On It's 25th Anniversary an Old Horror Still Haunts with Murfin Rant and Verse.

   

Note—Twenty-five years is both a long time and the blink of an eye.  For an emerging generation the 9/11/2001 attacks are just old stories or, worse yet, history.  For many of us it is a central trauma in our lives.  It may also be the last time almost all Americans loved each other.  Today we are warring camps.  Reposting a regular 9/11 blog post.  Some of the references seem dated but the song remains the same.

There is no escaping it.  A scab is pulled off a barely healed wound.  Opportunists and con men scramble to once again jump to wrong conclusions, scapegoat strawmen, and bend the occasion to serve their ambitions and blood lust.

I dread it every year.  But it will not leave me or, I suspect, any of us alone.

But as horrible as those images etched indelibly in my mind are, is it wrong to say that I miss the days just after?  Remember?  For a little while Americans loved each other, found comfort in each other’s arms.  Divisions melted.  We were united by grief, and yes, even some righteous anger.  Even the world mourned for us.  Some of us even dared hope that the sense of oneness, community, and solidarity could change us.  Maybe even last.

Of course, it didn’t.  Weeks went by and we went charging off in different directions—drumming up wars on people who had nothing to do with the attack, cooking up wild conspiracy theories that confirmed our own personal demons and loathing’s, scapegoating the convenient and the weak, attacking the patriotism of anyone who did not wear a flag pin 24 hours a day.

And now, multiple wars later, a Depression, the election of a Black President then his replacement with a malignant narcissist and common charlatan, the ascent of a kind of political madness, the rise of entitled oligarchy, immigration panic, and the rise of fascist White nationalism Americans hate each other.  Really hate.  Can’t stand to talk with each other, be in the same room, breathe the same air.  Rage is the order of the day.  White men strut through malls and fast food emporiums with military style weapons slung over their shoulder daring anyone to look cross eyed at them and in their heart of hearts hoping that someone will challenge them.  Looking for any spark to set off a Civil War.

Black kids who look like they could be trouble are pumped full of holes with monotonous regularity.  Half-starved immigrant children are torn from their parents, caged, and brutalized. In some churches, mosques, and temples hate thy neighbor is the daily message.  We are sliced and diced apart every which way—by race, language, religion, politics, age, gender, and who we choose to love.

 

24 years later America is shattered and Americans despise each other. 

The once revered first responder heroes of 9/11 have been transformed into greedy union thugs by politicians.  Police departments have been transformed from serving and protecting into little armies to quash the slightest suggestion of unrest or dissent.

Women and their health have become more than ever political plaything, and the objects of Great Lie campaigns worthy of anything by Goebbels.   Transgender humans have become prey of righteous hunters.

And guns still don’t kill people—the increasing mounds of bodies are felled by some kind of mysterious magic.

So much for my rant.

Looking back, I have grappled with 9/11 in my poetry often over the years.  How that verse evolved speaks of what has happened to us. 

The first one was written for a one-year anniversary program and was included in my collection We Build Temples in the Heart in 2004.

 

Photos of the dead and missing in New York posted on a makeshift memorial wall. 

The Dead of 9/11 Leave a Message on George W’s Voice Mail

 

The Dead cry out—

 

It is not lonely here!

            They come by the scores

                        and by the thousands

                        every day,

                        as they have always come,

                        each arrival here

                        a wrenching loss below.

            They come as they have always come,

                        each death the completion of a journey,

                        the closing of a hoop of life.

            And we welcome each of them.

 

But we are not lonely here.

            We do not wander silent corridors

                        our footsteps echoing,

                        yearning for a voice.

            We are not lonely

                        for we are the Dead

                        and we are everywhere

                        united in that last breath

                        and in eternity.

 

But You—

 

You make haste to fill the unfillable,

            to send us more,

            many more,

            out of their own time

            as we were out of ours,

            yanked here in violence and hatred.

 

Let them be.

They will come in their own time.

 

We who know death

            do not cry out for revenge.

 

We are not lonely here.

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

 

In 2007 came one of those serendipitous coming together of calendar occasions.

 

 

 

                                                "If I wore stars on a pointed hat." 

 

September 12, 2007

The Day After 9/11—Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah

 

Wheels turning within wheels—

     an astrolabe,

          Tycho’s observatory,

               gears in some fantastic machine,

                    electrons—atoms—molecules,

                        moons—planets—stars—galaxies—universes.

 

Today, just today—

     Point A on Wheel X, spinning urgently,

     comes to kiss Point B on Wheel Y,

     rotating on its own good time,

     for just a nano-second

     having just brushed by

     Point C on cog Z.

 

These precise events will come again,

    I suppose—

     you do the math if you wish.

 

But if I wore stars on a pointed hat,

    I might conclude that there was something

    beyond mere physics at work here.

 

Call it an omen, if you wish,

     or the flat hand of something Greater

     slapping us upside our

     merely mortal heads

     and scolding us—

               “Spin as you will,

                you spin not alone.”

 

—Patrick Murfin

  

 

On the tenth anniversary I was moved by reading that the dust from the Twin Towers was still orbiting the stratosphere and slowly, year by year, falling to Earth.

