On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 05:10:45 -0500, Karl Townsend
wrote:



Ten years ago today, I was picking Wealthy apples with my honey.
Second tree from the end of row 225. We were talking about the bad
accident in New York when we learned the second plane hit. My picking
bag was half full and I was reaching up for a couple more apples. My
honey was walking back toward the tractor.

It was a beautiful clear early autumn day with a blue bird sky in
central PA. Our lab manager walked into my office and said that a
plane had flown into the World Trade Center. We walked over to the
conference room and turned on a TV and got to see the other tower hit.
I was very angry that day. One of the surgeons from our hospital was
in NYC at a national surgical meeting. They cancelled the meeting and
asked for volunteers. Virtually all did. They wound up sitting
around doing nothing - almost all at the WTC had died. Then we heard
about the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in Shanksville. Nobody
knew what was going to happen next. The hospital locked its doors
except for one or two entrances. We're about a mile from the big
federal prison in Lewisburg - one of the places they put the worst
criminals. It worried me at the time that whoever was behind the
attacks might spring a prison break and loose a thousand or so of the
worst of the worst into our town. One of my coworkers and I quietly
carried sidearms to work the next day. One of the few times in my
life I felt the need to carry.