Nick Jimenez

Sept. 11 and its aftermath disrupted our lives

President George W. Bush tells us not to worry and to press on with our everyday lives. I wish it were that easy.
   Not that I don't believe that federal, state and local authorities aren't doing everything possible to try to both defend every possible target of a terrorist attack, or to expend every possible ounce of effort to find and destroy every terrorist responsible for the heinous attacks of September. In fact, one of the truly gratifying results of the nation's reaction to the emergency is the total dedication to erase any bureaucratic fences between agencies and levels of government. Every outfit from the local police department to the CIA to the 82nd Airborne is lined up on this one.
   But even as we all watched on Sept. 11 at those horrible scenes from New York City and Washington, we knew that it was no longer just happening over there. It was happening over here now.
   Since then, the feeling that we're all somehow far more vulnerable than we were before has been growing. It was easy to write off some of the first of the post-Sept. 11 incidents - the Greyhound bus crash, the disturbances aboard two airliners - as the work of unhinged minds occurring at exactly the wrong time.
   Then the reports of anthrax cases began to mount. The thought that someone might be mailing packets full of poison to news organizations is troubling. And the FBI warned on Thursday that new terror attacks could be expected. When might these new attacks come? Or where?
   The limits of courage
   I think Bush is right. We just can't freeze up and try to hide out. Hide out where? But in the last couple of days I've come up with decisions on just how far I'm willing, or not willing, to be brave. That came as I looked for ways to get my kids home for the holidays.
   We can be brave and put ourselves on an airliner, but how about our kids?
   My first reaction after Sept. 11 was pretty straightforward: Nobody named Jimenez that I know is going to get on an airplane anytime soon.
   But that ran head-on into the sentiment to get my kids home. We've taught our kids to explore the world and so they have: one is in Colorado and one is in Georgia, and the closest is 500 miles away. Driving is an option for only one.
   We're not unlike a lot of other families who are dispersed all over the nation. Usually e-mails and letters (quaint as that may seem) keep us in contact. But this is one Thanksgiving and Christmas when I think a lot of us will want to get our loved ones as close as we can get them.
   In trying to find the least dangerous route for my daughter, we tried to avoid Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport. It seemed prudent to avoid going through the nation's second busiest airport on the top traveling holidays of the year. But the Sept. 11 hijackers went through a regional airport, Portland, Me., as part of their plan. So that's hardly a failsafe route.
   Hard to find a safe spot
   In fact, as I quickly toted up the possible threats, it's hard to find a safe spot. My daughter's apartment is right across from a military facility. The Air Force Academy is located a few miles up the interstate from my son's college. Our oldest son lives near one of the biggest interchanges in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and a few miles from Dallas-Fort Worth airport. And we live in one of the major refining centers on the Gulf coast.
   The sum of it is that there is no sure safe place. Maybe we were never safe and just didn't realize it until Sept. 11. We have expended our fortunes and our lives trying to make life safe for our children. Now I fear what lies ahead for my children and everyone else's children.
   All this is due to the terrorists, Osama bin Laden and all the other evildoers. May he and his kind be forever damned.
   Editorial Page Editor Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.
  
  

 
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