BearX220

Like December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963, September 11, 2001 is beginning to slide into history. There is a Reddit thread running strong today about 9/11, and the majority of posters were either too young to remember it, or were in second or third grade and principally recall being annoyed that their cartoons had been knocked off the air.

Last year on this day I answered a sincere AskReddit query: "Those of you who recall 9/11, what was it like?" I told my little story about flying into DCA on 9/10, getting stuck on 9/11 at a hotel bar six blocks from the White House as weeping strangers embraced and fighter jets screamed overhead -- it was like one of those scary little '80s HBO telefilms about the countdown to World War III -- and finally driving nonstop back to Seattle in a miraculously acquired Avis car with three co-workers. (I wrote an FT trip report at the time.) I got about a hundred curious questions from younger Redditors who had never heard such a narrative, let alone lived it. It made me feel like Methuselah, and 9/11 was only 13 years ago.

EDIT to add link to the TR I wrote a couple of days after 9/11, for those interested: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-via-avis.html