9/11 at 25: The world you were born in no longer exists

25 years since nothing was the same

It’s so interesting how does one photo can inspire so many thoughts. 9/11 25 years later and we’ve been doing some thinking so buckle up for a long post….

So here we are, the big one, a quarter of a century since 9/11 occurred.

Over the past 25 years, we have delved into a number of annual 9/11 stories. We talked about conspiracy theories, we talked about pop culture at the time of 9/11, we spoke about forgotten history, and we even delved into advertising that was on television right before networks switched over to the live coverage that changed everything.

Being 25 years in, we also think that this will be our last post about 9/11. No, not everything that has been said is a finality of it all, and as times change and emotions change, people have a renewed sense of history and perspective. But this year, in the spirit of change, we’re going to discuss how the world that many of us grew up in no longer exists and the planet that many were born into may have never existed at all.

There’s a famous photograph that was spread around the internet many years ago and continues to be spread. Every now and then it will pop up on a social media site and you may just think it’s AI, but we can attest to the fact that this image was around before artificial intelligence was busy creating things that also don’t exist in real life.

The simple image of a young girl standing in front of the Twin Towers, with a couple on the ground in the background and a beautiful blue sky, is a quaint, picturesque moment that will live forever in a shroud of mystery.

You see, despite this being posted, no one really knows who this is. It seems like it’s a real picture. It would appear to be an actual image taken at some point, perhaps in the 1970s, ‘80s or ’90s, but no one really knows who it is, when it was taken or how it got put out onto the World Wide Web. But it did, and it’s a stark reminder of a world that existed prior to September 11, 2001.

A lot of people who are observing 9/11 were not alive on 9/11 or before. We’re 25 years into this, so many people who are learning about it have no connection to the world that existed prior to it happening. And then there’s a large group of people who do remember the feelings before, the reality before, the way the world worked, the mechanics of media and the mechanics of life.

It wasn’t just the abrupt change of 9/11 that repositioned the planet, but a series of events that took place because of it that assisted with destroying the world that existed prior to it.

Everyone goes back to the anecdotal evidence of Blockbuster Video and all the other things that nostalgic retrospectives would say we should miss, but it wasn’t always that great. Nostalgia has a funny way of lying to us and making us think that things were better than they really were, but they were different. Some liked it and some didn’t, but they were not the same as they are now.

Depending on where you live, many of the roads haven’t been paved since then and buildings haven’t been fixed since then, but those buildings are probably more vacant than they were then and those roads possibly are less used than they were in 2001.

That’s how memories work. It’s fair to say that all memories are different, and nostalgia leads us through different paths in creating or reminiscing. But it’s not just that. It’s shopping malls and stores and, for many of us, family itself.

For those who were young or middle-aged in September of 2001, how many people in your family are still alive from that era? How many people who watched the live events that day are alive now?

We are all aging. Even the Generation Z folks who think they’ll be young forever will come to find out that millennials thought that too, and so did the Generation X crowd. No one lives forever. We can try our best, but we don’t.

And the world that existed before 9/11 also didn’t live forever. As a matter of fact, it seems so distant and so gone that it almost feels like it was never even real to begin with, that it never existed and that any memories of it are false or fictitious.

But for those who still know what it was like, there’s a part of the brain that fully realizes we were immersed in a world that had things that it does not now, and the world of today has a lot more than we did then. We can debate until we’re blue in the face which one was better.

The internet of the early 2000s was far different from the one now. Phones were different, DSL was competing with broadband, and wires were still more prevalent than Wi-Fi. Everyone will have their reasons for believing one era was better than another, and that’s how generational wars subsist.

9/11 has become such a distant memory that, as time goes on, people are losing the emotions connected to what we were told to remember forever. Even the footage that plays of the second building being attacked on live news can seem almost like an inconsequential event after seeing it repeated for a quarter of a century, but it was not.

You really need to think about what was watched that day in real time and how the entire world was still tuning into the news media on television sets and using the internet to add to that. We didn’t have social media as we know it today. Instead, people relied on forums and message boards and email to spread knowledge and links. It spread slower, but it still spread, and that’s what made rumors and innuendo feel more real because you had to search and acquire that knowledge. When you found the urban legends, you weren’t quite sure how urban or how legendary they were.

One photograph that was shared hundreds of thousands of times then showed a man standing on the rooftop observation deck of the World Trade Center with a plane coming at him from behind. People believed it was real, but it wasn’t, and this was before AI. It was made with Photoshop and spread around the world twice and three times over.

