Thanks for not being Cheezy HW3D....

[McGyver]

I'm not going to dwell too much on the topic... I write too much and can overstay my welcome in many places, people often misinterpret my words and become insulted or think I'm being mean when all I'm trying to do is make them smile... Regardless, I had to say this...
This morning I visited another well known site and noticed a post about a great sale... So I clicked on their shop and was pretty... I wouldn't say shocked, really nothing shocks me at this point...
Perhaps I was disappointed?
Whatever...
Fifteen years ago on this date 2,996 people were murdered... And the event was chosen as a sales tag-line...
I may be confused as to the meaning of "In Remembrance... Up to 75% off"....

When I was in my twenties I used to do some stand-up comedy routines to help out my local church... There was this little kid who used to always recognize me on the streets and call me by the name of one of the wacky characters I'd do... Years later he took tap lessons at my friend's dancing school... Since I was alway helping fix stuff there or building props, I used to run into him and after many years he still called me by that character name... Eventually he grew up and moved on from there and on occasion when his sister would be in my freind's end of year show, I'd run into him or hear that he asked how I was doing... I always found it a bit... I don't know... "Touching" that he liked the character and remembered me... Well, one day my freind my freind told me he stopped by the school and when I asked how he was she told me "oh, you didn't know?... He's in the fire department now... He's in one of the stations serving Broadway... He always responding to little incidents backstage and in the Times Square area... He loves it, it's so much fun because he loves Broadway and theater so much"... And I was like " That's so cool"... Probably less than a month or two later he responded to a call to the World Trade Center and never walked away from there... That little kid's name was Christopher Santora... He died doing what he loved... helping other people.
I have about a dozen other friends in the NYFD and NYPD who in various capacities were there that day... Somehow, none of them died, one lost most of his fellow firefighters from the same unit... None of them are the same... Two retired early and moved far away, two of them really lost it and wracked with survivor's guilt and frustrations and health problems drove themselves from their families... I don't even know where they are anymore, but their lives were ruined that day too... My wife's cousin's husband's father was making a delivery many stories below ground when the first tower was struck... Firefighters got him and many others there, out just as the tower fell... He survived, but died less then two years later of aggressive lung cancer caused by the fallout... Just like hundreds of other unofficial casualties of that day. He was a sweet funny guy who always had a joke to share (and a beer) and a helping hand to offer...

I have to wrap this up quick because of the editing time limit because the Stupid jumpy iPad keyboard caused this to post prematurely while I was fixing a autocorrected word...
I hate you apple.

Thank you HiveWire for not being jerks and not making today a way of earning a buck at other's expense...

And sorry for the long post to say that.

 

[McGyver]

Somehow that posted before I was finished... $@?!#£?+#$&!$ stupid iPad!

 

[Alisa]

Was thinking about you the other day, McG, and wondering where you were.

This is one of the first posts of yours that has made me cry..but that's ok - 9/11 is a subject that does that and tears are healing.

Don't know what site you're referring to (and please, no one post what it is - doesn't matter) but yeah, unless that money's going to a victims fund, that kind of make me shake my head.

I remember on that day, we were getting ready to go in 2 cars (to take one to a mechanic), and then off to the University where my husband Andy worked, because we had a meeting that evening. I turned on the radio in the car before we left (about 11 am Eastern Time) and heard them talking about planes hitting the Pentagon. It was surreal and I thought maybe it was some hoax, but it wasn't, of course. I was definitely in shock - had a hard time driving to the mechanic's through the tears falling from my eyes as I drove. I spent the day on the computer at hubby's office, glued to the news on the internet and emailing back and forth with a cousin who lives Greenwich Village (less than 2 miles north of Ground Zero) and trying to get in touch with other friends and family who live or work near there. All were ok, but all affected in one way or another. Just looked back at the emails my cousin & I exchanged that day and the next few weeks.

We did go to our meeting, though few were there and of course, it ended up with all of us just talking about what had happened.

Lots of things in Seattle, 3000 miles from NYC, were closed - the Space Needle, the Bank of America Building (the tallest building in Seattle), many federal buildings, almost all major shopping malls. They were only letting passengers (no cars) on all of the ferries, other than ones going to islands where they can't otherwise get a car in or out. The airport, of course, was closed.

