A Simple Life, Well-Lived

I did not know Antoinette Duger.  It was never my pleasure to make her acquaintance.  It has been my great good fortune over the years to have become friends with her cousin, Gerard Gonnella.  Through G, I have developed an appreciation of just how much I missed out on by not knowing her. 

In a world in which far too many of us covet that which someone else and devote more time and energy than we should to peering over the fence into our neighbor's yard to admire the greenness of their grass, Antoinette Duger was exceptional because she was an exception to that rule.  She valued the things that were most significant to her.  She appreciated the life she had and enjoyed living it.  First and foremost for her was her family (including but not limited to her husband, Raymond, and her little girl, Megan).  She made it home from lower Manhattan to Belleville, New Jersey by 6:30 every night so that she, Raymond, and Megan could eat dinner together. Megan was just eight years old when Antoinette died.   

She enjoyed her work at First Union, on the North Tower's 47th floor.  She was a throwback in the sense that while people often move from job to job, she did not. Her first job upon graduating from Barringer High School in Newark at age eighteen?  First Union, as a clerk in an office on Broad Street in Newark.  Twenty-six years later, she enjoyed telling her family how much she loved her view from the 47th floor, an office into which First Union had moved from another location in New York City only eight months before September 11, 2001. First Union was her one and only employer.  Remarkable. 

Since the National September 11 Memorial opened in lower Manhattan in 2011 on the tenth anniversary of the attacks, every September when Margaret and I are in the city for the Tunnel to Towers 5K, our visit to the Memorial includes the placement of an American flag at Antoinette's name.    

Antoinette Duger - National September 11 Memorial

Photo Credit:  Adam Kenny

It is a simple gesture, to be sure.  Perhaps it is for that reason it is the single-best way to honor her, her memory, and those she loved who have lived with only the memory of her for nineteen years and counting. 

-AK 

Actions Not Words

Deputy Chief Ray Downey was chief of the FDNY's Special Operations Command. He pioneered techniques for urban rescue and for responding to terrorist attacks.  He was so respected and so beloved for what he did that those who served under him called him "God".  

FDNY Deputy Chief Ray Downey

Ray Downey joined the FDNY in 1962, after having served this country as a United States Marine. If Hollywood had created a firefighter character whose on-screen exploits approximated 25-50% of what Ray Downey did during his 39-year career at the FDNY, critics would likely have dismissed the character as unrealistic.  They would have been wrong.  

You might remember having heard his name for the first time several years before the September 11, 2001 attacks, either because of his role in leading the FDNY's response to the 1993 World Trade Center attack or, perhaps, because of his role in leading the FDNY's response to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.   

On September 11, 2001, the FDNY Special Operations Command lost ninety-five men, including Ray Downey.  His body was finally recovered from the wreckage at Ground Zero shortly before the recovery operation at Ground Zero was suspended. Two of his sons, Joe and Chuck, served with their dad in the FDNY.  Joe Downey is now a Battalion Chief in the Special Operations Command.  Chuck Downey is now an FDNY Deputy Chief.  

Ray Downey died eight days before his sixty-fourth birthday. He was survived by his wife, Rosalie, his three sons, Ray, Jr., Joe, and Chuck, his two daughters, Marie Tortorici and Kathy Ugalde, and seven grandchildren. Earlier this summer, Rosalie Downey celebrated her eighty-first birthday.  

 Celluloid heroes never really die...

...sadly, of course, flesh-and-blood heroes do.  

We are all better for the fact that they lived.   

-AK 

"Dada"

FF Michael H. Haub FDNY Ladder Co. 4

photo credit: Haub Family

Michael H. Haub had been a member of the FDNY for slightly more than two years when he was killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  FF Haub had joined the FDNY as a "probie" when he was thirty-one.  Although fairly new to the FDNY on the day he died, he was an experienced firefighter.  He had served as the Chief of the Roslyn Heights Highlands Volunteer Fire Department prior to joining the FDNY.  

