Yesterday, I received the letter that became the Linseed Oil guest post by Ned Lundquist. His post touched on something that I’ve long thought about, and I shared some personal evocation of 9-11 with him, noting that it was not for publication. Ned felt that it was worth sharing, and has persuaded me to let him use it. So, I thought I would share it with you as well.
Your post “Linseed Oil” was moving, and I thank you for sharing it with all of us. For me, as time moves on, two things that happened later have become my memory triggers.
Boots. Heavy duty boots with thick soles. Boots that were melting off even as the men in them were working with careful haste to go through rubble.
Burnt lime/calcium and sweet pork left too long upon the grill. The dust was everywhere still, and with it came the lingering smell of burnt powdered concrete, a smell of lime and calcium that had the additional element of burnt sweet pork. I would have gone far to avoid smelling that latter note ever again, but it was a part of everything there in lower Manhattan.
On this day seven years ago, I had arrived early at NASA as was my wont. I usually got more done early than I would the rest of the day, and I could take my time checking news and news feeds to see if anyone was talking about us or the industry partners of the Commercial Space Centers—for my contract position was with commercial space activities. When I first saw a flash about a plane hitting the tower, my first thought was that it was a small plane, perhaps an accident similar to what happened to the Empire State building many years ago when an Army Air Corps bomber went off course.
As live feeds came online, and news streams came forth, it was quickly clear that such was not the case. I made the calls that were required of me, and then could only sit and watch helplessly as the rest unfolded. As the day ended, all I and anyone else could do was wait. I knew that hospitals across the United States had cleared for action, ready to receive burn and crush victims into specialty units, and that both civilian and military Nightingales were prepped ready to fly on a moments notice to ferry survivors to those refuges. Survivors that were not there.
Some weeks later, I found myself in New York. The industry event was long planned, but a new component was there as I met with several offices on matters relating to 9-11. To my embarrassment, I was assigned a police liaison who drove me around town to the various meetings and offices. This Lieutenant, as it turns out, had almost died twice on that day of calculated murder. He went towards the disaster as it happened, not once, but twice doing all he could for those trying to leave that place, and the falling buildings had nearly claimed him as it did so many others. His was but one of many such stories I learned in those days, and not all had his ending.
He took me to the site, where I joined the families and watched. I watched as people worked to clear the rubble that was still burning down below with fierce heat despite the torrents of water played upon it. Rubble that was so hot, that the boots they wore melted gradually during the shift, such that they could only be thrown away at the end of the day. These men worked above heat that would and did reduce bone to ash, even as the gear they wore fell apart. Men who would stop and show respect to even the tiniest speck of humanity they found.
Images and thoughts of the towers being hit may always fill me with rage, frustrated helplessness, and a cold resolve to prevent it from happening ever again. But that which stays with me is a memory of men searching and digging even as the boots slowly melted off their feet, a city still covered with dust, while the odor of burnt powdered concrete and sweet pork filled the air.
LW