One of the things that I remember so well, that I wrote to my cousin:

On Tuesday night [that was the day of the attacks] I woke up at about 4:30 am and heard a sound that didn't make sense. I said to Andy, who'd also awakened, "What's that sound?" He said it was a jet. My mind went blank a minute, trying to process that. I said "It's a military jet", realizing in a heartbeat that there WERE no other planes in the air tonight. It still freaks me out to think about it. There are jet fighters and warships patrolling Seattle's Elliot Bay and Puget Sound, something that apparently hasn't happened in 50 years.

It deeply affected all of us who remember it, in one way or another, no matter where we were. In a conversation about 2 weeks after the attacks, my cousin & I talked about how both of us, though she was there and I was 3000 miles away, were still crying a lot, glued to the news, and having trouble concentrating on things other than the attacks, the people affected, and the aftermath...

My heart goes out today to those most affected - all who lost people they loved and the survivors, in our HW family and elsewhere..

 

[Glitterati3D]

I have to agree. It's just way too soon to treat 911 like just another marketing campaign.

While the day and the immediate aftermath were horrible, we have to realize people are still losing loved ones daily to 911 - both from the fallout diseases and overseas where our troops are still fighting.

A "911 sale" is just tacky and uncaring!

 

[Sunfire]

There are people who will do anything to earn a buck, but none are more deserving of that buck then the heroes, often unsung, of the world.

 

[Miss B]

I don't usually comment about that day, mostly because I lived through it, and I often try to avoid looking at the calendar that day every year since. Now I didn't work at the Twin Towers, but I did work 4 blocks due East of them, and I saw, as well as felt, the towers come down.

One of the partners at the firm was beside himself because his wife was supposed to have a meeting at one of the Towers that day, but luckily she showed up at our office because her meeting had been cancelled. ~whew~

One of the secretaries who worked around the corner from my office lost her brother-in-law, a firefighter that day, and she had to take a leave of absence to help her sister cope.

Needless to say, I totally agree with everyone's comments. Remembering on this day should be private, or with your family. You don't sell items in a store as a remembrance of such an awful event, though they would say it's in remembrance of the fallen. IMHO, that's just soooo wrong!

 

[McGyver]

Back at the place where the sale is occurring, I made a post/thread saying I hoped that my interpretation of the use of the words "In Remembrance" in a tag-line for a sale was just a misinterpretation... I actually made that before this thread... But I looked at the ad and the eagles flying in it and the wording and I really don't see that I'm misinterpreting it... So I had to say something here... Thanks for just selling stuff... Not trying to make a buck regardless of what people think... I think selling stuff... Anything can be done with integrity... Independent of political correctness or worrying about who you may or may not offend... It's just "in good taste"... Fifteen or fifty years, having a sale to remember lives lost is in bad taste... Justifying it as "we have Memorial Day sales" is plain stupid... I was seven or eight when I made the connection between Memorial Day sales and that Memorial Day being a day to honor the nations war casualties... Nobody told me to feel what I did, nobody even brought it up... I was reading an ad and said to myself... "Wait... It's a sale for a day where we honor soldiers who died?... That's just wrong... How does that honor them?".... Over at the other site I said, its no different than having a "Victims of domestic violence extravaganza " or "Victims of DWI memorial sale"... There is a difference between making a buck and not being a jerk.
Sadly judging from some of the comments, people are okay with that... I guess... Until someone crosses their lines... Then it's wrong or unfair.
I guess it's the nature of people to not empathize outside their experiences these days... Or if ever was... I don't know... I'm sorry if I fluctuate sometimes between nonsense and soapbox preachiness... These last few years have been so disappointing... When I was a kid, I saw the world heading in a better direction and lately all I see is people doing anything they can to make a buck and the rest wallowing in apathetic disinterest (yes, that's redundant... But it's like a double fudge brownie of lame... Twice the apathy with zero taste)... I feel like my generation just totally sold out and checked out... Care about something as long as it's trendy...
And I'm doing it again... Trying to boil down a million thoughts into a long rambling explanation...
I should go...
Later friends... Bye.

