Twin Towers

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

This is a photo of the World Trade Center towers that I took from a friend's apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey, during a rather festive Christmas dinner gathering in the mid-1990s. A few years later on the day before I started my move to Boca Raton, Florida, from Jersey City in May 1998 (after working in New York City for seven years), I spent two-and-a-half hours sitting on a bench at the base of the Twin Towers, eating my lunch, relaxing, and just staring up at the two massive structures. I was thinking, sadly: "It will probably be a long time before I see them again in person." I never thought that I would NEVER see them again.

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

Birthday: Mom-In-Law

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

Happy Birthday (September 11) to my mother-in-law (R.I.P.). We love you and miss you even more with each passing day. This is my favorite photo of Lorna and me. My wife snapped it on July 13, 2008, in a coffee shop in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, when the three of us were on vacation, visiting my wife's family and friends in and around Toronto. I particularly like that she is small and is holding a big cup, and I am bigger and am holding a smaller cup.

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

9/11

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

In New York City in late 1996 and early 1997, I covered commodities trading, specifically the futures and options trading of "Softs" (coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, and occasionally whole milk) for Futures World News (FWN), a financial/business wire service broadcast via satellite to 93 countries. I covered those main five markets in real time, writing 13 to 16 articles/stories every weekday, plus one weekly feature story. I also covered weekly money-supply meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York every third week.

Anyway, around 8 a.m., before trading began, I would occasionally walk across the street from our news bureau to interview the traders on the trading floor in one of the World Trade Center towers. I would ask them in person of their expectations for the trading day rather than just give them the usual call on the telephone.

Three of the traders once visited us at our bureau during their break on a special occasion. We watched the New York Yankees championship parade from overhead, a few floors up.

About a year later, I moved to Florida from New Jersey. The day before I started my drive south, I ventured into "The City" for lunch. I ate a sandwich and drank a soda while seated on a bench quite close to the towers. I sat there for three hours, eating and staring up at them, wondering when I would ever see them in person again. I never would.

I lost touch with those traders when I left the wire service in mid-1997.

I moved to southeastern Florida in May 1998 to be near my mom and other family members, and to restart my life after working four jobs in The City from 1991 to 1998, FWN being the third. I was also searching for a slower pace, but being a journalist, I never found it.

While quite distanced from my past professional exploits in The City, on that infamous day in 2001, my thoughts immediately traveled to those commodities traders. They were wonderful, helpful guys. Since then, every year on 9/11, I have been able to find slight comfort by telling myself that because they worked on the second floor of one of the towers, they probably got out safely ... or maybe those guys weren't working there anymore at that time.

While my memories of those young men are now rather foggy, I still often wonder what became of them.

My heart still aches for those who lost their lives, and their families and friends. Rest in peace.

Be well.

Related Memory: When my dad passed away in 1997, Futures World News sent a flower arrangement to the funeral home. I read the card. It was signed Future Worlds News. That provided me with a slight smile during a tragic, challenging time in my life. I thought, at that time, now a florist somewhere thinks that I write for a science-fiction magazine instead of a financial wire service.

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

Where were you?

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT THE 9/11 ATTACKS?

I was still asleep. I was working as an editor for a daily morning newspaper in southeastern Florida, so my working hours were 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. I would typically go home, eat some food, and be in bed slightly before 4 a.m.

My mother, who lived nearby, called me on the phone slightly after 9 a.m. to tell me what happened, so I turned on the TV.

I worked as a journalist in New York City from 1991 to 1998, in part directly across the street from the World Trade Center buildings. In the later 1990s, every weekday morning, I would take the PATH train from my home in Jersey City, New Jersey, into the bottom of one of the towers.

(I moved to Florida in 1998.)

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

Beds & Buns

From husband Bill, Sept. 11, 2026

I never make my bed because of the lyrics of one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs: "Monkey Man."

"Yeah, I'm a sack of broken eggs

I always have an unmade bed

Don't you?"

Sept. 11, 2026

School Picture Day

From husband Bill, Sept. 10, 2026

Today is National School Picture Day (2nd Thursday in September) and also Throwback Thursday.

Here I am at age 7 years old in September 1968 with my second-grade class in Babylon, Long Island, New York. Can you find me? Hints: I am in the back row, wearing a dark blue suit, and I am the only kid not looking directly at the camera.

I had crushes on two girls in my class: Cindy (front row, second from left, wearing the black-and-white print dress) and Sandy (front row, fourth from left, wearing the white-and-reddish dress). 

The sideways look on my face is what my family and I called "The Buckwheat Look." It was named after the character from the Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals) short films that were produced from 1922 to 1944.

Here is a link that shows Buckwheat's famous look.

https://youtu.be/_72ueJONgJ8

From husband Bill, Sept. 10, 2026

TV Dinners

From husband Bill, Sept. 10, 2026

I loved TV dinners when I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. We didn't eat them all that often. When we did, they were Swanson. I still occasionally enjoy them.

