Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

September 11, 2017

As a child of the ‘80s, I understood that the adults in my life talked about the Kennedy assassination and the bombing of Pearl Harbor differently than any other story about the old days.

I’d beg for stories of these events as a grammar school kid with a love for history. Every time, it was a real story—a story that often showed a person in a different light. Someone who smiled a lot would turn heavy-hearted. A grumpy person became reflective. A talkative, easy storyteller quickly became someone of few words.

As a tiny little historian, I knew about those events and the gravity of them, but thinking back, what I naively yearned to understand was how these tragedies made people feel so sad and reflective so many years later. Of course, as a product of the world that was changed by those moments in time, it was impossible to fully comprehend the loss of “what we had been.”

This all flashed in my mind this morning as tears glossed up my eyes and my heart jumped into my throat, reflecting on this day sixteen years ago.

For the last handful of years, I’ve been in the classroom on this date—and have tried to give young people some insight… to help them understand. I pray that they never will.

I wrote this on September 11, 2015, after an intense class.

For this year’s college freshmen— about 60 of whom I’m honored to teach– September 11th is a history lesson. They were too little to know what was going on that day.

I think our most important job in talking about 9/11 to people who don’t remember is to convey the emotion.

What it felt like to watch that on TV.

To pray as people jumped and the towers went down and for all those men and women who rushed in to help.

What it felt like to be as numb and as helpless and as angry and as sad as you ever have.

What it felt like to wonder if we were at the brink of global nuclear war. To wonder if our city was next.

To wonder how different our lives would be going forward.
Our coming together as a nation.

What it felt like to see things start to return to “normal,” and how uncomfortable that felt.

Textbooks will make sure the facts aren’t forgotten… It’s up to us to talk about how deeply it touched every single American, and for each of these young people to understand that we saw the inconceivable worst as well as the mind numbing best of our country that day.

Some piece of America within each of us died that day, and some new part was born. It’s hard to talk about, and hard to come to grips with, but that’s the thing future generations can only learn from each one of us.

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It’s a relentless rain here today, with bone rattling, long instances of thunder. The kind of rain that becomes flooding, and the kind of thunder which makes you think you’ve never felt thunder in your chest like that before.

If it was just me here, I might grab a beer or cup of coffee and sit on the porch. These spectacular displays of nature are few and far between, and should be appreciated when the opportunity is there to take it in. Too often, we’re instead irritated by nature’s gift as we run from car to building or we’re forlorn because nature’s onslaught has ruined plans for one of summer’s precious few days.

As a guy with a dog, though, I’m not going out on the porch. I’m not going on the porch because Willow has burrowed her way into the small space underneath my desk and she’s sitting on my feet, trembling and panting inconsolably.

I was thinking that I wish I could some how make her understand that the thunder isn’t going to hurt her, that there’s no reason to be afraid.

I was thinking about how her crippling, devastating, and irrational-yet-entirely-understandable fear was a lot like all the fear we all carry around. Willow hears those big noises and it stirs something beyond ration, something deeply coded into her DNA.

Of course, not only does she miss out on nature’s great show, she forces me to miss out, too.

Most of our fears are the same way, and most of our reactions to our fears leave us missing out on great things in our world– and maybe even forces the people we love to miss out, too.

I was thinking all that, when a tornado warning popped up for just as few miles away. Hmm, I said, as rationally as I could.

So maybe a little fear is healthy… but the next time fear of some low-percentage possibility stops me from living life to the fullest, I hope I think of the useless anxiety in my little furry buddy’s trembling and decide to do my best and enjoy the storm. Even if some ancient code on my DNA leaves my heart rate a little elevated.

Steve Cichon is a candidate for Erie County Clerk. Read more at steveforclerk.com.