Eventually, people realized it was fake, but back then we had to do more hardcore research to acquire that knowledge as to what was real and what was not real. It took a bit more time and actually talking to people on those influential forums.

And that’s why the footage, oh, the awful footage, of the planes and smoke and buildings crashing and people jumping was so haunting, because we didn’t see things like that before. At least not on television and at least not on the news.

Hollywood blockbusters gave us those images, but we didn’t think buildings could crash unless aliens attacked, like in Armageddon or Independence Day, until that day when we realized how fragile buildings were, but also how fragile life was.

You have to understand how close the world was to something that day and in the few days after, how tense the country was and how close it was to boiling over. A lot of people will theorize about who was responsible, and those theories will persist forever and intensify as time goes on. But that day, that specific moment, all we knew as a world and as a nation was that someone did it.

And when that someone did it, it was an immediate change in the basic fabric and foundation of the world we had.

For those who lived through COVID, think of it this way: telework was just a pipe dream for many until COVID happened, and now it’s more of a normalcy. Even with cutbacks on telework, it’s still being offered by many employers in a hybrid fashion.

Before 9/11, the fears and the paranoia and the hate and the negative emotions were not as persistent or prevalent. They were there, don’t get me wrong. But they got amplified beyond control, not only in the immediacy of 9/11 but in the years following.

I think it’s fair to say who we are today would never be who we would have been if the events of that day did not occur, although it’s tough to know who we would be now because, as the butterfly effect goes, several important events took place that created more events that took place that created the reality we’re in now.

So let’s go back to that image, that girl in front of the Twin Towers.

For those who lived in the ’80s or ’90s or even before that, I think they can feel that image. They know how it felt and looked and smelled, and they know how it was. That image, despite being just a picture, contains with it an emotional reaction and feeling.

It’s a fuzzy reminder of a fading world.

Twenty-five years later, perhaps that world has faded to the point of oblivion because, as more generations are born, that world really never existed for them. And as people who lived through it continue to die out, their stories about how things felt will be forgotten because the new world has no time for them.

That’s the most upsetting part of all.

Previously never-before-seen 9/11 footage now revealed after person who filmed it found it in his closet

A new video of what happened on 9/11

Kei Sugimoto, a Japanese-American who was 24 years old at the time, has released a nearly 1-hour, never-before-seen video on his YouTube channel.

Sugimoto was a Mainframe Operator at the time at Nissho Iwai Shoji when the terrorist attacks occurred and filmed the footage from the roof of 64 St. Marks Place in New York City.

He used a Sony VX2000 with a teleconverter to capture the harrowing moments, according to his Youtube description.

The hour long video starts with the aftermath of both planes hitting. During the filming, both buildings collapse.. The bright blue sky in the background is still something that people who were alive and old enough to have memories will never forget from that day. The video also portrays the helplessness that everyone felt who was watching it happen.

It is also incredible to think about how people in that ‘time’ filmed things longer. Our brains were just wired to keep a camcorder going. While today the minute video on TikTok just ends.

It is continuously unfathomable to consider the passage of time.. at the time this video is uploaded, kids born on 9/11 will have been legally able to drink in the United States for two years already..

Memories of 9/11 lost in translation

Time now shows just how much things changed

The annual memorials of 9/11 felt a bit different this year. Even for me.. I have morbidly consumed 9/11 material each year starting around mid-August through the middle of September. I do this not for some macabre enjoyment, but instead it is truly to remember and place myself back into that timeline again. For a moment. To feel those emotions. To witness, again, the tragic events..

Have said before that it was a best of times and worst of times era for me personally. I had just turned 21 and had yet too be crushed by the perils of modern life and adulthood. It was late nights with friends and all you can eat garbage after bars.

On 9/11 it was coupled with the worst of times. This horrid notion that 3000 people can die within minutes on live TV with the entire United States government paralyzed.

It is odd to think, now 22 years later. As the years slowly tick away they seemingly become faster. Like a freight train losing control on tracks to the future! All of us are passengers whether we like it or not.

This year’s anniversary of 9/11 appears to cross into a new place.. one where many who experienced those events that day have aged or even passed away. It was a different era for me. No child, I had my mom and dad, and everyone had those huge tube TVs with bad pictures . Cell phones were gloriously huge. Yet somehow it seemed like technology worked better..

In going back to the past again this year, it was weird to hear the news anchors. They were so worked up and shook that day but their professionalism showed .. they held it together and narrated the end of the world for the country to hear and see. Politicians, though we know the truth that it’s all for show, also held it together and gave us advanced patriotic theater for the moment. They appeared strong even though we new behind the scenes they were stammering.

