In This Months Business Monthly

I am certainly not immune to the urge to write about my personal recollections of 9/11 on the tenth anniversary of that September day. That being said I’ll bet I’m the only one to tie 9/11 to Columbia’s tot lots and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Actually the column is really about the strength of shared memories. As I read the various entries on Sekou Walkers Columbia facebook page it occurred to me that things we experience as a group tend to remain clearer in our memories, be it a terrorist attack or a nighttime adolescent rendezvous in a tot lot.

There is another memory of 9/11 that I didn’t share in the column but remains vivid in my mind. That morning we had been watching the events in New York unfold on a small black and white portable TV in our offices in Hanover. When the first tower fell we decided to head over to Jilly's (now Dave and Busters) at Arundel Mills where we could follow events on their big screens. Many others had the same idea including several pilots and flight attendants from BWI, still in their uniforms.

While eating lunch my cell phone rang. It was my ex wife Luann who had long since moved back to South Dakota. Earlier that year she had told me that she had been diagnosed with cancer. In her call that afternoon she told me that her doctors had just informed her that they could do nothing more for her. She passed away that December.

That will forever be part of my 9/11 memory too.

You can read this month’s column here.