New Brighton Days

As you remember my son Ben had found me an apartment that was walking distance from his townhouse in New Brighton. It was good to see some of my children on a more regular basis, and I got to dog sit Ben & Jena’s Standard Schnauzer, Sadie.

It was now 2001 and a lot happened that year. My daughter Aimee got married in August at Lake Minnetonka, my son Ben got me tickets to see my parents in Kentucky…we had a great visit, but my return was booked for September 11th.

That morning my parents and I were watching the network news when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center…my thoughts were “How could such a TERRIBLE accident happen”…and then the second plane crashed and I knew that the impossible had happened…we were under attack. Like everyone who could, I was glued to the television as the whole thing unfolded…the crash in Pennsylvania…the plane hitting the Pentagon…it seemed so very surreal. I continued to try and make arrangements to get back to Minneapolis-Saint Paul…while watching all the rescue/recovery attempts in NYC, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC…I REALLY wasn’t afraid to fly home, but I was so very angry that we had not prepared for such an attack…we had known that bin Laden was not only capable of launching such an attack…we had intelligence saying that he was going to attack the financial, military, and political centers of America. Yet, we had done nothing to prevent it! It was certainly a low point in America’s history.

I left Kentucky on September 14th and returned to New Brighton.
It wasn’t until I flew to Phoenix for my youngest daughter, Lynsey’s wedding in October that I really became aware of the increased security surrounding air travel. I had a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted in March and spent a half an hour trying to explain to airport security that I couldn’t go through the detectors…and they couldn’t use their “wands”, but needed to “pat me down”. This happened at every Airport both going to Phoenix and returning. I flew down for the wedding with my daughter Aimee and we had fun in spite of the fact that the attack had happened just over a month ago.

Within six months of their marriage, Kristopher, Lynsey's new 23-year old groom was diagnosed with a form of Cancer and lost his leg...it was devastating to the whole family. As he was recovering, I asked that they stay with me for awhile and they came to New Brighton and lived in my apartment for about six months...and then we were able to rent a house from Jena's (my daughter-in-law) dad Jerry. So we left New Brighton and moved to Maplewood...

And that is all the actual truth...give or take a lie or two...

Until next time!