That was the element this year that stood out. The idea that when compared to 2001, how much we have changed.

It goes without saying that 9/11 changed everything. It changed everything SO much that if 9/11 happened today, 9/11 forever changed what our response to the attacks would be. Internet chaos. TikTok immediate conspiracy. Stumped politicians. News media that wouldn’t know how to talk without a script.

We sure did change.

That era of the 1990s is gone. It ended on 9/11. And now 22 years later it seems difficult to understand who we have all become, but more so what we never experienced and in the end what we all lost..

Until next year..

PEARL HARBOR 20 YEARS AFTER THE 60TH AFTER 9/11

This is how FOX NEWS reported on Pearl Harbor in 2001, 20 years ago during the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.. during that time, survivors were comparing the attacks of 9/11 to what they saw in 1941.

NEW YORK — Two were getting ready for church. Another was on vacation, just waking up. A fourth munched on breakfast while waiting for friends to take him to a beach party.
Then they got word: The Japanese had struck Pearl Harbor in a sneak attack, triggering America’s involvement in World War II. That “Day of Infamy” — Dec. 7, 1941 — became known as the most dramatic and monumental of the last century in America, one that singularly changed the course of history.
Now it shares that classification with Sept. 11, 2001, a fact not lost in the memories of the surviving veterans.
Daniel S. Fruchter, an Army corporal in 1941, said the first thing that sprang to mind Sept. 11 was the catchphrase that spread after the Japanese struck: “Remember Pearl Harbor — Keep America Alert.”
“A widow of a Pearl Harbor survivor called on the 11th and said, ‘It’s happening again,'” said Fruchter, 83, now state chairman of the New York Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. “I thought that, too: ‘Here we go again.’ I was mad at our own lack of alertness and our lack of knowing what’s going on in the world around us.”
Sixty years ago Friday, Fruchter was eating what he thought was his last breakfast as a soldier. He was scheduled to leave Hawaii the next day, and was thinking about his plans for a seaside celebration that afternoon.
“I never went to that beach party,” he said. “Life changed.”
Fruchter stayed, of course, and with his colleagues set to work preparing for war. “I didn’t feel,” he remembered. “We were just doing our jobs. We were busy.”
Fruchter and an Army buddy didn’t get their first look at the devastation until midnight. Only then did they begin to understand the gravity of what had happened.
“For the first time, we could actually see the damage,” he said. “That night, standing on top of the crater overlooking Honolulu and all of Pearl Harbor, we saw the fleet burning.”
The “Keep America Alert” message also flashed through the mind of Navy vet Bernard “Bing” Walenter, now 81, after Sept. 11.
“If everyone would start remembering Pearl Harbor, maybe we could stop a few of these surprise attacks,” said the former machinist striker and current state chair of California’s Pearl Harbor Survivors. “Here it’s still happening, after all this time.”
Walenter was working in the machine shop of the USS Medusa when the Japanese attacked.
“It’s hard to say what it felt like at the time. I was confused. I couldn’t believe what was happening,” he said. Walenter spent Dec. 7 of 1941 refilling one of the vessel’s guns with powder — though they never fired a shot that day.
Across the island of Oahu, George L. Murray, then an off-duty, vacationing staff sergeant in the Army’s Chemical Corps, was just waking up when he heard the news.
“The shock scared the hell out of us,” said Murray, 83, who chairs the Alabama chapter of Pearl Harbor Survivors. “We were stunned. It was an unexpected war.”
Like Fruchter, Murray was reminded of Pearl Harbor on the morning of Sept 11.
“It was similar in that it was a surprise attack,” he said. “That stunned us again. You sit down and watch TV and can’t believe something like that was happening. One surprise attack in your lifetime is enough.”
But not everyone who lived through both events sees a link between them.
“I felt a lot of anger on Sept. 11, but I didn’t associate it with the attack on Pearl Harbor,” said Julius Finnern, 82, of Wisconsin, a national secretary for Pearl Harbor Survivors. “Other than the fact that both were sneak attacks, I found very little comparison.”
Unlike the vast majority of Americans who were blindsided by the attacks of Sept. 11, some vets said they weren’t completely shocked when Pearl Harbor was hit.
“We were pretty well-adjusted to the idea that we were at war with the Japanese,” said Francesco Costagliola, then a Naval ensign on the USS Phoenix cruiser. “It wasn’t that much out of the realm of reality … It was just the first day of a long, hard war.”
As they do each year, these and scores of other Pearl Harbor veterans will observe Friday’s annivesary of the attack. Some will travel to Hawaii, while others will attend local memorial events.
And how will survivors react to this year’s anniversary, the first since September’s disaster?
“After all these years, I don’t expect I’ll feel any different as I have in the past,” Murray said. “I’m angry about it, but you have to get over it. The world keeps turning, and you have to turn with it.”
After all, for Pearl Harbor survivors and other World War II veterans, Dec. 7 has been fraught with emotion every year since 1941.
“I get real weepy-eyed,” Finnern said. “But I am proud. You’d better believe I am.”

