Monday was a really great day for me. My godfather is in town for a week helping my mom help my dad recover from a neck surgery. Mo was already there so Mistress and I stayed for a steak dinner. Mistress bbq'd steak and I bought desert. Worked out for them and us since the a/c is still out at our place.
I came home around midnight and putz'd around for a few moments with the dog and surfing cable and caught the last few minutes of United 93 about the September 11th hijacking. I have avoided any movie about 9/11, the live feed I watched and the subsequent replys of WTC coming down are more than I need for the rest of my life. It is still so raw for me, believe it or not.
I think I have mentioned in the past that that day changed the paradigm of my life in fundamental ways.
In September 2001, I had not had sugar or caffeine for over five years. I was a powerlifter weighing 225 pounds and starting a diet for a body building show I was doing around Thanksgiving. On the 11th, a Tuesday, I was several days into a fishing trip in Montana with my dad and godfather and couple other guys. I had just toured Little Bighorn as part of a historical military exercise and was staying at a military base in Helena on the 10th and 11th.
I was trying to get the gang out the door, it must have been a bit after 7am and we were dawdling. I went to turn off the tv and Bryant Gumbel came on with a special announcement saying a plane had hit the WTC. I called everyone in and thought out loud that it must have been a plane malfunction. Something similar had happened not long back.
As a camera showed the plumes coming from the building, I saw the second plane in the background. I knew then and I don't know how that this was something much more than pilot error. We all stood agape as the second plane hit the WTC in real time. Man.
I remember sitting down and saying, "My life will never be the same." I then asked my godfather for a cup of coffee and a candy bar. My demand was almost as unnerving as the tv, I had been eating nothing but chicken breasts and ground beef for four days as part of my contest diet. I had relented to a few beers on the river but unmoved with taunts of sugar and espresso, up till that minute. Everyone knew how long I'd been off those items and to drink two cups of coffee and three candy bars was profound. Needless to say we sat there for about an hour. I could have sat there all day and would have if at home. But we decided that it was best to let the process play out and console ourselves by fishing.
I realized that day on the river that my life was too much time spent in the gym. Between work and workouts I spent between 80-85 hours a week in a gym environment. Even the running I had done outdoors became a treadmill chore because of the desert heat. Mentally I dropped out of the bodybuilding contest. How could I be so vain at that moment? I decided I couldn't exercise in a gym any longer and thats the spark that turned me back towards my dreams of competing in endurance events, eventually triathlons. I also decided my life needed more variety and I added carbohydrates back into it. I went from 80% protein to a 40/30/30 plan, denying myself nothing with moderation.
By the end of the day, we had to drop my dad off at a state level military meeting, he was the third highest ranking officer in the state. By the end of the week, my brother was gone for a year, as a member of the first guard unit called to service in the GWOT. The fishing trip ended with my godfather and I saluting my father as he lifted off a tarmac in a heavily armed gunship to prepare his soldiers for the unknown. I flew out, trying to explain to the guards in the airport that hemostats to pull out fish hooks were not dangerous and should be allowed on the plane. They were.
I didn't have a son then. I had been married for quite a while and had a business that had started a few years earlier but I was ready to go back into the service. I looked into it but they didn't want me at the time. I had been out five years and that was too long for them at my age and job ability, Infantry officers are a dime a dozen.
With the changes I made to my diet and exercise and stress, I lost fifty pounds getting the anger out of me at what had happened to my country and the politics that came after. I was preparing my body for the combat I felt would be placed on me, but the call never came, even when I called them.
With all things the pain lessoned and I put on some much needed weight. Mistress changed too. She had been adamantly opposed to kids but less than a year later she was pregnant. I think I can blame 9/11 for her change too. I sometimes selfishly wonder 'What If' that day never happened. Would I be a father? Would I have done an Ironman? Would I have the balance in my life with work and nutrition that I did not have then?
Watching just twenty minutes of United 93 pulled this out me just now. I do not think I can watch it all, yet. I have a "9/11" CD of saved videos, images and articles from the internet that I saved for my son. To show him what really happened as opposed to the revisionist views that I knew he would be taught in school. I don't want to forget, nor think I ever will. People remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, or when Challenger exploded. I remember 9/11 just as clearly.
Thanks for reading something I had to get out of me before bed.
I came home around midnight and putz'd around for a few moments with the dog and surfing cable and caught the last few minutes of United 93 about the September 11th hijacking. I have avoided any movie about 9/11, the live feed I watched and the subsequent replys of WTC coming down are more than I need for the rest of my life. It is still so raw for me, believe it or not.
I think I have mentioned in the past that that day changed the paradigm of my life in fundamental ways.
In September 2001, I had not had sugar or caffeine for over five years. I was a powerlifter weighing 225 pounds and starting a diet for a body building show I was doing around Thanksgiving. On the 11th, a Tuesday, I was several days into a fishing trip in Montana with my dad and godfather and couple other guys. I had just toured Little Bighorn as part of a historical military exercise and was staying at a military base in Helena on the 10th and 11th.
I was trying to get the gang out the door, it must have been a bit after 7am and we were dawdling. I went to turn off the tv and Bryant Gumbel came on with a special announcement saying a plane had hit the WTC. I called everyone in and thought out loud that it must have been a plane malfunction. Something similar had happened not long back.
As a camera showed the plumes coming from the building, I saw the second plane in the background. I knew then and I don't know how that this was something much more than pilot error. We all stood agape as the second plane hit the WTC in real time. Man.
I remember sitting down and saying, "My life will never be the same." I then asked my godfather for a cup of coffee and a candy bar. My demand was almost as unnerving as the tv, I had been eating nothing but chicken breasts and ground beef for four days as part of my contest diet. I had relented to a few beers on the river but unmoved with taunts of sugar and espresso, up till that minute. Everyone knew how long I'd been off those items and to drink two cups of coffee and three candy bars was profound. Needless to say we sat there for about an hour. I could have sat there all day and would have if at home. But we decided that it was best to let the process play out and console ourselves by fishing.
I realized that day on the river that my life was too much time spent in the gym. Between work and workouts I spent between 80-85 hours a week in a gym environment. Even the running I had done outdoors became a treadmill chore because of the desert heat. Mentally I dropped out of the bodybuilding contest. How could I be so vain at that moment? I decided I couldn't exercise in a gym any longer and thats the spark that turned me back towards my dreams of competing in endurance events, eventually triathlons. I also decided my life needed more variety and I added carbohydrates back into it. I went from 80% protein to a 40/30/30 plan, denying myself nothing with moderation.
By the end of the day, we had to drop my dad off at a state level military meeting, he was the third highest ranking officer in the state. By the end of the week, my brother was gone for a year, as a member of the first guard unit called to service in the GWOT. The fishing trip ended with my godfather and I saluting my father as he lifted off a tarmac in a heavily armed gunship to prepare his soldiers for the unknown. I flew out, trying to explain to the guards in the airport that hemostats to pull out fish hooks were not dangerous and should be allowed on the plane. They were.
I didn't have a son then. I had been married for quite a while and had a business that had started a few years earlier but I was ready to go back into the service. I looked into it but they didn't want me at the time. I had been out five years and that was too long for them at my age and job ability, Infantry officers are a dime a dozen.
With the changes I made to my diet and exercise and stress, I lost fifty pounds getting the anger out of me at what had happened to my country and the politics that came after. I was preparing my body for the combat I felt would be placed on me, but the call never came, even when I called them.
With all things the pain lessoned and I put on some much needed weight. Mistress changed too. She had been adamantly opposed to kids but less than a year later she was pregnant. I think I can blame 9/11 for her change too. I sometimes selfishly wonder 'What If' that day never happened. Would I be a father? Would I have done an Ironman? Would I have the balance in my life with work and nutrition that I did not have then?
Watching just twenty minutes of United 93 pulled this out me just now. I do not think I can watch it all, yet. I have a "9/11" CD of saved videos, images and articles from the internet that I saved for my son. To show him what really happened as opposed to the revisionist views that I knew he would be taught in school. I don't want to forget, nor think I ever will. People remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, or when Challenger exploded. I remember 9/11 just as clearly.
Thanks for reading something I had to get out of me before bed.
4 comments:
Wow, Comm, thanks for the reminder. It brought back all the feelings I had that day as I drove my kids to preschool and went shopping for someone's birthday. I remember being in Walmart shopping for my friend and us all around the tv's and radios in the electronics section when the buildings came down. Everyone was silent and then the tears started. It is something I'll never forget. I went back to get my kids back from preschool and my three year old came out and said, "Mommy bad people flew planes into buildings." I knew her life would never be the same and mine either. I've been struggling with some personal things lately and have not been able to get my butt in gear. Thank you for the reminder about how precious life is and how we don't know when our lives will change. Thank you for bringing me back to that day. That day when I promised myself to change and live a productive life. This is really what I needed today. Thanks Commodore.
Comm,
I was "blog surfing" and I read this entry....and moved to tears. What a day that was! I remember where I was at the moment and then the day or two following.
I trade futures for a living, the financials more specifically, and I remember sitting at my quote screen the morning of 9/11, watching fields pop green and red with the change in price, as is the case any other day. That morning, I remember my confusion and astonishment when the screen just "painted" activity across the board with green and red! I grabbed the phone and called my broker to find out if there was a problem at the exchange. Well, duh! He said, "a plane hit the WTC in NY, get to a TV!"
I remember going food shopping the next day, the store I always go to, and having complete strangers look at me like I was their long lost brother or child. There was a strange fraternity of openness, kindness, friendship, and gentle quiet that I have never seen before or since.....everyone coming together, I suppose. It was nice.
BTW...Terra Castro is my running coach. Terra is a friend of Amanda and Michael Lovato. I came across your blog from a comment you left Michael. DC
I remember where I was when it happened. Certainly a day when a lot of folks probably did a self-check to see whether they were living their lives to the fullest. My biggest self-check, however, was probably the day that my dad died 10 years earlier. A couple years after 9-11, though, I'd realize I wasn't and would be spurred on to do something for those serving our country so I could go about my happy life relatively unaffected by terrorism, which was good. Thanks for sharing how it affected you.
Definitely a day.
It really drove home what I do for Goddess, who, on that day, had been my bride for all of 10 months.
Sure she knew what I did and had agreed to marry into it, but it certainly drove the point home.
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