Remembering 9/11

I walked out my front door and noticed a change. Only the day before there were a single row of houses lined the street on both sides just like anywhere else in America with the exception that now each home was adorned with the red, white, and blue. Patriotism had been renewed. Gas station raised prices for fuel to $4 a gallon fearing that there would be an immediate shortage in fuel and power generators became an instant hot item to purchase. All this happened in before the sun set that same day.

Now I look around and reflect on what I see 10 years later. Down the street from me a local diner is honoring local firefighters and police with a 15 percent discount. Wal-Mart is proudly displaying a rack of American Flags next to the entrance is if to remind me that I need to purchase a new one. The Cineplex across town is promoting a two for one matinee all week long in remembrance too because going to see a movie somehow is in tribute to the mass that perished? I don’t think so.

When did the tragic death of nearly 3,000 people become a marketing tool used to peddle goods and services, cleverly masked albeit, in the guise of patriotic remembrance of this fateful day in our history? It seems every television station is running a special about the attacks and aftermath. Seems like another cleverly disguised attempt to get more rating points and thus increase advertising dollars. For a time longer than I care to remember after the attacks all the major news outlets were playing a virtual game of tag it seemed. The winner was the station who could show the 2nd plane hitting the towers the most in the shortest amount of time. 10 years later not much has changed unfortunately since now I must watch the upcoming documentaries endlessly advertised about the attacks every 9/11 as if the event had been magically erased from my memory over the course of the 364 days in between.

Rather than contribute to the idea that this day can be cleverly mass marketed to sell a few more flags or cups of coffee I will again mark this day the same way I have every year since the tragedy; by staying home, flying my less-than-new American Flag, eating in, remembering those who died in the attack and since then defending our country, but most importantly spending time with my family.