BIDEN DUMP ON 9/11! FBI releases first 9/11 document

THIS IS DEVELOPING..

CNN REPORTING:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Saturday released the first of what is expected to be several documents related to its investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and suspected Saudi government support for the hijackers, following an executive order by President Joe Biden.The newly declassified document, which is from 2016, provides details of the FBI’s work to investigate the alleged logistical support that a Saudi consular official and a suspected Saudi intelligence agent in Los Angeles provided to at least two of the men who hijacked planes on September 11, 2001. The document, released on the 20th anniversary of the deadly attacks, still contains significant redactions.It details multiple connections and witness testimony that prompted FBI suspicion of Omar al-Bayoumi, who was purportedly a Saudi student in Los Angeles but whom the FBI suspected to be a Saudi intelligence agent. The FBI document describes him as deeply involved in providing “travel assistance, lodging and financing” to help the two hijackers.

The Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, previously said Wednesday that it “welcomes the release of” the FBI documents and that “any allegation that Saudi Arabia is complicit in the September 11 attacks is categorically false.”

FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH GETS 9/11 SPOTLIGHT IN SHANKSVILLE PA

FULL SPEECH BY FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH

At a 9/11 anniversary ceremony in Shanksville, Pa., former President George W. Bush recounted the heroism of those passengers aboard Flight 93 as well as the brave servicemen and servicewoman who have responded since that time…

FULL VIDEO..

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001: THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LAST DAY OF MUNDANE

The final day of peace. It’s only right to celebrate the anniversary of this mundane day.

20 years. Two decades. 7300 days.

It is the anniversary of September 10, 2001.
The final day of peace. It’s only right to celebrate the anniversary of this mundane day.

The final time prior to the deadly terror attacks on the United States–attacks that are etched into memories, yet fading with each passing calendar page turning.

While there are a few specials airing that try to bring the horror back into the forefront again, a new generation of children growing up has only history books to reveal what happened on 9/11, as the YouTube videos of that attacks have become buried or censored.

We have covered everything on this website over the years from the strange oddities and coincidences that were occurring in 2001 prior to the attacks, to Hurricane Erin, pop culture after 9/11, and even a local tale of how a 9/11 plane flew directly over home base.

After two decades, we ponder what else could be offered.. what else could be said.

We almost feel that this 20th anniversary post could be it, the final one. (Some of my friends who tell me I am fixated on this event too much will doubt this is my final say however.)

As time moves on, so do emotions. So does that electric feeling of that day–you would have to have been alive to have felt it. The idea that a day so perfect of weather, so pure and blue of a sky, could also carry with it such intense rage and flames that would alter the landscape of a nation but also the course of a planet.

You still shudder when you see the old news reports of the first plane.. the way anchors were innocently pondering how such an ‘accident’ could occur. The pilot, we thought, must have had a health crisis. This terrible accident hopefully will be cleaned up, addressed appropriately, and we could go back to fighting about stem cells and the legitimacy of George W. Bush’s presidency, along with enjoying the triumphant return of Michael Jordan.

Until that second plane..
Until those stunned anchors had the carpet pulled from them. We, as a nation, were not ready for what was about to happen.

Within an instant, suddenly “everything changed.” Yes, that became an overused statement at the time. As the drumbeat of time beat on, we see how regardless of overuse, the statement could not be more true.

Many scholars today will argue that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump would not have occurred without 9/11 first happening. That each and every direction of history since that morning had its road paved with the blood from the attacks.

This is one particular poignant moment of this Youtube video that plays 9/11 as it happened on NBC’s Today Show that morning. Around 5 minutes and 40 seconds into the video, directly before it cuts to a young and then-scandal-free Matt Lauer announcing a plane had struck one of the towers, there is a McDonalds Commercial: The advertisement starts with a question: “What makes you smile?”

This could not be a more mundane ad for McDonalds breakfast, its egg and pancakes, and Minute Maid orange juice. But that is also what is magical about it: The mundane nature of the spot!

