Where Were You?

Tweet The September 11th tragedy is one of those events that was so catastrophic one will always remember where they were when it first happened.

I was at home in suburban Washington, DC and had just opened the Washington Post homepage and saw a photo of a plane striking one of the twin towers. My first thought -- someone had hacked into the website and inserted the photo. A few seconds later, I got a call from my mom. Information was still sketchy. Was it an accident?  I hung up and then got a call from my managing editor at AP. "Get here as quickly as you can," he said. 

I was ready for work, so I jumped in my car and drove to my Metro station. I recall flipping on the radio to National Public Radio, but there was nothing.

A few minutes later, I am on the Metro for the 20 minute ride into DC.  The train was eerily quiet. One rider, a middle-aged man, was listening to the radio on headsets and periodically, he would relay what he heard to the rest of us on the train. No one spoke except the man listening to the radio. There was something about a suspicious car parked in front of the U.S. State Department -- a plane was flying toward DC. It was frightening.

Then, the train pulled into Rhode Island station. The station is above ground and off in the distance -- I could see a huge black cloud of smoke. I remember it being so black and so big. I'd never seen anything like it.

It was 9:37am. I did not know it at the time, but American Airlines Flight 77 had just struck the Pentagon.

What I did know is that something terrible was happening and I needed to get to work. This may sound strange, but my biggest fear was that my Metro train would terminate service before my station stop and I would have to literally run dozens of blocks to the Associated Press office. 

We approached Union Station  -- stopped -- and then continued on and finally arrived at my stop, Farragut North.  I ran the two blocks to my office and burst into the newsroom. 

TV monitors were showing the planes striking the Twin Towers, one of our reporters had witnessed the plane flying into the Pentagon from the balcony of his condo. He was being interviewed on the phone -- describing in detail what he had seen. It was surreal. Is this happening? When am I going to wake up? In the background, the news channels kept playing the same video over and over. I am trying to make sense of it all, knowing that within a few minutes I would have to go on the radio and calmly tell listeners what was happening. 

For the next 12 hours or so, I somehow managed to do my job. It was probably the most difficult day of my life -- in terms of trying to remain coherent and calm while inside -- I am refusing to accept what I am seeing before me -- It really felt like I was part of a movie and at some point, the director would shout: "cut."

By the time I finished anchoring -- some 11 or 12 hours of coverage -- I was mentally exhausted.  My head was filled with all the sounds and images from our reporters and the TV.  Walking onto K Street that night, the air was refreshing -- it was so quiet.

Half a block down the street from my office, I was shaken by what I saw: troops were parked in military vehicles at the intersection of K and 18th Street. I seem to recall seeing an anti-aircraft gun.  It was shocking.  One just didn't see such things in America.

It was almost as if what I was seeing confirmed everything that I had been describing on the radio for the past 12 hours.  Sitting inside a studio -- in a cocoon-like environment -- I had been isolated, in one respect from what was happening, but walking onto the street and seeing the troops -- somehow -- made it all real.

What do you recall from that day? 

Feel free to share.

Click here to listen to real time audio from September 11.

Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival aka LAAFF

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Bang the Drum Slowly

Three blocks of fun with plenty of fashion statements made for a day of laughs and inspiration at a little festival in Asheville called LAAFA or Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival. There were dueling knights on bicycles, fire dancers, gypsy music, silver-plated mimes and a cacophony of costumes.

Fire Dance

If this was a bit too much, just head three blocks east to the City-County Plaza for Shindig on the Green -- a mountain music program that featured square dancing, cloggers and lots of banjo pickers.

High School Bluegrass Band from Marshall, NC

Asheville's diversity was certainly on display this weekend.  Here are photos from both events.

Come Here, My Dear!

Knights on Bikes

Juggler in Cowboy Boots on Ball with Knives

Now in High Heels

Balance

Sun Painting

Balloon Man

Gypsy Band

Bottle Cap Truck

Vega

Storyteller/Singer/Songwriter Joe Penland

Do you Mime?

Trial by Fire

Forbidden Caverns

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As the thermometer was approaching 90 degrees, I decided to find a place to cool off.  I went underground. Caverns.  Specifically, a placed called Forbidden Caverns just outside Newport, Tennessee, where the temperature 600 feet beneath the surface is a cool -- 58 degrees.

It was fantastic. Lots of stalactites and stalagmites -- with colorful lights to give them an otherworldly glow; low ceilings, narrow passages, dripping water and an underground creek.

I highly recommend a trip underground to cool down or just to change your perspective of the world. There's a lot going on just beneath the surface.