He was thirty-four years young on the day he died.  He and his wife, Erika, had two children.  His son, Michael Andreas, was four when his father died.  FF Haub's little girl, Kiersten, was but seventeen months old. 

On September 11, 2001, as her mother and some family friends sat glued to the television in the Haub family's living room, watching the seemingly unreal images from lower Manhattan, Kiersten pointed to a framed photo of her father and said, "Dada".  According to Erika Haub, it was the first time Kiersten had ever said it.  

The morning of September 11, 2001, FF Haub's tour was just ending when the call came in about the attacks and he immediately headed south to lower Manhattan with more than a dozen members of his house.  His remains were found in the debris of what had been the lobby of the South Tower and six months after his death his family held a memorial service for him.  

In 2019, the medical examiner's office was able to identify more remains as being those of FF Haub.  On September 10, 2019, his family held a second funeral service for him.  His young widow, Erika, has remarried and his two children, Michael and Kiersten, are now adults in their early twenties.  

Kiersten Haub, Erika Starke, and Michael Haub - 09/10/2019

Photo Credit - Associated Press

Each has honored his memory in the best way possible - by living their life.  Moving forward while never losing sight of their history...

...or their hero. 

-AK 

Badge No. 3751

Sgt. John Gerard Coughlin was assigned to the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit Truck 4 when he died in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, while attempting to rescue people from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.  His body was never recovered. Sgt. Coughlin had been on the job for eighteen years, serving and protecting the people of New York City. He joined the NYPD after faithfully serving his nation as a United States Marine. 

He and his wife, Patty, lived in Pomona, New York.  Sgt. Coughlin, forty-three years young at the time of his death, and Patty were the proud parents of three daughters.  Erin, their oldest, was sixteen, Tara was thirteen, and Kayla, their tail gunner, was just six on the day he died.  In addition to serving his neighbors in Pomona as a member of the volunteer fire department, he was very much a "Girl Dad".  

Patty Coughlin called her husband "a big mush" who took a week's vacation in mid-December each year to volunteer with his fellow Marines on their Toys for Tots Program. "He was a firm believer that every child should have a toy for Christmas", according to Patty.  A sentiment that I, for one, support wholeheartedly. 

   

(patch created by Dee Cook for the
CubScout Pack 233 Memorial American Flag Quilt)

In late December 2012, his oldest daughter, Erin, followed her dad into the family business.  Erin Coughlin, at age twenty-seven, joined the NYPD as a Police Officer.  She not only followed him into the family business, she did it while wearing the same badge number that he had worn for eighteen years, badge No. 3751.  

Officer Erin Coughlin honors her father's memory not simply by wearing his shield as a member of the NYPD but by doing what she knows he would want her to do, which is forge her own path and make a career of which she shall be as proud as he was of his.

Fathers and daughters.  Apples and trees. 

-AK 

A Great Guy

Frank Bennett Reisman 

National September 11 Memorial

Photo Credit:  Adam Kenny

Every September, on Tunnel to Towers weekend, Margaret and I place small American flags at certain names on the National September 11 Memorial.  Neither Margaret nor I ever had the pleasure of meeting Frank Bennett Reisman but he, and his wife Gayle, were great friends of my sister, Jill.  Our placement of a flag at his name serves, we hope, to honor each of them. 

He worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the equities desk.  On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, he was forty-one years years young.  He and Gayle lived in Princeton, New Jersey, with their two children, Kasey and Dillon.  In his obituary, Gayle described him as "the perfect suburban daddy". His career demanded that he left for work before either of his children woke up, which is why he made sure to send each of them online messages from work once he arrived there.  He coached Kasey's softball team.  He taught Dillon golf.  He made it his practice to be home every night by 6:15. Gayle, Kasey, and Dillon waited for him so that the four of them could eat dinner together. 

His obituary in the New York Times noted that he was the exemplar of the term "Great Guy".  Certainly one can have any number of less-flattering sobriquets.  Trust me, I know of which I speak.

He should have had the chance to see his children grow up, to grow old with the wife he loved, and to spoil grandchildren.  Nineteen years ago, those chances were stolen from him as he was from the family who loved him and who he loved.  