 

 

 

The cloud of ash envelops Manhattan. 

 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

September 9, 2011, Crystal Lake, Illinois

 

The ash and dust, they say,

rose as high as the skirts

of the ionosphere.

Prevailing winds pushed it

            across oceans and around the world.

 

Most has sifted by now to the earth.

Some orbits still,

motes descending

            now and again.

 

My study is a cluttered mess.

Dust lays on any unattended

horizontal surface,

makes webs in corners,

balls in computer wire rats nests,

devils under bookshelves.

 

That speck, that one there,

            the one by the stapler,

            just might be what’s left

            of the Dominican cleaner

            who left her children

            with their Abuela

            and went to work

            in the sky

            only to be vaporized.

 

Hola, señora.

It is an honor to meet you.

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

 

Thirteen years ago, I recalled that 9/11 was etched in the memories of Chileans as the date of their own national catastrophe—the 1973 coup d’état that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and ushered in a brutal dictatorship.  The United States government was more than just complicit in that.

 

 

 

La Moneda, the Presidential Palace in Santiago, under attack during the U.S. sponsored Chilean coup on 9/11 1973.  In the wake of the coup thousands were killed or disappeared 

 

Two Anniversaries

September 11, 2013

 

I’ll ante my 3,000 vaporized on a crystal morning.

You’ll see me your 3,000 homeless ghosts.

I’ll give you my crumbling Towers and billowing ash.

You will call with the bombed rubble of La Moneda .

 

I’ll throw in a stack of terrorists with beards and turbans.

You’ll count out freckled faces, crew cuts, and black fedoras.

 

Let’s show our cards and see who loses.

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

Walking the Walk and Compassion for Campers Update for September 11 2026

 Look for new opportunities for action, education, community, and solidarity in and around McHenry County here every week.  

Walking the Walk

In memorium Gloria Steinem.

The League of Women Voters of McHenry County is sponsoring a series of County Board District Candidate Events.  The next two events feature District 1 at the Cary Library, 1606 Three Oaks Road, Cary following a LWL monthly meeting at 1:00 pm and District 5 at the McHenry Library, 809 Front Street, McHenry.  Sunday, Sept 27 from 2-4 pm. 

The League is a non-partisan organization dedicated to making democracy work through voter education, issue advocacy and citizen participation.  All candidates for each office were invited, but participation is voluntary and not guaranteed.

The fight to preserve threatened democracy is urgent at all levels of government.  Become an informed voter and the vote your conscience and principles.

Women Veteran Symposium sponsored by the Veterans Assistance Commission of McHenry County, Friday, October 2 from 9 am to 3 pm at 667 Ware Road, Woodstock.  "Registration is filling up for the 2026 McHenry County Women Veterans Symposium, a day dedicated to empowering, connecting, and celebrating women Veterans throughout our community. The day will include inspiring presentations by women, Networking and connections, lunch, and resources, fellowship, and community.  Scan the QR code to reserve a spot.

Compassion for Campers

The McHenry County Mental Health Board which generously stepped up to offer a temporary home to the McHenry County Resource Center (MCHC) and Compassion for Campers (C4C) over the summer has rented the space to a new tenant effective October 1. After that MCHC must make new arrangements. An active search for a suitable location is under way, preferably in an accessible spot near public transportation options and space for on sight storage, shower and/or laundry facilities would be a plus.

Meanwhile C4C final distribution at the MCHC site, 620 Dakota Street in Crystal Lake is next Friday, September 18, from 10 am to 2 pm.  Other service providers will be on hand for the last Resource Center event there on Friday, September 24.

Financial support is critical to fulfilling our mission. The best thing you can do is offer your critically needed financial support. Money donations are always welcome at     https://tinyurl.com/3bz96axe.   Look for updates here.  Email compassionforcampers@treeoflifeuu.org .

The Old Man's Labor Baptism Was a Skolie Teacher Strike--A Murfin Memoir

Niles West High School in the 1960s.

I was a senior that fall at Niles Township West High School in 1966.  It was a good year for me.  I was finding myself.  After arriving from Cheyenne, where I was something of a pariah as a bookish kid, the year before, I discovered that at least in some circles my interests were valued and shared.  I had friends.  I was active in drama and was cast in good parts.  I had my own allegedly humorous column The Wind from the West in the school newspaper and my short stories and poems were published in the literary journal Apotheosis.  I competed in Forensics.  Not exactly Jock class, but I had my niche. 

Outside of school I was part of a circle of kids from all three schools in the district who were interested in things like civil rights, the fledgling anti-war movement, and liberal politics.  We even had an organization, the Liberal Youth of Niles Township (LYNT)—which I have said before was the wimpiest acronym ever.  I even edited an “underground” newsletter pompously named The Promethean which was laboriously produced in the dozens of copies on an ancient and obsolete chemical bath Photostat my dad had in the basement and then smuggled into the schools for distribution like Soviet era samizdats.

I was the only goy in that group—the others were Jews, mostly very secular.  In fact, it was the Jewish culture which valued books and inquiry that had made me feel so at home in my new surroundings far from the Wyoming plains and mountains.

