FinFun: Close for Comfort

FinFun: Close for Comfort: "With his bikini-clad girlfriend looking on, a Jones Inlet surf fisherman went jaw-to-jaw shouting match, exchanging verbal insults with a bo..."

FinFun: Remembering 9-11

FinFun: Remembering 9-11: "I saw tragic world history take place right before my eyes yet I sat there puzzled to what actually was taking place. On the morning of Sep..."

Remembering 9-11

I saw tragic world history take place right before my eyes yet I sat there puzzled to what actually was taking place.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I headed to porgy fish at Point Lookout jetties. As I drove southbound on the Wantagh Parkway I saw a group of cars and one police car stopped near the first Wantagh Bridge. Folks and the police officer were looking west. I turned quickly to look and I only saw thick, black smoke. My first thought that it was a huge boat fire in the back bays.

I continued to drive to Point Lookout. Once there, I climbed the western jetty to porgy fish. I had luck in recent weeks with nabbing 11” to 12” porgies there so I was confident I would bring home that day some fish. As I sat there on my cooler fishing on the jetty, I noticed thick, black smoke bellowing in the western skies. At first I thought it was an incinerator fire. I was totally clueless to what was causing the huge black clouds of smoke.

After fishing and catching a couple of keeper porgies a fisherman hopped onto the jetty to fish at the end of it. He said something to me but it didn’t register. I continued to fish for another hour or so, catching only throw back short porgies. Just before noon, I decided to pack it in and go home. The thick black cloud was still in the sky and I still had no clear understand of what was taking place.

Until I got into my car and turned on the radio to the news station and heard about the 9/11 attack. All of a sudden the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The police officer and the crowd of parked cars near the First Wantagh Bridge and why they were all looking west. The reason for the thick, black smoke bellowing in the sky now all made perfect sense.

This country was under attack by terrorists. When I got home, of course, I turned on the television and watched the news report. I sat there on my couch stunned, sadden, angry yet mostly shocked. During the following days, the names of the victims including the brave NYC firefighters and police officers who lost their lives were released. One of my college friends who grew up in nearby Seaford had perished while he was working for the NYPD.

To simply say I was stunned, sadden, angry and most of all shocked. As the weeks passed on, I thought to myself I sat there at the Point Lookout western jetty and saw history unravel before my very eyes and yet I was in the dark about what had happened and what was happening. On that day, I didn’t listen to the radio news going fishing or while fishing so I had no idea about what was taking place. A fellow fisherman said something to me but it just didn’t register. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to what he was saying.

It was the eeriest fishing day I had ever experienced. Mass murder had taken place before my eyes about 35 miles west. At the Jones Beach Piers, the most western one, I used to be able to see the Twin Towers on a clear day, and I probably could have saw the Twin Towers while I stood on the roof of my house. The last time I visited the Towers was when my European family came to visit in 1998 and we went to the city to visit the sites, one of them, of course, was the Twin Towers.

Yet on that morning of September 11, 2001 I was not expecting to see the Twin Towers from the Point Lookout western jetty. And I wasn’t expecting to see thick, black smoke bellowing into the skies. I was just thinking about catching fish. I just was out there to fish and whittle away the passing time in an enjoyable manner. I had no clue I was going to see tragic world history take place before my eyes. Yet I did. It was a sad day, a very sad day.