Website © 2003 by Tyler Carey
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9/11 on the West Coast
by Micah Baldwin
Intro by Editor, Tyler Carey - During a BBC interview last Fall, Norman Mailer commented that he believes that for American authors, 9/11 will become the most written about historical event in our nation's history. He contrasted its devastating impact upon the psyche of the American people to Pearl Harbor and the assaults on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of the staff at Great Hoboes believe that the media may have already flogged the '9/11 experience' to death, hurting the chances of Mr. Mailer's prediction coming to bear. That said, most of the staff at Great Hoboes and most of our readership are New Yorkers. We believe that it's important to see how these events were interpreted by folks outside our geographical sphere, where the impact is often considered to have been most severe. This month, we are fortunate enough to present a snapshot of that terrible morning through the eyes of one of our colleagues on the west coast, Mr. Micah Baldwin. An Oakland resident at the time of the attacks, Mr. Baldwin had a much different experience than those of us who were closer to the actual incident. His story reflects how the media interprested things for people who weren't there to see it firsthand, out their windows.Rolling over and hearing the clock buzzing, I quick shook the sleep from my head. Getting up early always annoys me, especially during the extended periods of insomnia I was experiencing. Frankly, I was learning that the current trend that captured the imagination of California was slowly destroying my ability to sleep eight hours. That trend, being an out of work internet worker, really isn't all it's cracked up to be. My day, mostly is filled with video games and job searching, usually began around ten a.m. This morning, I had to meet with a potential savior…I mean employer.
As I stumbled to my door cursing the early morning light and kicking my laundry out of the way, I quickly tried to remember everything I had to do. Get my clothes out the dryer. Check. Iron something clean. Check. Deep in thought, I opened my door.
"Planes are falling out of the sky," my roommate Stacy* exclaimed. "They are crashing all over!"
"What the fuck?" raced across my semi-consciousness, and I began to mutter under my breath, questioning Stacy's sanity and need to talk to me just after I woke up. I wandered down to the garage to get my laundry continuing to babble to myself about planes dropping out of the sky. I assured myself that Stacy must have been mistaken; her outburst must have been fueled by a visit from Aunt Flow.
After grabbing some clothes, I went back to my room, passing through the living room to see Stacy and my others roommates, Jennifer* and her boyfriend Scott* glued to the television screen. Now, slightly confused, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom.
After taking a shower, I began to iron my clothes, and turned on the television to MTV, so I could get my morning dose of booty shaking. Instead of Carmen Electra, I got CNN and video of a plane hitting a building.
Finally, realizing that something big was going on, I sat down, shook the last bit of sleep from my head, and began to listen to the newscast. "A plane has hit the World Trade Center," the anchor announced.
Over the next hour or so, the horror of the terrorist attacks began to unfold. I went downstairs to gauge the reaction of my roommates. All three worked in San Francisco (we live in Oakland, just across the bay), and I wondered if they were going into the city. Each sat with a blank stare, fear welling up in their eyes. Absolutely not, they informed me. It's not safe.
For me, my thoughts were not filled with fear. Being Jewish, I have a fair amount of family in Israel, where terrorist attacks occur on an almost daily basis. Because the attacks were so far away, and I was pretty sure that San Francisco was not a tactical target. (I mean, lets be honest, from a purely military or emotional point of view, there were no targets in California that made sense. The World Trade Center - symbol of capitalism and the infiltration of the American Way on the rest of the world - and the Pentagon, center of America's military might - made sense. The Golden Gate Bridge? Hollywood? I just couldn't see it, and that thought calmed me.)
Once we learned that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, I immediately began calling friends that worked in the building. Both the lines to Virginia and New York were jammed. Finally, unable to reach anyone on the East Coast, I decided to call a friend that lived up the street.
My roommates continued to silently watch the news, performing mundane tasks, cleaning a table, or making breakfast. It was clear that the day's events had paralyzed them. Each would spend ten or fifteen minutes in front of the television, and then rise and mill about, only to return to the television like a bug to flame.
As details started to come out, I began to worry that the attacks would lead to wild conjecture and innocent people would be hurt. I hoped that, like the Oklahoma City bombing, the perpetrators would be Americans.
Racial tensions have been on the rise, especially in California, where whites are quickly becoming a minority. Because of Silicon Valley, there had been a huge influx of East Indians, Asians and Arabs. I feared that if the attacks were the work of Islamic fundamentalists, xenophobic Americans would show their true colors. And, true to form, just a few days later, an Indian store owner was beaten to death by a group of white morons.
So, while my roommates were crippled by a feeling of complete fearlessness, and to a certain extent, the reminder of their personal insignificance and the global insignificance of California, I went to lunch with a friend.
It was clear that the attacks were an attempt to disrupt the lives of Americans. If I could have a nice lunch with a friend then the attacks were for naught.
Certainly, I mourn the loss of life. I mourn those killed in the attacks. I mourn the Afgans that were killed during Bush's so-called war (which is on par with his father's public relations activities in the Persian Gulf). I mourn that the "War on Terrorism" continues, and that we are seeing more Canadians being killed by Americans than terrorist cells extinguished. But, mostly, I mourn for the naïve American Way that was destroyed along with the World Trade Center.
Now its several months later and everything is pretty much back on track. Except for the occasionally Chicken Little act by our Governor, who wants to remind the world that California is significant, September 11 is no longer a topic of conversation. Outside of the relatives and friends of those lost and on military duty, California was lucky to escape relatively unscathed. Today, along with our "Endless Summer" innocence, Californians have lost the pride that the Internet boom brought. In many ways, we struggle with the question of our own importance. After all, how important can we be if were not even on the terrorist's radar screens? * not their real names.