Thoughts of Ho

By Jesse Knight

Jesse Knight, born in Gosport, Alabama, has lived in New York City since he was seven years old. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and was honorably discharged. He also worked as a computer programmer for seven years.

He has traveled extensively. Hes been to the African continenttwice in Ethiopia, several times in Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Togo nations. Also, he has visited London, Paris, and Jerusalem.

He hopes that the contents of this book will prove to be entertaining to the reader and that certain articles will also promote serious discussions concerning the African-American dilemma. He also hopes that the said discussions be not confined to exchanges between African-Americans but among all races.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483627540

Jesse Knight

Jesse Knight, born in Gosport, Alabama, has lived in New York City since he was seven years old. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and was honorably discharged. He also worked as a computer programmer for seven years. He has traveled extensively. He’s been to the African continent—twice in Ethiopia, several times in Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Togo nations. Also, he has visited London, Paris, and Jerusalem. He hopes that the contents of this book will prove to be entertaining to the reader and that certain articles will also promote serious discussions concerning the African-American dilemma. He also hopes that the said discussions be not confined to exchanges between African-Americans but among all races.

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THE TRUE MARTYRS

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(In Remembrance)

Some were sitting in coffee shops, having a final cup of coffee to clear the last remnants of sleep from their consciousness. They wanted to be alert upon arriving at their desks and find that nothing did it better than a cup of joe. Some were just entering the lobby of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, greeting familiar faces while they walked toward the elevators. Others were already riding on the vast battery of elevators, some destined for floors more than one hundred levels above in the 110-floor building. There were also those whose workday began earlier and were already fully immersed in their duties.

Others had arrived at work early, planning to complete a report or to continue a project from the previous day or to refine a presentation to be given at a board meeting that morning. Also, some were early as were their custom, having developed the early habit from a personal edict of better early than late.

Out on the surrounding streets, sounds of car horns could be heard sporadically, echoing along the walls of the Canyon of Heroes over on Broadway between the numerous tall buildings. Occasionally, swirling sounds from helicopters passing over the buildings could be heard.

In Battery Park, those who arrived early were sitting on park benches, drinking coffee, and sharing bits of bread with the birds before having to suddenly rush from the park to get to their offices on time.

The New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange were gearing up for what was hoped to be a day filled with indications of a strong economic recovery, hoping investors would minimize sell-offs with buys and more buys, thinking that perhaps this day would end showing strong indications of a renewed investors’ confidence level, that the bull was finally returning from the pasture.

In recent months, the Fed had cut interest rates several times in its effort to stimulate the very sluggish economy. Unemployment had become an alarming trend, and a number of companies were already projecting large quarterly losses. Some economists were saying a recession was now permeating the nation’s economy. The Street, as Wall Street is fondly called, was filled with anxiety. The brokers and dealers had to somehow rebuild investor confidence.

Out on the Hudson River stood the statue of Lady Liberty, situated upon her own little island, a small but prominent figure from the shoreline, visible without obstructions, and gleaming from being sun washed by the unusually strong rays from the early morning sun.

Inside the World Trade Center, it is beginning as a typical workday: Some spouses and lovers are on the phones with their loved ones, asking about the children or being reminded to purchase a particular item from the market on the way home; or they are simply reinforcing what was said at the door before leaving home, telling their loved ones of just how much they loved them. Some were in the process of logging on their computers while at the same time expressing to their nearby coworkers the humdrum routine of another workday about to begin. Their expressions of an anticipated workday of boredom was never to be taken literally; rather, it was simply customary for some workers to say such things on the job before dedicating themselves fully to their duties.

Outside in the surrounding Wall Street area, a very unsettling thunderous sound is suddenly heard, and then a jumbo jet suddenly becomes visible to those looking up in the direction of the loud booming noise.

Hey! Isn’t that plane flying too low? onlookers exclaim to anyone nearby. Oh my god! they yell out, watching in horror as the aircraft crashes headlong into one of the Twin Towers. A tremendous blast is heard, and sudden fiery bursts of flames and smoke are seen on the upper levels of the building.

My god! What a horrible accident! some, horror-stricken and dumbfounded, begin saying in a sudden state of shock and disbelief. Quite suddenly, they realize just how close they are to the building and of the possible danger from falling debris, so they begin to flee in panic.

