Stephen Siller Memorial 'Tunnel to Towers' Run Marathon

Anne is here in Manahattan, not my dear Carversville. Living on West St. guarantees me a prime viewing spot for everything but the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Darn!

Working furiously this morning, after a delicious dinner last night, filled with GREAT conversation and more (I DO have a life, I promise!) I woke up late (7am) to seven emails from Feanne. This girl burns rubber in cyberspace!!!

Feanne sent a wonderful post for J’Adore, but this moment I must pause and reflect.

There’s music on West St. Naturally curious, I Google everything (and everyone). Looking into the empty street below, hearing only the band, I wonder when they will get this party started.

To the theme song from Rocky (love it!), runners are coming up West St. Ah, a marathon! We have a lot of those on West St. Typically they’re fundraisers.

Goodness, I wish I could broadcast all this stereo sound to you … 19 floors below, there’s a whole lot of music goin’ on.

Google. Google. Thank goodness Anne is fast. Hmmmm. A word of caution … our happy mood may be changing a bit.

Tunnel To Towers

Stephen Siller running to the WTC on 9/11 via Flickr’s atpandaWhat’s happening down there is the Firefighter Stephen (Rocky again!!!! this moment) Siller Tunnel To Towers Run. I’ll say one thing about this great city … we don’t hesitate to shut it down for a good reason … this time closing the Battery Tunnel and West St (the west side artery around Manhattan) for this race.

I’m at the end of the parade, next door to the WTC. We have Rocky again, and now the bagpipes. My heart is tightening now with emotion.

Bagpipes mean only one thing in this city (I’m sure they play at the happy times, too, like St. Patrick’s Day.) But bagpipes are sad, playing at funerals in New York, typically for firefighters and police officers.

Not with any desire to make you sad … but to take a moment of reflection for the reality thrust on me this morning from the street below, I share the story of Stephen Siller and his foundation. The run through the Battery Tunnel up West St follows Stephen’s route to work that morning. OMG, now I remember:

Stephen Gerard Siller, 34, West Brighton, N.Y. via Flickr’s jessica+foley62’Let me rephrase this for you … Stephen Siller RAN through the Battery Tunnel into Manhattan, in full firefirefighter dress … let me restate this one more time … Stephen Siller RAN the miles to the World Trade Center catastrophe from Brooklyn, through the Battery Tunnel, in full firefighter dress … to do his part, his job, to fulfill his obligations to me, to you …to us.

Let me turn the story over to Oprah. What a contrast between this heroe’s story and the financial debacle going on here this week. The battle of the pansy boys  … even if I do date them … . who don’t measure up to Stephen Siller.

We humans are many different kinds of people. 

I’ve written before that I hate this abuse of the word “hero”. We get up on time in the morning, taking the kids to school, and suddenly we’re heroes.

Stephen Siller is a REAL hero. There are many more videos on YouTube, talking about Stephen Siller’s memory and his “Let Us Do Good” foundation.

We must end on a positive note in Stephen’s memory. So I give you Rocky. He surely required a song like Rocky to keep him going, running through the Battery Tunnel, towards Ground Zero. I wonder what he thought about during his run towards death.

I wrote somewhere online this week … the band plays on, and so must we.  Let us do it consciously, though, and with purpose.

With love,
Anne

When I first saw the marathon below, I thought the run was perhaps in honor of Robert Beddia and Joe Graffagnino, two NYC firefighters killed in the Deutsche Bank fire in Aug. 2007.

Ground Zero, Aug. 20, 2007

I can’t watch the Stephen Siller video without thinking about Sept. 11.

Of course I think of Tribute, who escaped the cluthes of Her Majesty, my floor-to-celing silk drape, running away from us yet again, as dawn woke us Sept. 12. Ms. M was a total hussy in her efforts to ensnare Tribute permanently in our pied a terre. I’m not optimistic that we’ll ever catch him.

Tribute thinks he’s superman or something, with a life agenda bigger than Ms. M and myself.

Please Stay “Tribute in Light”. The World Needs You: Sept. 11, 2008

My gorgeous pink drape, Ms. M,  just offered her two cents on the subject of Tribute … something about a new polymer that I can spray on her next year. Tribute won’t notice anything different, thinking — like most men — that he has the upper hand. She says that if I just spray her an hour before Tribute’s arrival, he will stick like glue this time … unable to resist her.

We’ll see, Ms. Majesty. We both know that you have an overactive imagination and tend to be ultra-optimistic about happy endings in life.  Nevertheless, we all love the fact that you try hard to make Anne happy … not that your own heart doesn’t go pitter patter in Tribute’s presence. I suppose you think we should share him.

Oh P-L-E-A-S-E, Ms. Majesty . .  you’re only a gorgeous drape! Hardly a match for our Anne! Everyone is such a celebrity these days. No one knows her place in life anymore, not even the interior decorations.

Could I have some order in the house, please!! Thank you.

Madame Rocky Balboa

Upon reflection  … Jesus, Anne. Pull yourself together. It’s a blog, for goodness sake!