Sept. 10, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 9, 2026

Wiener Schnitzel (made traditionally with veal) is one of my favorite Austrian dishes and is part of my heritage. I enjoy it with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Yes, I have eaten it in Austria on several of my seven visits to spend time with my many Austrian cousins and to go skiing with them in the Austrian Alps.

My wife sometimes makes Chicken Schnitzel. I also like Pork Schnitzel. She coats the meat first in flour, then in beaten eggs with a little water (never milk), and then in breadcrumbs, and then she fries the cutlets in oil.

From husband Bill, Sept. 9, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 8, 2026

The symbol started as a combination (ligature) of the letters e and t, which form et, the Latin word for "and."

From husband Bill, Sept. 8, 2026

Nah.

From husband Bill, Sept. 8, 2026

Review: Ginger Beer

I created and uploaded onto my YouTube channel another beverage review: Summit Ginger Beer. It is non-alcoholic and is described as a "craft soda sold exclusively at ALDI." (length: 1 minute, 39 second)

Beverage Review: Summit Ginger Beer (Sept. 7, 2026)

https://youtube.com/shorts/hKvD0rYLGvg?is=zZnEHtXFIfXCThtS

Sept. 7, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 7, 2026

I attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, a prep school in northern Massachusetts, during the 1979-1980 school year, when I was 18/19 years old. During the autumn into the winter of 1979, I was a member on the crew team, rowing on the Connecticut River with seven other guys and a coxswain in a long skull (boat). When we weren't rowing, we were running many miles. One afternoon, while running, I got lost. I stopped at a house to ask for directions. The woman who answered the door owned a rather large German Shepherd. She informed me that I had accidentally ran over the border into New Hampshire. She then pointed in the proper direction back to school. I ended up running (and partially walking) at least five miles that day. The next day, my coach asked me where I was. I told him that I got lost and accidentally ran into New Hampshire. His response? "Oh, good." Of course, he was happy that I had exercised more than what was required.

From husband Bill, Sept. 7, 2026

One of my occasional self-indulgences is a fried "Swami" sandwich. I fry thinly sliced salami in butter until crispy and then put the pieces between two slices of Wonder (white) bread. My cousin Scott introduced it to me in 1985, but he made it for us using small chunks of fried salami placed in a crusty piece of Italian bread.

From husband Bill, Sept. 7, 2026

My favorite beer is Mohrenbräu, which is a famous Austrian beer. I first drank it in my Austrian cousins' living room in Dornbirn, Austria, in the early 1980s, when I was in my early 20s. I have enjoyed it on many subsequent trips to Austria. I have never found it in the United States. Mohrenbräu is brewed in Dornbirn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohrenbrauerei

From husband Bill, Sept. 7, 2026

I am certainly more than grateful, especially with my nine surgeries between March 2022 and May 2026: 1 heart, 2 chest, 2 spine, 1 right ankle, 1 both legs, 1 left foot, and 1 left leg.

From husband Bill, Sept. 7, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 6, 2026

I like coffee ice cream, especially with some kind of chocolate.

From husband Bill, Sept. 6, 2026

I have read many books in my lifetime so far, especially during my studies for my two university degrees: a bachelor's degree in communications with a minor in the French language and a master's degree in journalism. Hey, during my undergraduate-degree matriculation in the early 1980s, I had to read FIFTEEN (15) Shakespeare plays in three months.

Also, when I was working as a reporter/writer for a wire service on commodities (futures and options) trading in 1997, I studied a HUGE textbook (with hundreds of pages) in the evenings. At the start, I had no knowledge, except that I was personally familiar with the products I was covering - coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, and milk - but not the markets. I wrote 13 to 16 articles/stories EVERY DAY.

Also, in the 1980s, I read a fair amount of German philosophy: Hegel for university; and Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on my own.

What did/do you read?

From husband Bill, Sept. 6, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 5, 2026

What are your favorite pizza toppings? Mine are: pickled capers, "fried" eggs, artichoke hearts, anchovies, and pepperoni. Actually, raw eggs are cracked over the pizza before baking, so they are technically baked eggs that look like fried eggs.

From husband Bill, Sept. 5, 2026

I was typically late on personal occasions, but never on professional occasions. When I was young(er), for some unknown and incorrect reason, I typically would leave my home at the exact time I was supposed to be where I was going. I never factored in traveling time. Maybe, I was embracing the concept of being "fashionably late." I have since reformed.

From husband Bill, Sept. 5, 2026

Today Is ...

From husband Bill, Sept. 4, 2026

A good Italian Chianti is my favorite wine, specifically Chianti Classico.

From husband Bill, Sept. 4, 2026

I particularly like Indian Curry. The seven foundational spices used most often in everyday Indian cooking are turmeric, cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, red chili powder, cardamom, and garam masala. Garam masala includes ground roasted spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and cumin, usually sprinkled on at the end of cooking.

From husband Bill, Sept. 4, 2026

I like macadamia nuts, but not often. Macadamia nuts are the highest in calories among common edible nuts, containing about 204 calories per one-ounce (28-gram) serving (or roughly 718 calories per 100 grams).

From husband Bill, Sept. 4, 2026