On the one hundredth floor is where the aircraft made a full impact. Only minutes earlier, the plane had left Boston, headed for California, and its tanks were full of fuel. The poor souls on the first few floors of the plane’s impact never had a chance to even consciously realize what happened before they became engulfed by the bursts of fire and smoke from the fiery combustion.

The fire had quickly become a pressurized fiery cloud of destruction. As it happens at the point of impact from a nuclear explosion, when bursts of radiation begins spreading in ever-widening concentric circles of expansion, the terrible fire in the building made an effort to spread itself in a similar manner. But since it was confined within the walls of the building, the fire, under an increasing amount of pressure, was forced to seek expansion by bursting through the upper and lower floors. The ceilings of the upper floors began collapsing, and the people above the point of the plane’s impact were trapped.

If horror is to be described by degrees, then it can be said that the people on the upper floors, above the plane’s impact, were to experience the worst of all because, at the very least, those on the floors of the initial impact received an odd form of grace and mercy; for many of them became totally engulfed by the terrible bursts of fire before having time to give conscious thought to their impending doom.

After experiencing the jolting shocks and vibrations from the aircraft’s impact, most of the people on the upper floors were forced to witness their impending doom consciously as the menacing fire and smoke very quickly entered their floors and offices, burning and melting all in its path, as it sought a means of escape by moving ever upward.

As terrible, horrible, menacing, and destructive as fire can be, there is yet an uncanny innocence about it. As it begins spreading, it is not for the purpose of producing destruction; rather, it is as though the fire is spreading simply as a means to attempt an escape from itself, seeking to quickly burn itself out. But as it seeks to escape, it encounters elements in its path, and it quickly consumes them; but the consumption is not out of a desire to gather greater strength. It is simply consuming all in its path in its effort to escape from itself. But the more elements it encounters, the more horrible the destruction and the greater becomes its strength. As it consumes all in its path, the fire develops a greater sense of urgency which only causes it to inadvertently gather ever more force as its desire to escape has developed an even greater urgency to flee from itself.

I have yet to hear of anyone giving a solid idea as to when man first became able to produce fire, but I have heard many folks express the idea that the discovery of fire and its many constructive uses was the greatest discovery ever by man.

The people on the floors above the aircraft’s impact were forced to watch helplessly as the horrible flames and smoke rushed toward them. Sensing their impending doom, some of them quickly made phone calls to their loved ones, desiring to express one final time of just how much they loved them. In midconversation, their phones were suddenly silenced, and they became engulfed by the pressurized cloud of fire and smoke.

In an effort to escape the horror of being burned alive, some rushed to the windows, whose panes of glass had been shattered from the aircraft’s impact. The fear of being burned alive caused some to actually leap out of the windows from more than one hundred floors above into the fresh, clear, smoke-free air, taking a few breaths of fresh clean air before their bodies rapidly descended toward the streets below, aware of their impending deaths yet thankful, thankful that it would not be from being incinerated by the fire.

Less than twenty minutes after the first building was hit by the aircraft, an identical sequence of horror was witnessed by those on the streets below. Horror of horrors! The thunderous sounds of another jumbo jet are suddenly heard by the horrified onlookers, and then they see it, and it is headed straight toward the second of the Twin Towers!

The onlookers become unspeakably terrified as they watch the jumbo jet’s full impact against the building and witness a tremendous explosion and feel the street beneath them vibrate, witnessing the terrible sight of a sudden burst of flames and smoke on the upper floors of the building.

The sight of people fleeing from the first building hit has now become merged with an identical sight from its twin as the people stream out of the exits in panic, seeking safety.

Inside of the two buildings in flames, as the people rush down the stairs to find safety on the streets below, they suddenly encounter firemen and policemen that are headed up the stairs in the opposite direction. Even in their stricken states of fear and panic, many of the fleeing workers can’t help but catch a glimpse of the faces of the officers and are amazed at their expressions of calmness and resoluteness—the face of the officers showing not even the slightest evidence of fear.

Some of the officers stop their ascent toward the raging inferno on the upper floors, helping the lame, injured, and elderly down the many flights of stairs to safety; and some begin employing their well-honed skills to create an orderly descent by those in flight to safety.