Mundane died that day. Mundane became something unknown after the events that unfolded seconds after this ad..

You could almost conjecture that the McDonalds ditty was the final whimper of the 20th century. Innocence, if we really truly even had it, was gone only seconds later when the “we love to see your smile” spot turned into a live stream of terror attacks in three separate locations.

x x x

While terrorists were plotting and buying porn the night before 9/11, others were simply going living the final day of what could be considered normalcy. Also the same day, a small snippet appeared in the Boston GLOBE about Osama Bin Laden. It is very possible that people within airport and on one of the planes hijacked, people were potentially ready this article that described how the United States government was given out matches with Bin Laden’s image on it to remind people about the bounty on his head:

There were hints of what was to come on 9/10.

Front page headlines couldn’t been more dull, but a few interesting tidbits showed up in a few places that now seem to be prophetic.

Like this headline from the Allentown Morning CALL running an AP dispatch on September 10 about violence erupting in the Middle East:

Or this headline of an editorial that ran in the Pottsville REPUBLICAN HERALD on 9/11 written by columnist Jim Hoagland:

The 9/10 Thunder Enlightening in the Republican HERALD could not have been more dull! One caller saying Bush should resign and move to Mexico, a North Schuylkill student complaining about rules at the school, and someone angry that Mahanoy Area’s school band didn’t play at the Friday night football game:

The headline on NEWSDAY on 9/10 included a above the fold “wave of terror” bold statement about the Middle East. Little did anyone know what the terror headline would be the next day on the front page of tjhe same paper:

A victim of 9/11, David Kocalcin, could not sleep the night of September 10, 2001. He was a passenger on Flight 11 on 9/11, but the nights previous he woke up at 3am pacing the house, unable to sleep. The morning he left home he wrote a note for him family saying he will miss everyone very much. He said he would see them Friday night, and stated he fed the dogs but not the fish.

David Kovalcin had a habit of drawing smiling portraits of the whole family — his wife, Elizabeth, and their daughters, Rebecca, 4, and Marina, 1 — on the steamy glass in the bathrooms. Now Rebecca draws her own, with only three people. Mr. Kovalcin, 42, was a passenger on Flight 11, on a business trip for Raytheon, where he was a senior mechanical engineer.
Mrs. Kovalcin said they had carved out a “Father Knows Best” kind of life, with him coming home at six every evening, choosing to know his family well rather than to work longer hours for more money.
She remembers that her husband had trouble sleeping two nights before his departure. “He woke me up at 3 a.m., and said ‘I’m pacing the house. I can’t sleep,’ ” she said. “I rubbed his head and tried to calm him down. He was very distressed, but had no idea what it was. Then three days later I remembered, and thought, ‘Holy cow, I wonder what that was about.’ ”
The morning he left home he had written a note for his family: “Rebecca, Marina and Mommy, I will miss everybody very much. See you Friday night.” At the end he added, “I fed the dogs but not the fish.”

A few days before 9/10, and 9/11, I went to the movies with friends. On September 6 to be exact! I was reminded of this when my friend, cleaning out his house, actually found the ticket stub from the screening of JEEPERS CREEPERS.

After the movie, the obligatory midnight Perkins breakfast ensued. I recall us meeting and talking to a group of women–we were 21 and dumb at the time so the amateurs we were failed to even get a phone number! But one of the girls told us she was joining the army only a day or so later. The thought at the time, which still sticks out in my brain these many years later, is how she joined an army that was devoid of war only to be most likely thrust into Afghanistan months later. To quote a Green Day song, I still wonder whatever happened to old Whatshername?

Serenity ended on 9/11. Actually it was during that final McDonalds commercial that wanted just to see us smile.

For some, it’s been very difficult smiling ever since.

9/10/01 .. may serenity rest in peace. Killed by the events 24 hours later that will repeat in our brains until our earthly conclusion.

The headlines on the Horror Report on 9/10/01 were as follows:

May God have mercy on the souls lost that day and the families who were effected by the tragic events.. by first responders who died slow deaths to cancer.. and the military men and woman who sacrificed so much–including Whatshername.