Frank Bennett Reisman 

National September 11 Memorial

Photo Credit:  Adam Kenny

-AK 

Honoring Cicero

One month from tomorrow is the 19th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.  While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the way in which this year's ceremony shall happen, the great people at the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation have stepped up to make sure that the names of all 2,977 people killed on September 11, 2001 shall be read aloud at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.  

Starting tomorrow in this space and continuing through Friday, September 11, 2020, this space shall be devoted to honoring the memory of one of those souls murdered on a bright, sun-soaked Tuesday morning in September nineteen years ago.  

In a very small way, in this insignificant corner of the virtual universe, Cicero's directive shall be adhered to and it shall be honored.  

In the nineteen years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, countless first responders who responded to Ground Zero that day and then remained there for days, weeks, or months thereafter working to recover those who had died there, have been stricken with a dizzying array of illnesses and ailments, which have killed far, far too many of them thus far and shall undoubtedly kill more of them.  As if they have not suffered enough, researchers have now linked exposure to the toxins in the air and on the debris at Ground Zero to dementia. 

Unfortunately, while those suffering from psychological conditions, including but not limited to post-traumatic stress disorder, receive free health treatment and are eligible for disability pensions through the World Trade Center Health Program, the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, the Fund does not provide financial compensation to them. 

Perhaps, now, with this newly-discovered link, the Fund shall re-examine that position.  The WTC Health Program has approximately 80,000 first responders registered to it.  More than 12,000 of them, which is roughly fifteen percent of the Program's members, have been diagnosed with PTSD or another mental-health condition.  

-AK 

Life and Time

I remember vividly way back when in the early days of this pandemic, working from home in the early spring days of March and April, eagerly looking forward to the summer.  Understanding even then that this summer would be "unusual", "atypical", or "weird" (take your pick and feel free to insert your own description in place of any of these three options), I nevertheless knew in my bones that I needed to spend long summer days sitting on the beach, recharging the batteries of my body and my soul.  I could not wait to do it. I have enjoyed every precious minute of it thus far. 

Wilma and I often comment upon the fact that if you are not a beach or Jersey Shore person, then you might have difficulty appreciating what those of us who are never take for granted, which is that between Memorial Day and Labor Day there are only fifteen or sixteen weekends.  Here, unlike Southern California or Florida or Hawaii, there is no "endless summer".  

As a kid, I enjoyed fall almost as much as summer.  Not so much because of school, for I was a good but indifferent student, but because all through high school I played soccer, which was a fall sport. I also love the colors of autumn.  Thirty-five-plus years removed from the soccer pitch, I still enjoy autumn because New Jersey in autumn is awash in color and is simply beautiful, but my appreciation for it is not what it once was.  That is especially so this year. 

What seemed unlikely to me, way back when in March and April, has morphed into a sad reality these past few months.  In spite of DJT's prediction in February that once warm weather arrived, COVID-19 would beat a hasty retreat, it has somehow managed to not simply survive but to thrive in warm-weather climes such as Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas.  Candidly, it is hanging tough here in the State of Concrete Gardens, notwithstanding the plethora of hot, humid weather we have enjoyed - as per usual - this summer.  It arrived in the winter. It was here in the spring. It is here in the summer. It shall be here in the fall.   Who knew that changes in the temperature absent changes in human behavior would fail to quell the continuing spread of COVID-19?  

[Spoiler alert:  That was a rhetorical question but if you raised your hand...well you have answered it, have you not?]

It is the knowledge that COVID-19 shall be here in the fall that makes me want to squeeze as much out of the summer as I can.  Labor Day Weekend is just four weekends away.  I am hoping, perhaps against hope the way 2020 has played out thus far, for a repeat of last September's weather.  I smile at the memory of Margaret and I sitting on Bluffs Beach in Bay Head with Jill and Joe in late September while Rita and Sam lounged nearby, relaxing for repeated, spirited rounds of puppy play. 

Last September, I loved it. This September I need it...  

...And, perhaps, this October too.

-AK