Connecting the Dots: Connecting the dates

2-year-old grandson of the author on his SoHo roof on 9/11.

2-year-old grandson of the author on his SoHo roof on 9/11. PHOTO BY SALLY LINDSAY

By JOHN BOS

Published: 09-20-2024 3:42 PM

In my life there are four dates that remain unforgettable. And connected for personal and global reasons.

Feb. 12: I was born in Dr. Jenny’s home hospital in an old Victorian house in Tonawanda, New York on this day in 1936. Our father was there for our mother giving birth in 1936 (me), 1938 (Pete) and 1940 (Chuck). Permitting fathers into delivery rooms didn’t happen until the 1960s, when fathers were regularly allowed in the room during labor. I believe this is one of the many shared experiences that strengthened our parents’ bonds and also gave our father an intimate and meaningful start to his fatherhood.

On Feb. 12 (1809), Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, also was born. It was Lincoln who led the nation during the Civil War and worked to end slavery. During his first address as president, he tried to quiet the drumbeat of war by appealing to “the better angels of our nature.” That phrase became Braver Angels (formerly Better Angels), a New York-based nonprofit that brings together “red” (conservative) and “blue” (liberal) participants in an attempt to better understand one another’s positions and discover their shared values (https://braverangels.org/).

Aug. 6: On this date in 1960, I married a fabulous person and painter who still gets into her SoHo studio to work at 3 a.m. each morning at age 88.

However, our marriage has long been overshadowed by the grim global history resulting from the dropping of the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on Japan in 1945 by the United States. An estimated 70,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. Currently, there are estimated to be 9,585 nuclear warheads in military stockpiles in nine countries, with Russia and the U.S. accounting for 8,088 of these. And we are on the brink of nuclear catastrophe in large part because of Russian threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

Sept. 11: Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, left 2,977 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

On that unforgettable day, I spent nearly three hours in vain attempts to reach my son Chis and his family, who lived 11 blocks north of the World Trade Center. Telephone lines were down as were cellphone connections.

Chris was finally able to reach me and assure me that his wife, two sons and my ex were safe. At that time Chris was a videographer making music videos. He quickly took his camera down to the demolished World Trade Center site and captured some unforgettable unedited, raw footage of the devastation and chaos (archive.org/details/chris-bos-911/9-11+RAW+1.mp4).

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Back on the rooftop of their SoHo loft building, my former wife took a photo of our older grandson, then 2 years old, who will graduate from Temple University next month. Behind him are the gray clouds rising from the twin towers.

Public opinion since 9/11 reveals how our badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Support waned over time and while a majority endorsed the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Biden administration’s handling of the situation was heavily criticized. At the end of America’s longest war, it had cost thousands of lives, including more than 2,000 American service members, and trillions of dollars in military spending.

Nov. 22: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in Dallas, Texas shocked and traumatized the American public, marking a loss of national innocence and optimism. I so well remember, after absorbing the news, that we had become a banana republic. I remember going to the theater I was managing in Baltimore to post a “no performance tonight” note on the entrance door.

Kennedy’s assassination abruptly shattered the sense of optimism many Americans felt about the future and led to a growing distrust in government institutions. On this same day in 1985, our mother died while in the recovery room at the hospital in Leesburg, Virginia. Mom shared JFK’s birth date (May 29) and death date (Nov. 22).

It is impossible for me to separate the memories of those personal and larger life connections. I’m sure that led me to calling my column “Connecting the Dots.” Aren’t we all trying to find some coherence in our lifetime of experiences, both rewarding and unwelcome ones?

But I must confess that the resonance of these four meaningful dates in my life to the outer world feels like more than coincidence.

“Connecting the Dots” can be read every other Saturday in the Recorder. John Bos is also a new columnist for NJTODAY, the online version of New Jersey’s oldest weekly newspaper, and a columnist for Green Energy Times. His essays have been published in the Springfield Republican, the Brattleboro Reformer and other regional newspapers. Comments and questions may be sent to john01370@gmail.com.