October 2001: When the longest war began

20 years of war compared to 20 hours of Taliban regaining control

We found a great video on YouTube that profile some of the news coverage from October 2001 when the United States lead invasion of Afghanistan began.

https://youtu.be/2ndbfr1qrkE

And now, nearly 20 years later, thousands of United States soldiers injured and dead, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians killed. Trillion spent. And assurances from President Joe Biden in July that there would never be an immediate takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Despite all that, despite the war, and 20 years of division, the Taliban took over the entire nation in Capitol, route it out translators who helped United States, began to enforce a Burka policy on women, and stops females from working in the banking industry. All in hours.Despite all that, despite the war, and 20 years of division, the Taliban took over the entire nation in Capitol, route it out translators who helped United States, began to enforce a Burka policy on women, and stops females from working in the banking industry. All in hours.

What are the war was a necessity or choice, and whether you feel it was successful as a venture or a failure, we know this: 20 years of military and tactical battle, all wiped out in 20 hours..

The Peach Lady and the lost files of 9/11

Every year I strive to bring a different, and new perspective on the anniversary of September 11, 2001..

As each year progresses, the distant memories become even more distant. For those who still recall each second of the day, scarred into their psyche, it still becomes a faraway feeling as time marches on.

A refresher course on our previous posts:

We discussed how the 9/11 kids came of age in 2019.. Age 18 and off into the world
2018’s focus was on the end of serenity in Shanksville, PA
In 2017, we questioned why we constantly watch the ‘rerun’ of 9/11 footage.
We have also gone into details on Hurricane Erin, the storm that WOULD HAVE prevented 9/11 from happening..
How Pop Culture changed in the aftermath of 9/11
2015’s focus was on secrets. Like live nukes on a tarmac and the Speaker of the House being taken out of contact with everyone during the aftermath and evacuation…
We also had localized tale about how flight 98 went over Schuylkill County PA before its fateful crash..

So this 19th anniversary feels strange. Not quite the 20th.. and as time becomes hazy, we seem to be losing something as we go.

The aftermath of 9/11 elevated police to hero and icon status. 2020 does not look as favorably .. A lot has changed. Perhaps the events of that day caused wars, which caused beheadings, which cases alarming friction around the world, which caused dismay and turmoil and could quite possibly have led to the election of Donald Trump. It’s like the butterfly effect. One slight alternation could have changed everything.

There is another theme to 2020 that seems somewhat relative. Statues are coming down all across the fruited plane. Civil War soldiers of the South who stood in parks or state capitols are actively being canceled. Even Chris Columbus himself is on the verge of being a role model of evil. This year, his statue was taken down in Baltimore on the Fourth of July and thrown into the Harbor.

We choose not to step into the murky waters of debates about statues. But as one ages, one can realize that history itself becomes just as murky as the ‘heroes’ who embodied them.

x x x

THE PEACH LADY

I belong to a David Letterman fan forum. The other day, an interesting memory was posted on the page about the ‘Peach Lady.’ Those who watched the CBS Late Show around 1995 may recall her.. Letterman played a video of this woman, sitting in the seats of the US Open, eating a succulent and juicy peach, with the liquids dripping down her chin and neck. Letterman played it over and over again. Each night with more laughter than the previous. As a matter of fact, the footage of her in the stands at the tennis tournament was shown at least a half-dozen times September 1995 on the show.

In a punch line for his “Top 10 List,″ Letterman referred to the Peach Woman as a “seductive temptress.″ Letterman also started a nationwide search for the mystery woman, putting her picture on the Times Square Sony Jumbotron with the caption: “IF THIS IS YOU … CALL NOW!″

The woman’s name was Jane Bronstein, a then-fifty-five year old woman with a thyroid condition. And because Letterman made her famous, she sued Worldwide Pants in February 1996.

Jane Bronstein, a 54-year-old New York City woman, has sued the comedian, saying he violated her right to privacy and left her with mental and physical pain from the public ridicule.

But here is the kicker.. The suit was settled in 1997 for undisclosed damages – and that footage and the image of the “peach lady” is no longer available for casual consumption.

The peach lady has vanished!

She is gone from Google. Gone from Youtube clips. Gone even from Wikipedia, where a page for her existed until around 2013.

I have a visceral memory of it. As did many others on the David Letterman forum I frequent. But we don’t have the image anymore.

But what is true is this: I have the video tape to prove she existed. An old VHS, taped from television in 1995.. fuzzy and hazy, but there she is. On my TV, which peach drippings sopping down her face.

It is in my possession.. and it did exist. But no one, possibly, will ever see it again.

THE HISTORY OF PRE 9/11

The peach lady has vanished from sight and memory. No here to be found, and no where to be seen. The gag was gone after the lawsuit. And strangely enough, those few images that still were online throughout the 2000s are gone as well. She is not even a meme.

History is forgotten.

There are people who believe the 21st century adage that whatever you put online stays for good. Forever. That it will be seen by future generations as freely as the current.

That does not appear to be true. The peach lady is a symbol of how things can go into the trash heap.

It is why so many screen shot breaking news events for posterity. The facts change quickly. The original information posted or reported vanishes …

In 1996, a brand new news network emerged on cable: MSNBC. It was a conglomeration between Microsoft and NBC News. And it just so happened that their inaugural week coincided with the tragic crash of TWA Flight 800. What those may now forget *unless you have old VHS like me* is that a great portion of their coverage during that life event focused on witnesses who claim they saw a mid-air explosion, and others who stated a missile was visible shooting down the plane. In the final analysis, no missile or accidential shoot down by the Navy (which was conducting a drill that very night) made the report… The conclusion was .. a crash.

And MSNBC’s frantic reporting and witness statements vanished… never to be seen again.

Only memories exist.
Few and static memories.

So this year.. this 19th anniversary since the 9/11 attacks, let’s stroll back into our collective amnesia and regret to find history forgotten..Events that occurred prior to the attacks, prior to the chaos that changed the world. Little events that seemed potentially coincidental at the time. But monumental in the aftermath.

And remember this.. most of these events, though important and impactful, are forgotten. As thought they never happened..

Thankfully we were busy keeping screen shots of websites and news long before it was cool.

And now presented for your viewing pleasure, or displeasure, a picture of America prior to the nightmare of 9/11.

Forgotten history, remembered now potentially for the first time in 19 years

During the summer of 2001, there were a few things on Americans’ minds. Gary Condit, a congressman who was under suspicion after his intern was killed. Also SHARKS! It was the summer of sharks. Shark bites were taking place all over the East Coast.

But a little reported event concerning then Attorney General John Ashcroft also occurred.. After a “threat assessment” was made, the AG was told to fly ONLY by private jet for the remainder of his term. The FBI had no further comment to CBS news when they reported this on July 26, 2001:

The Pentagon was a location of a terror attack on 9/11.. but just five months prior to the event, the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the idea of a hijacked airliner crashing into the Pentagon as impractical!! In April 2001, NORAD requested that war games run by the Joint Chiefs include a hijacked commercial plane. When the Boston GLOBE wrote about this event years later, they could not reach the original NORAD official for comment.

William Rodriguez was a hero janitor who helped people escape the towers after planes hit the building. He was celebrated and even photographed with George W. Bush. Things went sour after his testimony before the 9/11 Commission was completely emitted. Perhaps saying explosions were taking place in the building led to that choice by the group?

On June 15, 2004, the New York DAILY NEWS had a profile about the custodian that included this information: He swore that United Airlines hijacker Mohand Alshehri was there in June 2001 and that he told the FBI, and that he never heard back from then. According to his account, he just finished cleaning a bathroom when Alshehri asked “How many public bathrooms are in this area?” He said he found it strange and did not forget the event. He said he believed Alshehri was casing the towers prior to the attack.

Also during the summer prior to the attacks, there was a reported memo by an FBI agent urging the Bureau headquarters to investigate Middle Eastern men enrolled in American flight schools, and said that followers of Osama Bin Laden could use the flight schools for terror operations. Robert Mueller, the newly appointment FBI director in 2001, admitted that the Bureau gave the memo little attention.

The mastermind of the attacks also had luck evading investigation. In the summer prior to 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed received a US visa weeks before the attacks despite a 1996 indictment linking him to terror plots. It was reported that he took advantage of a 3rd party Visa processing system and used a false identity

While terrorists may have been casing their attack location and the mastermind was busy exploiting computer systems, it was reported that Osama Bin Laden also was able to get a miracle stroke of luck at the same time.

A CIA agent allegedly met with bin Laden in July 2001 while he underwent treatment for kidney problems at an American hospital in Dubai, France’s Le Figaro newspaper reported then. Bin Laden reportedly checked into the American Hospital Dubai, a 100-bed, acute-care general hospital, July 4 and stayed until July 14 that year. He arrived from Quetta, Pakistan, accompanied by his personal doctor and a close aide — possibly Ayman el Zawahiri, a leader of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, now bin Laden’s right hand man, the newspaper said. The clinic denied the report after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

And finally, one last huge stroke of luck that occurred as one of the hijackers, Ziad Samir Jarrah, was pulled over by police six weeks before 9/11.

