As a girl of nine, I heard President Roosevelt tell about the attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio. His words mesmerized our family as we huddled around the radio in the living room. We could hear planes and bombs dropping with sirens droning an endless wail……..as if in agony. Excited news reporters trying to describe the awful carnage and impossible scene as our fleet and planes battled to stay alive, filled the airways. It was a moment in my life that is as real as this very day.

“Today is a day that will live in infamy……..”

When President Kennedy was shot in 1963 I heard the news over the intercom at the school I was working in. The lunch line was just over and we were cleaning up the kitchen. Suddenly the principal’s voice interrupted a normal day and a normal routine by telling us the President had been shot in Dallas. They were hoping it was not fatal….he had been rushed to a hospital….he would keep us informed. Finally, the news that the President was dead. We stood stunned, looking at each other…..words failing us.

“Ask not what your country can do for you but rather, what can you do for your country.”

I was getting ready to go to work when I happened to glance at the TV and saw what looked like a plane flying into a building….I thought…a movie. Then the realization that it was real and that this was a second plane flying into one of the Twin Towers in NYC. The following events of that day will forever be etched in my mind. The unthinkable, the impossible, the horror of the scale of damage that was accomplished that day brought ‘trouble’ to our very doors. The bravery of that day will be the thing I remember most….the scores of heroism and self sacrifice that calls all of us to step up and be counted among them.

“Let’s roll !!”


Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther