My dad slumbered quietly as the Twin Towers fell sixteen years ago. He stirred and murmured, “What’s that?” I replied, “Nothing Daddy,” even though my eyes glued to the TV in disbelief. In that moment, I was glad Alzheimer’s had stolen his memory.
As a kid, I wondered why my dad, a brilliant steel industry engineer, jetted each week to New York and back. When the World Trade Center complex opened in 1973, I knew. He bragged in 1993, “We build them to last!” when terrorists detonated a bomb in a garage below one of the Towers, injuring many, but leaving the structure intact. This time, I watched in horror and wondered how Saudi pilots could destroy America’s most iconic buildings. I needed to look back only one week for a possible answer.
Seven hundred miles away in rural southwest Michigan, the feds were cleaning up a bloody standoff that left marijuana advocates Tom Crosslin and his partner Rollie Rohm dead at the hands of FBI snipers.