 

[Rae134]

 

[eclark1894]

Okay, obviously, I have to be the voice of reasonable dissent. Now clearly, there are some events that go above and beyond being cheesy and in poor taste. There's story in the news about a mattress company building a couple of towers with some mattresses and knocking them down in a commercial. I did not see it, and it's since been removed from the air and the company has apologized. But here's the thing, I also seem to recall that government officials were telling us in the days following 9-11 that we had to get out there and shop like nothing had ever happened because we had to show those terrorist that we are a resilient people and if you knock us down, we'll just get back up again.

Look, I understand how people feel. I really do. To me, this isn't any different to how I feel about Christmas. You don't want it to become so overblown commercial-wise that the original message is either lost or completely changed. Unfortunately, history has shown us that 9-11 is destined to become another 12-7 as the more people who were directly affected or lived through it begin to die off.

EDIT: Sadly, there are people who can't even tell you what July 4th is all about.

 

[RAMWolff]

Wasn't hard to figure out what site that was. I did post my own comments there. I agree with the poster that I quoted too about the sale here when the Big Cat was released. We all have our thoughts about what is right and what is wrong. I still get very upset on this date, very. I remember getting up that morning, turned on the TV and literally dropped my cereal bowl onto the floor and sat down in front of the TV and just cried and cried and cried. I was in shock for a week or so. All those lives gone from us. I know war kills more, esp these days, and this felt like war in our own backyard. There are so many observations about this from conspiracy of our own Govt to some foreign entity doing that, REGARDLESS, it's still a very slow healing scab on a very deep wound we all have to live with in America!

 

[Desertsilver]

McGyver,

Thank you for your post, I felt very much as you did on seeing that banner.

I'm not going to dwell too much on the topic... I write too much and can overstay my welcome in many places, people often misinterpret my words and become insulted or think I'm being mean when all I'm trying to do is make them smile... Regardless, I had to say this...
This morning I visited another well known site and noticed a post about a great sale... So I clicked on their shop and was pretty... I wouldn't say shocked, really nothing shocks me at this point...
Perhaps I was disappointed?
Whatever...
Fifteen years ago on this date 2,996 people were murdered... And the event was chosen as a sales tag-line...
I may be confused as to the meaning of "In Remembrance... Up to 75% off"....

When I was in my twenties I used to do some stand-up comedy routines to help out my local church... There was this little kid who used to always recognize me on the streets and call me by the name of one of the wacky characters I'd do... Years later he took tap lessons at my friend's dancing school... Since I was alway helping fix stuff there or building props, I used to run into him and after many years he still called me by that character name... Eventually he grew up and moved on from there and on occasion when his sister would be in my freind's end of year show, I'd run into him or hear that he asked how I was doing... I always found it a bit... I don't know... "Touching" that he liked the character and remembered me... Well, one day my freind my freind told me he stopped by the school and when I asked how he was she told me "oh, you didn't know?... He's in the fire department now... He's in one of the stations serving Broadway... He always responding to little incidents backstage and in the Times Square area... He loves it, it's so much fun because he loves Broadway and theater so much"... And I was like " That's so cool"... Probably less than a month or two later he responded to a call to the World Trade Center and never walked away from there... That little kid's name was Christopher Santora... He died doing what he loved... helping other people.
I have about a dozen other friends in the NYFD and NYPD who in various capacities were there that day... Somehow, none of them died, one lost most of his fellow firefighters from the same unit... None of them are the same... Two retired early and moved far away, two of them really lost it and wracked with survivor's guilt and frustrations and health problems drove themselves from their families... I don't even know where they are anymore, but their lives were ruined that day too... My wife's cousin's husband's father was making a delivery many stories below ground when the first tower was struck... Firefighters got him and many others there, out just as the tower fell... He survived, but died less then two years later of aggressive lung cancer caused by the fallout... Just like hundreds of other unofficial casualties of that day. He was a sweet funny guy who always had a joke to share (and a beer) and a helping hand to offer...

I have to wrap this up quick because of the editing time limit because the Stupid jumpy iPad keyboard caused this to post prematurely while I was fixing a autocorrected word...
I hate you apple.

Thank you HiveWire for not being jerks and not making today a way of earning a buck at other's expense...

And sorry for the long post to say that.