I was also extremely close to some of my teachers who had encouraged me in ways I had never experienced before, particularly the drama teacher and theater director Ilene Zelznick, and the gentle English teacher and writing mentor, Richard Gragg.

It was with some dismay that I learned that a long impasse was leading to a teacher’s strike.

The Niles Township District included three large schools, Niles East—the original campus—West, and the newest building North. The district stretched north from Chicago and west of Evanston and encompassed wealthy enclaves like Lincolnwood, working class areas like Morton Grove and portions of Skokie where the Chicago bungalow belt and duplexes bled into the suburbs.  New subdivisions  sprang up along the Edens Expressway and around the Old Orchard Shopping Center.  On the whole, it was solidly middle-class.  The district was noted for academic excellence.  It compared favorably to the much wealthier North Shore districts like New Trier.  Parents valued education.  Teachers were respected and admired.

Despite this, salaries in the district lagged behind surrounding areas and there were major clashes with the Board of Education on non-economic issues, especially what was described as academic freedom.  Traditionally contracts had been settled without a strike.  But a new board was interested in “curbing the power of the union.”  After negotiations dragged on all summer and stalemated, the teachers voted to strike.  I believe it was in early October.

My friends and I—indeed most of the students and parents—were solidly behind the teachers.  The day before the strike we asked union members if we should honor the picket line, or perhaps lead a student walk-out.  We were advised that the best thing we could do was to go to school.  “The administration has no way to handle you.”

We decided that we needed to make a more overt display of our support for the teachers and the union.  The night before the strike, we gathered in my basement.  Someone had a bunch of old 2” printed campaign buttons and I had, thanks to one of my mother’s charitable projects, a big bagful of little ½” Red Cross Blood Drive buttons, the kind with a little metal flange that you bent over to hold them in place on your pocket or lapel.  We got jars of green enamel model paint and set up a kind of assembly line painting each button by hand.  The large buttons were lettered, “We support our Teachers.”  The small ones were just plain green but would be recognized as solidarity. 

We also ginned out a fast issue of The Promethean covering the strike and urging students to show support.  After working most of the night our members fanned out to the three schools.

We made sure to get to school early and joined the picket lines, passing out our buttons to students as they arrived.  The teachers were surprised and delighted.

When the last bell rang, we went into school.  A lot of students had skipped, and some parents kept their kids home, but there were plenty of us.  As the teachers had predicted, the administrators and clerical staff were overwhelmed.  Repeated instructions to go to our homerooms were ignored.  All day long we roamed the halls pretty much at will.  Many congregated for a while in the cafeteria where we conducted what might have later been called a Teach-in in support of the teachers.  We also discouraged rowdyism or vandalism which might result—as the administration threatened—in the police being called. 

Of course, that was the last thing the administration wanted.  They wanted the community to think that they had the situation well in hand and that students were somehow magically continuing to get an education.  In fact, they were willing to retreat into their offices and let us roam at will as long as we did not actively riot.

At the end of the school day, we re-joined the teachers on the picket line, which had also been beefed up by quite a few parents.  They were glad to see students leaving the building with those green buttons.  So glad that overnight the union obtained more buttons and had them painted for us to pass out as the strike entered its second day.

The administration had badly miscalculated.  They thought the community would flock to their side.  The opposite was true.  But they were not yet ready to back down.

Two or three days into the strike, I nonchalantly ambled into the District Administration office, which was located at West and plucked a Board packet off the counter with materials for a meeting that night.  That’s how I discovered that the Board was going to move to fire all the strikers.  I got the word out to the picket line at lunch.  They had heard rumors but had no proof.  Now they had the documents in hand.

That night the Board meeting was overwhelmed with not only teachers, but parents and students.  Under the law the name of each teacher to be fired had to be read aloud.  They did not get very far.  The meeting had to be adjourned and the board and administration evacuated under police protection.

The tactic backfired.  More parents joined the picket line.  Support for the Board collapsed.  By the end of the week the strike was settled—on the teachers’ terms.  Labor peace in the district prevailed until another bone-headed administration triggered another strike 40 years later in 2006 which played out much the same way.

On a personal note, not only had I found my first connection to the labor movement, but I discovered that actions have consequences.  At the end of the school year, I was nominated for a few small scholarships, $100 or $200 each, for drama, Forensics, and creative writing.  The awards were routinely given and administered by department chairs.  But the Principal, Nicholas T. Manos vetoed them.  Citing my role in the strike, some critical articles in The Promethean and the school paper, and my open opposition to the Vietnam War, he said that I didn’t deserve to go to college.  “He needs to be drafted and go into the Army.”

I took my revenge after graduation.  I was a delegate to the New Politics Convention that met in the summer of 1967 at the Palmer House in Chicago representing LYNT.  In fact, I was the youngest voting delegate. Every liberal, left, and socialist organization in the country was there.  And they all had tables where I signed Manos up to receive their literature at his home address.  I knew that mail from some of those outfits just might interest the FBI.

I know.  I was a rotten kid.