September 11th

Today is the tenth anniversary of September  11th...
I had a day off that day. My oldest daughter went to school and I took my youngest daughter to pre-school. It was her first day in pre-school. After that I was running all kinds of errands.  I wanted to go to Home Depot to get some lumber, but I didn't know if I had enough time. A few days earlier I had put my wristwatch trough the washing machine and it had stopped working. I turned the car radio on, hoping to hear a DJ announce the time.  (Days later I realized that I had a clock on the dashboard.) I was listening to WFCR (local NPR station) and they were recapping the day's events: " ...8:46 AM an Airplane crashed to the North Tower of the  World Trade Center....9:03 AM another airplane crashed into the South Tower....
10 AM the South Tower  collapsed ...10:28 AM the North Tower collapsed...."
This was unreal... like the day the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  I turned the car around, drove home and started to watch TV. I watched in a stupor the events unfold on live TV. It looked like a Hollywood movie, but this was real.
One section of Angry Johnny's song "Tennessee Air War" came to mind:
"...real planes, real flying,
   real people really dying...."  

I went to get my daughter from the pre-school. Many upset-looking parents were picking up their kids. My daughter was very quiet.  I didn't know if she was this way because it was the first day or because of the day's events.
Later I went to get my older daughter from school. This was a Catholic school. At the door I met that O'Brien kid, who was studying to be a priest. I asked him if the kids knew about what was going on, and whether someone had talked to them or done any counseling. He didn't know. He was just coming in. I got my daughter and we went home. She had heard about a big fire in New York.
I later learned that all the experts seemed to agree on how to talk to children about this: answer all their questions honestly, but don't volunteer any information. Sure, I can do that.
   I called my parents in Finland. I didn't think they would worry about me - after all I was three and half hours from New York City - but I felt that I should call them. They were watching TV too. I called my buddy Kari, in Lohja, Finland. He said that "... it is really nice to hear your voice today... "

Camping in Maine

A couple of weeks ago I went to Maine for my annual camping trip there. This wasn't really "annual" in the traditional sense because I think it has been three years since my last camping trip.
Well...anyway. We got up to Bar Harbor Campground which is a great place to camp. If you are lucky, you can get a site with a great ocean view, next to a wild blueberry patch. We weren't quite that lucky this time. We did get a good site on top of the hill and we could see the ocean. Even the blueberries were nearby, but not right outside our tent. We put up the tents and eventually hit the sack. The weather forecast wasn't great - we were supposed to get wind and rain. And we did get wind and rain. 5 o'clock in the morning it felt like the tent was gonna fly away. I had to get out to tie down some some cords that had gotten loose. I was soaked by the time I got back to the tent. A few minutes later the our tent lost its battle against the wind. I crawled out. The tent looked like a big burrito. My wife was still inside. The burrito was moving. She eventually got out and we threw the remnants of the tent inside the minivan. My daughters' tent was weathering the storm just fine. My older daughter didn't even wake up. My wife and me slept the rest of the night in the van.

Here is my wife 5:30 in the morning on August 8th. The tent has collapsed. The rain and wind are not visible.

Things did get better after that. We managed to patch the tent with our repair kit, duct tape etc. We did get one of those great sites and the remaining three nights were really good. My daughters picked up those wild blueberries

 and we made a blueberry pie when we got home.
My old tent has probably had it. It has lost its shape and there are way too many tears. We bought this tent in 1990 before we traveled through the newly liberated East-Germany and Czechoslovakia (do you still remember those countries?). I can't really complain though....I got twenty years out of that tent. Next summer I have to get a new tent.
But then again, at the campground I saw one of those little teardrop trailers and I have had daydreams about it ever since.

This picture is from Cadillac Mountain near Bar Harbor. The road up to the mountain must one of the most scenic and fun rides in the world.