Prior to 9/11, in the spring of 2001, the ‘Lone Gunman’ pilot appears on FOX. It was a spinoff the X-FILES. And it was viewed as a dud.. a “dull” according to this review i the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE:

So what was this boring episode about? In The Lone Gunmen’s premiere episode, “Pilot”, which aired March 4, 2001, members of the U.S. government conspire to hijack an airliner, almost hitting the World Trade Center, and blame the act on terrorists to gain support for a new profit-making war.

As the terrible day in history got closer, stranger events started to occur..

Italy told a tale that the 2001 Genoa Summit was fraught with worries that terrorists would crash a plane to kill Bush and other world leaders! The summit apparently was worried that year that terrorists would crash an airliner into their event.

Israel also warned the United States about an attack a month before the event.

This event reported by NEWSWEEK: In the spring of 2001, the US government’s most valuable terror informants gave the FBI an alarming report that terrorists were planning an attack on US soil..

But an even weirder warning came on September 10 when a student offered a chilling prediction to the New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn. The freshman bragged before the attacks that the World Trade Center was going to be destroyed. A teacher stated that she recalled the student saying, “Do you see those two buildings? They won’t be standing there next week.”

Salman Rushdie was banned by US authorities from taking flights a week before 9/11. . He said at that time he believed that the government was aware an attack was imminent.

Also Willie Brown was reportedly told not to fly !

Also before 9/11, the United States was forming its attack plan–against Afghanistan!!

The BBC reported that the United States government put plans into action in July 2001 for an October 2001 attack against the nation. Eventually, after 9/11, the United States launched its attack against Afghanistan in October 2001.

X X X

The days before.

Terrorists were busy watching porn and getting prostitutes before they slammed planes into buildings on September 11.

Yousef and Mohammad took a holiday to a coastal resort before they intended on blowing up the Pope. They also hung out at bars and strip clubs before 9/11.

Marwan Al-Shehhi frequently got lap dances at the Olympic Topless Cabaret but was apparently a lousy tipper.

Heightened security at the Twin Towers had JUST BEEN LIFTED before the attacks. Daria Coard told Newsday that despite numerous phone threats and 12-hour shifts for two weeks before September 11, bomb-sniffing dogs abruptly were removed the Thursday before.

On the day prior, two major events occurred that eventually become lost to history.

The United States decided to pull the plug on Muslim websites. Islamic groups condemned the action on September 10:

Also the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, used his 9/10 press briefing to announce that $2.3 TRILLION in transactions by the Pentagon could not be tracked. Trillion.

Meanwhile in Florida, then Governor Jeb Bush declared Martial Law 4 days prior to 9/11!

A victim of 9/11, David Kocalcin, could not sleep the night of September 10, 2001. He was a passenger on Flight 11 on 9/11, but the night previous he woke up at 3am pacing the house, unable to sleep. The morning he left home he wrote a note for him family saying he will miss everyone very much. He said he would see them Friday night, and stated he fed the dogs but not the fish.

On September 9, 2001,NORAD was maintaining “Northern Vigilance.” The exercise was taking place on 9/11, which led some to ask early in the attacks if they were real world or exercise.

The night before terrorists crashed planes into buildings, a Middle Eastern man seated with two other man at the Pink Pony Nude Theater in Daytona Beach said “tomorrow America will see bloodshed.” The club shrugged off the warning at the time.

And the rest was history. Just don’t forget it.

9/11 VICTIM COMPENSATION FUND RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!

NPR:

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is cutting its payouts in half for some and by as much as 70 percent for others, as the fund faces a surge in claims ahead of its expiration date in December 2020.
The fund, which was opened in 2011, compensates for deaths and illnesses due to exposure to toxins at the sites of the Sept. 11 attacks. The $7.3 billion fund has already paid out about $5 billion to 21,000 claimants. But it still has about 19,000 additional unpaid claims to address.
With resources rapidly dwindling, the fund said any pending claims will be paid at 50 percent of their prior value. Claims received after Feb. 1 of this year will be paid at 30 percent.

“Most Americans have moved on over the last 18 years, and rightfully so,” Feal told NPR. “But for those who are deeply effected by 9/11, and are waiting for claims, this day hasn’t ended for them. 9/11 continues”

Associated Press:

Nearly 40,000 people have applied to the federal fund for people with illnesses potentially related to being at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the 2001 terror attacks there, and about 19,000 of those claims are pending. Nearly $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.3 billion fund.

Scientists can’t say definitively whether toxins at the site gave people cancer. One study published last year found that overall mortality rates among nearly 30,000 rescue and recovery workers weren’t elevated. But researchers have raised concern an unusual number of suicides among first responders and more deaths than expected from brain cancers and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.