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Before Sept. 11, 2001 it was hard enough to pile down the jetway into the belly of a preposterous flying machine, sit patiently in my seat for enormous jet engines to whir to life with deafening power and then peacefully snooze as Bernoulli cheerily combated the force of gravity for hours on end. My mind found itself wandering down well-worn, if paranoiac paths, imagining images of small pebbles and pigeons being sucked into the intake of the engine directly outside my window and my horror at seeing the entire wing of our plane shudder and detach, tumbling end-over...
...inventing ways to connect to it. On Sept. 20, the city council passed a resolution honoring the victims. A carpet-store sign advertises a sale on vinyl, followed by the now universal GOD BLESS AMERICA. Locals have donated $17,200 to the Red Cross in three weeks, a huge pile of money in a county where the average income is $23,000. At the town's historic armory, someone has taped up the list of victims, printed off CNN's website. None of them are from Marietta...
...quiet midnight on a muggy weekend in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Along the city's grimy main artery, Calle Ruben Dario, homeless people are camped out in a clutter of cardboard boxes. Suddenly a caravan of vehicles wheel up, and a handful of youths pile out. They begin ladling plates of steaming beans and rice from kettles in the rear of a pickup truck...
...mound of tributes to the fire fighters of Engine 54/Ladder 4 in New York City's Hell's Kitchen--food donations, flowers, cards, American flags and photos of the station's fire fighters missing at the World Trade Center site--had grown so big that a second pile of flowers had to be started alongside the entrance. Captain Richard Parenty found the tributes so gratifying they were almost painful: "It's so good to feel appreciated, and it's draining. Even the outpouring of support is draining emotionally...
...fire truck and be Santa." Even, or especially, for neighbors who didn't have a personal connection to the fire fighters or the victims, the station provides an emotional focus. Tamar Kaman, a cosmetics marketer who lives three blocks away, cried as she added flowers to the pile. "This is as close as I've gotten to some of the victims," she said. "Whether or not I can identify all the faces, I feel connected to the grief somehow." This is what a firehouse does in a time of disaster. First it puts out flames. And then it generates warmth...