Admittedly, I did think about that earthquake we had earlier this week. What if?  I soon dismissed the thought and enjoyed my cool subterranean surroundings.

Here are some pictures from down there:

 

Nature Calls

Tweet I've been hiking a lot since the first of the year, but this morning's hike was the mother lode. In my hikes, I've spotted squirrels, birds, snakes and chipmunks. Today, I spotted one bear, one fawn and a wild turkey. And no, I was not drinking Wild Turkey when I spotted the bear and deer!

There's a lot to be said about getting up and out early. Firstly, it's much cooler. With temperatures hitting the low 90's by mid-day, an early morning hike is the way to go -- particularly since the temperature is usually a mild 70 or so -- most mornings.

It was just such a morning.  I was standing in an old logging road in a remote area near Hot Springs, NC, when I heard twigs snapping in the rhododendron just ahead of me -- about 30 feet. Something was bounding down the bank at a fast clip -- deer? I thought.

Suddenly, a beautiful black bear came into view -- crossing the road and heading down the hillside into more thick bushes and rhododendron. Wow. It felt like the bear had been cued to bound across the road in front of me -- as if in a movie or a planned sighting. Absolutely amazing.  The bear was medium size and there was no time to snap a photo since this all happened within about 3 seconds.  I waited a few moments to make sure the bear didn't have company and then proceeded along the trail.

30 minutes or so after this encounter, I heard furious wing-flapping off to my left. I look up and to my left just in time to spot a wild turkey taking flight. Further along, as I was wrapping up my hike, I thought I spotted what appeared to be a large dog about 20 yards in front of me. As it came into view, I realized it was a fawn. We stared at each other for a second or two, before it moved off the road and across the forest.

My biggest fear now is chiggers.

There were a lot of weeds and plants along the trail and those little critters love to catch a ride and then create an incredible itch that lasts three or four days.

I just jumped out of a hot shower. Hopefully, I won't spot any signs of them.

Eat a Peach

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I had forgotten what it was like to eat a delicious peach.

The taste came back to me the other day when I bit into a ripe yellow peach from South Carolina. The juice ran down the side of my mouth and the flavor sent my taste buds into heaven. It was a case in which the memory of a good tasting peach simply couldn't do justice to the actual taste. (It's usually the other way around!)

After the rediscovery of what a real peach tastes like, I hopped in my car and drove straight to the farmer's market where I bought one bushel of peaches -- Yellow Flesh and Freestone varieties (also called O.Henry).

O. Henry wrote at least one short story about peaches. Little Speck In Garnered Fruit is about newlyweds on their honeymoon and the bride asks her husband to find her a ripe peach, but it's early spring and he struggles to find even one. Read it here:

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/14968/

I can relate to O. Henry's bridegroom character. I've found myself on a mission to find a specific fruit or vegetable in some of the places where I have lived over the past ten years. In Timor-Leste, it was grapes. Here in the states, I miss Central Asian cherries.

This morning, I am savoring those ripe South Carolina peaches. I am on my fourth one. They are so addicting and I think before too long, I'll be back at the farmer's market. Peach season will soon be gone :(

Up Close

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A snail's pace

 An after-sunrise walk this morning along the dirt road near the house, revealed some beautiful wild flowers along the roadside.

Warming Up on a Cool Morning

Split Ends

Shades of Blue

Pow! Pow! Pow!

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The View from Here

I live on a beautiful hilltop over looking a tree-covered mountain. I love to sit outside and surf the net or, as I've been doing lately, read Tim Winton books. I just finished Dirt Music and just started Cloudstreet. He paints with words -- an example from Cloudstreet: "All day they travel. Their bones brittle up with the jolts. Limestone dust flies into the trees. Out of Capel, the smoke from a brushfire comes downwind in a spiritous column, like a train passing. Past the emaciated glitter of creeks, into the heat ahead, the bluewhite nothing of distance, they travel."

It's like poetry written in prose.

These two books, and I expect his others, too, provide a glimpse into Australian life. Cloudstreet reminds me a bit of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath -- working class people struggling to feed their families in the years after the depression.

Winton is the second Australian writer I've read recently.

I was loaned a copy of Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap a few months ago and found it absolutely brilliant. Tsiolkas takes a domestic incident and describes it from eight different perspectives. The Slap is very much in your face -- in terms of the writing style. At times, it was shocking, particularly the language that some of the characters used, but not offensive. I think the "shock factor" was due mostly to the fact that my previous six or seven books had been works of classic literature -- Dostoyevsky,  Chekhov, Stefan Zweig, Adolfo Bioy Casres and Thomas Mann.

The Slap, which I enjoyed tremendously, takes a look at contemporary life in Australia. 


Anyway, so I am currently reading Cloudstreet -- sitting outside on the hillside -- overlooking these wonderful mountains and suddenly the calm is interrupted by -- POW POW POW. 


My neighbor, who lives a quarter of a mile away, is target practicing with his high-powered rifle. He pops off about a dozen rounds and he's done.

Having lived away from the states for a number of years -- the sound of a gun takes some getting used to...

Submission: A New Definition

Tweet Michele Bachmann, one of the eight or so GOP presidential hopefuls, has made up her own definition of the word "submissive."  According to Oxford it means: "the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person."  Bachmann's definition of submission is "respect."


It's yet another example of politicians creating their own truth and in this case their own definition of a word. 

It happened the other evening in Iowa when a conservative columnist asked Bachmann what she meant by her vow to be submissive to her husband.  The audience booed the question, then Bachmann replied "what submission means to me -- if that's what your question is -- it means respect."


She needs to look up the definition. 

Yet, what is more troubling than her answer is that the national press corps is letting her slide on it. No one, as far as I know, is calling her on it. It's really shameful. You'd think among the dozens of journalists following her campaign -- at least one would ask her the simple follow-up question: "if elected president, who will be making the decisions -- Bachmann or her husband?"

Bachmann, herself, created this whole situation -- recalling how she hated the idea of pursuing a degree in tax law and saying she did so only because her husband told her to.  "The Lord says, Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands," she explained.  That response begs the question -- who will be calling the shots at the White House if she is elected.

Bachmann is entitled to her religious beliefs, but she is not entitled to dodge a question about presidential power. She opened this discussion and the media have a duty to call her on it.

Come on colleagues -- step up and hold her accountable. For too long, politicians have been allowed to create their own truth and not be challenged by the media.

Haunting Music from Suai

Tweet Nearly two years ago, I flew to the south coast of East Timor to participate in the opening of a media house for journalists. The organization that I worked for at the time, had opened several of these facilities across the country and this was the latest. At all of the openings, there was always traditional dance and music -- a truly wonderful time, each time.

The ceremony in Suai remains fresh in my mind because of the music and dance. It was quite haunting in some ways -- three men singing, one of them playing a traditional stringed instrument and six young girls dancing to the music -- appearing to be in a hypnotic trance.

I was fortunate to have my camera handy and captured a portion of the performance.

Storm Rollin' In

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The sound of not-to-distant thunder rumbles toward the west where the clouds are dark and threatening. Lightning lights up the twilight sky as if a million camera flashes are going off all at once.  The smell of rain is in the air. A burst of wind brings the leaves on the poplar trees alive – a sound similar to the arrival of rain.  The thunder rolls on – becoming distant, the night creatures turn the forest into a cacophony of percussion-sounding instruments.  The rain is coming. Slowly. The rain drops gently tap the metal roof. The mountain air is cool and fresh.

(My first night back in the mountains of Western North Carolina after five weeks in tropical Timor-Leste)

Hypnotic Yogyakarta

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This recording was made in October 2010 inside the palace grounds in Yogyakarta. The city is one of my favorite places to be.

Dili Morning

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Early mornings here are an absolute delight. Up just before the sun and the air is fresh and cool. A few pics snapped just after the sun popped over the mountain behind Dili.

Spirits and Clint

Tweet I've always enjoyed Clint Eastwood's movies. He's matured as a actor --- and as a director, he just keeps getting better and better.

Tonight, I watched Hereafter, and realized he is an absolute incredible storyteller. Something about the movie really struck me. It was the subject matter, in part, but also the way he weaved all the elements together. His characters were believable and likeable. Nothing seemed forced and he didn't insult your intelligence.

As for the subject matter....of course, who knows what the hereafter is like -- if there is a hereafter. It's nice to think there is "something else" out there, but I'm afraid this just might be it and we'd better make the best of what we have in the here-and-now.

Fresh Strawberries

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We always seem to crave the very things that we can't have -- strawberries are hard to come by here in Timor. I happened to come across this photo I snapped in '06 or '07 along a roadside in Tajikistan.  The berries there are absolutely amazing -- sweet with just a hint of tartness.

Tree Farmers

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Augustino outside his home in Bucoli Village

Augustino Matos da Silva grows teak and mahogany trees on his land in Bucoli -- a village near Timor-Leste's second largest city, Baucau. When the trees mature, he's hoping to make as much as $5,000 dollars for each of his teak trees.  He says he'd like to build a permanent house, one day.