A kind of September...

Fifteen years ago, I was getting ready for work. Ten days before, I had finally made it to Manhattan.

My first trip to New York City, on Sept. 1, 2001, was magic. Perfect weather. Perfect day.

Well, almost perfect. The good news is I got to meet my hero Thomas Magnum, aka actor Tom Selleck, who was appearing that season in a revival of Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns." The bad news is I was starstruck and speechless.

Anyway, Drew Weaver, Scott Frith, and I were there that Labor Day weekend. We took a train into Grand Central Station from Connecticut. Everything I'd wanted to do, dreams derived from the pages of The New Yorker, halfway pretending I was going to be a guest on "What's My Line," for that spectacular Saturday, I got to pretend.

Ten days later, everything changed.

Pieces remembered: My late grandfather knocking on the bathroom door to tell me a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers (this was at 8:46 a.m.). Getting downstairs just as the second plane hit. Turning on NPR on the way to work, listening to Bob Edwards try to explain the chaos. Getting a phone call from Doug from the Rotary Club. Watching the news at work on a portable black-and-white television set. Wishing I were with my family.

That night, I thought the thing to do was go watch television coverage with my mother.  Even though I was in my 20s, a college graduate, and gainfully employed, I knew I was no longer El Gallo's tender and callow fellow, to quote the song from "The Fantasticks." 

I eventually learned I knew a family who lost their brother that day. They planted a tree for Tony Karnes at Gibbs High School later that year.

Visiting Ground Zero with Drew the following February was sobering to say the least. We went downtown, and nobody, and I mean nobody, was saying a word.

We looked at the handmade memorials. One quoted Jack Kerouac. Another one needed no poetic prose: "Osama: Kiss my ass."

I thought everything would change. I thought the partisanship that had marred much of the 1990s and the 2000 presidential election was gone. The civilized parts of the world were united.

Well, you know how that turned out.

I have to tell myself that goodness can arise from the aftermath of atrocities, but post-9/11, it was difficult to see how.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said it as well as anyone on a PBS documentary a few years after the attacks. 

 "9/11, how can you possibly use it for a good purpose? Look, what this reminds you of is the importance of your own life, and making the most of it, because you can lose it in a flash. And if that's all you learned from 9/11, if that's all you remembered, that, my god, that you could extinguish life so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and it could happen to me, and therefore I should think harder about the way I spend my life instead of wasting it...

"Now, it's not going to teach you what to do with your life, but it will teach you to do with your life, and to do it more and quicker and better."

Fifteen years, after all, went slip sliding away, and much of the nation, indeed much of the world, is starving for stability, and sanity, for people doing more, quicker and better.

Never forget the first responders. Never forget the fallen. Never forget the day. Never forget Cuomo's words.

Never forget.

But try too, if you can, to remember El Gallo's kind of September, when no one wept except the willow.

Other jobs I'd like...

Yesterday's post was so well received, I thought I'd share another one along the same vein. Forgive me if this is shorter than usual. I feel terrible and it is Natalie Wood Day on Turner Classic Movies.

Here are a few other jobs I wish I had -- ones I think about during those Walter Mitty moments...

Being Charles Kuralt -- Longtime Pull Up A Chair readers know this one. I have often dreamed of taking what I do for the Shopper-News and doing it from sea to shining sea.

Oh, I couldn't do it with Kuralt's eloquence and mastery of language, but maybe I could do it in print, about a quarter as well as Kuralt. His "On the Road" segments were my favorite part of the old "CBS Evening News." I own a lot of them on DVD.

After all, Kuralt said two things I very much believe:

"It does no harm, just once in awhile, to acknowledge that the whole world isn't in flames, that there are people in this country besides politicians, entertainers and criminals."

And:

"The everyday kindness of the backroads more than makes up for the greed in the headlines."

Being Ed Murrow -- I'm not and never will be anywhere near Murrow's universe, but, gosh, I admire that guy. In addition to all the important work he did with Fred Friendly, he also hosted "Person to Person," interviewing everybody from Bing Crosby to Liberace, all while the wisp of smoke floated up from his fingers.

Being on "What's My Line?" Yet another fact that won't shock all five of my longtime readers. I love this show. It is by far the classiest, coolest, most stylish "game show" in network history.

Half the time I want to be John Charles Daly, news reporter during the week for ABC, erudite host  of "WML?" on Sunday nights for CBS. The other half of the time, I wish I were Bennett Cerf, the hokey wit of the panel, but as his day job, co-founder of Random House at the high-water mark of 20th century American literature. Heck, Arlene Francis and Martin Gabel were his next door neighbors!

"That's three down and seven to go...Mr. Cerf?"

(Look up some of the mystery guest segments from "WML?" on YouTube. It's a "Who's Who" of 20th century stars from all galaxies.) Here is my favorite.

Working for The New Yorker in the William Shawn era -- Every writer's dream. A few years ago, Garrison Keillor played out my fantasy in a fun novel called "Love, Me" I would have missed had it not been for my friend and fellow bibliophile, Mercer University professor Dr. Bridget Trogden. Read it, if you're of a certain persuasion.

Being "The Announcer" -- Johnny Olson, Ed McMahon, Gary Owens ... I know, for example, I lack the talent to be Carson, so let me be Ed. For years, introducing the guests and saying, "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" was on my bucket list. I also had this incredible urge to exclaim, "Get ready to match THE STARS!" every time I watched "Match Game." And, yeah, I sometimes say "From beautiful downtown Burbank!" when nobody's listening. Sock it to me!

Have a good week, y'all. See you in the Shopper. Don't miss my column this week on Archie "Hee Haw" Campbell. Some things may surprise you. (This particular link will work for one week.)