September Smiles – Silent Skies

I am using September Smiles as the title for my blog this month but everyone knows there are times when sadness creeps in.

I’ve mentioned before how close we live to the airport. Our youngest daughter’s first word was “jet” because we heard them all the time. Even the double paned windows don’t keep out all the sound.

I’ve shared how we can watch the planes do their coming and going dance, wondering how they manage to keep from crashing into each other.

One day the planes were flying through our backyard about a minute apart for over an hour. Not quite sure what the reason was for that but it definitely got my attention.

Sometimes we see the news copters and we can usually tell when the President is coming to visit because there is an increase in military copters.

I don’t have a picture but we can sometimes catch the Blue Angels when they are making their preparations for Fleet Week.

As you can see, the air traffic is hot and heavy around here on most days; however, there were a few days when the skies were silent. For two days after the 911 hijackings there were no planes anywhere. Our house seemed extremely quiet. Traveling the freeway to work was eerie because there were no planes landing or taking off. It was kind of scary.

Even after the planes started flying again, I still had a tiny bit of apprehension. Would San Francisco be next? Obviously, my 911 experience does not compare to those who were there or who lost someone close to them, but I don’t think there is a place or a person in America who wasn’t affected in some way. We remember.