Freedom Tower ... September-11 Memorial

When visiting New York City back in December...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...we took a boat ride on the East River, under the Brooklyn Bridge,
to the southern tip of Manhattan...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A beautiful (cold !) sunny day, the new Freedom Tower was in full view.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

The next, much cloudier, day, we went back to "Ground Zero" and visited the 9-11 Memorial, erected on the site of the original World Trade Center...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

There are two large, square "fountains" built on the spots where the original Towers I and II stood, 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 The water falls from ground level down into the large square, marble-lines spaces.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

It's a popular tourist site with large crowds all the time.  If you want to go into the memorial museum, you better make online reservations early. 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Plaques line the edges of the waterfall, all the way around both of the fountains.  Engraved on them are the names of all the people who died there as a result of the attacks on September 11, 2001.   The name you can see, second from the bottom of this panel, is "Robert J. DeAngelis, Jr.", a customer and friend of mine.  Bob didn't make it out of Tower II that day, his office was on the 95th Floor.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

So, a current, blue-sky view, contrasting with a stormier view,

from Liberty Island, back in 2008,

before the new Freedom Tower was erected...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

And finally, da' Brooklyn Bridge !

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Y'all take care,
- Mark W Laughlin

"Pig Man"...

Before I left, my daughter-in-law had asked if they eat much pork in India.
I said I hadn’t seen, or eaten, any.
But, I have mostly hung out in the west, more Muslims there,
more vegetarians, and also it’s dry country (pigs do better where you have more rainfall).

But over here in Assam, we are far enough east that the people don’t look “Indian”,

they look more like people in Thailand/Vietnam,
and I suppose eating pork is much more common over that way, also, it’s plenty wet here.

So, as we were driving yesterday, we stopped in traffic, in the middle of the town of Shillong.

A hilly place, so as we were sitting, we could see some activity just to our right,
but down the hill enough we that couldn’t make out what they were doing,
…but I could see a guy chasing a pig.

In just a moment (we were still sitting in traffic on a narrow, two lane street),

a fellow came up the hill, with a pig on his back…pig no longer protesting…
But just as I snapped his photo, a small, hatchback taxi backed up to him,
blocking our view a bit.
 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Clearly however, the back end of the vehicle went down a bit

as the man flumped the now peaceful pig into the cab.
To close the hatchback, he rolled the pig onto his back, feet sticking up,
and now visible through hatchback window, and of they went.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

We sometimes speak of cows getting a “one-way ticket to McDonalds”.
Yesterday was that pig’s day for such a trip.
Perhaps he’d been invited to a party, and only realized too late,
that it wasn’t being thrown by Vegetarians…

Pork sausage anyone ?

-M

I say "Pig Man" as opposed to "Goat Man", from an earlier India post...
-M

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A Cultural Encounter...

A brief, but interesting

cultural encounter…

I was riding in traffic today, starting and stopping,

as Mumbai traffic always does. 

As we stopped at one intersection, I heard a brief,

and here a bit unusual, screech of a car tire,

immediately outside my window. 

As is natural when you hear such a nearby screech,

I glanced immediately at the driver of the car.  As I did so,

I noticed another driver, in a little auto-rickshaw just opposite me,

looking back at the same offending driver, with exactly same look I had…

…a look which translates literally, in this sudden, cross-cultural moment

as “hey asshole, slow down.”

Just as suddenly as we had glanced at the screeching driver,

I and the auto-rickshaw driver saw each other. 

There, 2 meters between us, even though we were miles apart

culturally, economically, linguistically,

we each knew precisely what the other had in his mind,

and we instantly grinned quite big at one another.

A horn honked, the traffic moved, and the moment passed.

Passed for everyone else, but not for me, and maybe not for him.

Y’all drive careful out there !

-M

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

This is not the driver from this morning.

This is another fellow, a couple of trips ago,

who saw me, again in traffic, shooting photos

in his general direction from the car.

Instead of giving me a look like "who are you?",

or "what are you looking at?", he smiled,

and motioned for me to take his photo,

which I quickly did.

 

People can be pretty friendly,

if you give them the chance.

-M