But some of the officers do not pause as they encounter the fleeing workers; rather, they increase their pace up the stairs, headed for the belly of the beast, the raging inferno on the upper floors. After arriving as far up as the heat, fire, smoke, and falling debris allow, the officers then begin their most dangerous acts of all: They begin a systematic search of all the offices on each floor, looking for those that are injured and in need of aid. The officers are also looking for those that have become so petrified from the fire that they have become immobile, frozen in time, so fearful that they are unable to gather their senses and make reasonable efforts to seek safety.

Down on the streets below, around the area of the two buildings in flames, an uncanny kind of panic is in progress as the people flee from the buildings. Usually, in such a scene of panic, it becomes an edict of every man for himself, but this scene of panic is quite different: When encountering someone that has fallen or unable to move swiftly enough from the horrendous events in the Twin Towers, even though they themselves are stricken with fear and panic, many of those in flight stop to offer aid to their fallen, injured, and helpless comrades, offering their shoulders as a crutch for the injured, and some actually lifting into their arms some of the fragile and elderly and rushing to a place of safety.

Due to the wonders of global communications technology, news of the tragedy at the World Trade Center has quickly drawn viewers from around the globe to their television sets, watching live feeds from CNN of the ongoing horrors occurring in New York City.

Some of the viewers in those foreign nations are not simply horrified from what they are watching on the television, but some are stricken with fear and dread because they have loved ones and friends that work in those buildings. From Canada to Mexico, England to Italy, Japan to China, the Philippines to Australia, and many other foreign lands, frantic transatlantic telephone calls are made to the desks of loved ones in those buildings. A sudden sense of total hopelessness begins to pervade the very essence of their being when their phone calls go unanswered. They begin to cling to one ray of hope—the hope that their loved ones who worked in those two buildings engulfed in flames thousands of miles away have somehow been able to escape.

The World Trade Center was a place in which tens of thousands of people worked daily, and ten thousands more visited there on a daily basis. Most of the workers in those buildings lived in either New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut; but many of them had arrived in those areas from every different state of our nation. All in all, one would be hard put to find anyone who didn’t know someone who worked in those buildings or didn’t know someone that knew someone that did.

From the state of Maine to California, from Alaska to Hawaii, Americans became filled with dread and despair from the scenes being shown on their television screens. Mothers and fathers, children and extended families, friends and business associates—they each began experiencing emotions of fear, sadness, anger, and helplessness, emotions that can be felt but utterly impossible to adequately describe in words. They began making frantic phone calls to those buildings but received no answer on the other end, and then the horror of all possible horrors! They watched their television screens in utter dread as one of the buildings began, as though in slow motion, to collapse within itself. They watched as the upper floors began crumbling in a domino-like sequence from floor to floor, until the sight of the once-prominent structure was no more. The building had imploded as though a scene from a movie, as if from a land of make-believe.

Down on the streets below, as the building began collapsing, many of the horrified onlookers suddenly realized they had not properly distanced themselves from the buildings, having paused in their flight to safety to view the horrible spectacle of the burning buildings.

As the first building began to implode, the panic-stricken onlookers began to run, mixing themselves with those that only now had escaped from the buildings. A thunderous roaring sound penetrated their ears from the building’s collapse; and then quite suddenly, after the building toppled to near ground level, they saw a tremendously fiery cloudburst of smoke, ash, and debris rushing toward them at seemingly the speed of light. Many of them became engulfed in the thick billowing clouds and could only continue their efforts to reach safety by using their inner directional instincts—hands outstretched to prevent colliding with the sides of buildings, cars, and other people in flight. The ferocious cloud of smoke, ash, and debris had placed the people in total darkness.

Upon reaching safety from the fiery cloud of smoke, the people found themselves covered with thick layers of ash with no human flesh visible. The thick layers of ash were such that a person of one race was indistinguishable from that of another.

Not long afterward, the second of the Twin Towers imploded. In total, it is estimated that nearly three thousand lives were lost.

After the jumbo jet smashed into the first building, both the horrified onlookers in the area and those watching the scenes on television had quickly made the incorrect assumption that it was an accident, a terrible accident. But after the second building was hit by another aircraft, they knew that something much more profound had happened: New York City was under attack!

Throughout all the sequences of the horrible debacle at the World Trade Center, out on Liberty Island, there stood Lady Liberty, holding her torch of liberty high, unmoved as though openly avowing loudly to all that whatever the destruction, liberty would forever stand.

Wherever an American embassy or consulate office is found abroad, it is besieged on a daily