.
Brett L. Dennis
Mama g
Giggles
AmandaStretch
I still can feel the horror I felt on that day watching all of the devastation. Some of Kim’s students were not even born then and others were much to small to know what was going on. I think that my feelings on 9/11 were what my parents must have felt when Pearl Harbor was attacked. And for me Pearl Harbor was something I was just told about and it didn’t have the impact that I felt on that horrible day of 9/11.
Little by little the “We Didn’t Start the Fire References” are starting to be meaningful for me. I’m reading about the Bay of Pigs Invasion now. My AP American History class ran out of time right around the turn of the 20th Century so we never got that far. :brett:
I remember looking at the computer screen and thinking they were showing an up coming movie. Then I read the story. This was real and I cried. The rest of the day I watch the gas station next door to us and the line of cars that were buying gas just in case. :x: