The days the music died

Diesel Progress North American Edition, Oct, 2001

As this is being written only a very few days after this generation's day of infamy, it's a little hard to focus on the engine-powered equipment markets and the usual chatter of this space. Everything else seems kind of trite right now.

The images are too fresh, developments are still happening, resolution is a long way away.

Even worse, the images are too familiar. Given how many people fly today, especially for business, we have at least an inkling of what happened inside those four planes. A quiet Tuesday morning flight west turning into unspeakable horror.

An office building, one of the largest anywhere, but still an office, an environment most of us know very well.

People going about the start of the day like millions of people go through the start of a day B-mails being checked, the phone ringing, the calendar being reviewed. Meetings were started. The water cooler crowd was likely talking about the New York Giants game on Monday night football. A normal Tuesday morning in normal offices. Then it all changed.

Like many of you, we spent the day going between our desks and a TV or computer screen. Radios were on throughout the offices. The phones were nearly silent and the e-mails almost non-existent. Even the spammers were quiet. Not a single cut-rate Viagra e-mail.

We thought immediately of the people we had out and about, one at the airport here in Milwaukee, one out east. We relaxed a lot when they checked in safe and sound.

Like you, in the days that followed we were glued to the radio, TV or the Internet. Or all three.

No matter what the talking heads and instant experts say, we're years away from gauging the long-term impact. Maybe decades.

The short-term impact is easier. A lot of joy went out of America on September 11th. Streets were quieter, restaurants and bars were empty, the stadiums were dark, but churches and blood centers were swamped.

For the first time in my 48 years, I think I sensed how the World War II generation felt. How it felt to be an American. Not a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative. Or an East Coaster or a Midwesterner. An American. Not a bad thing. Too bad it took this to make it happen.

And it's too bad it'll probably fade to the regular pettiness all too quickly But maybe not. To those outside of the U.S., we might seem like a self-absorbed bunch of quibbling children, but to quote the great Sam Kinnison, the one thing you don't want to get is the undivided attention of the United States. Too late.

Nothing like this has ever happened in the U.S. Political death and terror always happened someplace else.

Maybe we thought we were special somehow, that we were exempted from some of the realities of the world and nothing like this would or could happen here.

We were very, very wrong.

Mike Osenga

mosenga@dieselpub.com