In Rembrance, 9/11, Jane Wyman

Today is the anniversary of 9/11 and in contrast to that day, the weather is foul. I still vividly remember that day. Even though the weather was wonderfully sunny, I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if something awful was going to happen. I attributed it to nerves because it was the first year that I was responsible for our annual Wine & Cheese reception for the publishing industry here in New York (now called the Golden Apple Awards). I had no idea that as I headed upstairs to my desk with my bagel and coffee, the world was about to change for so many people.

I still remember taking the last subway home before they shut them down, sitting on my bed watching the television almost mesmerized by the images. I felt like I was in a fugue state. All I could think of was how could this have happened? It didn't seem possible. I couldn't even cry, I was just numb. The people that managed to get through to see if I was alright, including a friend who I'd lost contact with due to the machinations of the ex-best friend. I remember the relief in ex-sweetie pie's voice when he finally reached me. The knowledge that if I had still been working at Deutsche Bank, I would have been on my way to work across from the Towers that morning. Going back to work the next day was surreal. Everything had changed overnight irrevocably, yet there I was at 9:00 a.m. as if nothing had happened. I remember feeling so angry about it. It didn't seem right somehow, to be at work when so many people were still missing, yet we were just supposed to go on with our lives. But things would never be the same for any of us.

Now six years have passed, Ground Zero still hasn't been rebuilt, Osama bin Laden is still at large (but apparently he's been able to get to the drugstore to avail himself of some Revlon for Men), Ann Coulter is ranting on television about the 9/11 widows, and the people who lost so many and so much are still dealing with the after-effects. New York Magazine just did an article this week about a young woman, who's only consolation is the time she spends at a camp for kids who've lost parents in 9/11. They've become her closest friends through their shared tragedy. But she still hasn't really dealt with the loss of her father that day.

So in honor of 9/11, I urge people to go to the web-site: My Good Deed to help make a difference.

Also, Jane Wyman died. To those of us born in the sixties and seventies, Jane Wyman will always be Angela Gioberti Channing on Falcon Crest, one of my guilty pleasures during the 80's. It wasn't as glityzy or glamourous as Dynasty and Dallas, it was more American Gothic in a way in the way that Angela Channing controlled her family on the show. Watching her on the show led me to her earlier films, including Johnny Belinda for which she won the Academy Award after a decade of mostly small forgettable parts in movies.

What I admired most about Jane Wyman was her refusal to talk about her first husband Ronald Reagan. In this era, where stars are willing to reveal everything including what kind of underwear they like, and their favorite sexual positions, her lack of candor seems refreshing and right somehow.

She never had a bad word to say about him, and when he died, she was quite complimentary, calling him a "Great, kind, gentle man." If only every celebrity could be that reticent. But then again if they were, what would I write about?