WTC Clean-Up: Getting Down and Dirty
The enormity of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. have effectively changed the world's collective attitude toward security, particularly in regards to the potential use of the maritime industry as an instrument of destruction. While the events of early September are global in scope, they are also an intimate local affair. As the New York area continues the gargantuan clean-up task, Don Sutherland reports on the maritime industry's role in helping out. It's not so easy to believe two opposites at once. "I try to treat it like an ordinary scrap-removal job," said Capt. Virginia has just left the basin at Pier 25, North River, with a load of debris, bound for the Port Authority Pier 6 in Brooklyn.
Feature: Independence Day
What do you get when you spend 19 hours at a Fourth of July party onboard a tugboat in NY harbor? A sunburn, welts from hurled bagels, about 12,000 calories and some incredibly good memories, Don Sutherland found. Officially it's Independence Day, but everyone calls it the Fourth of July. Its inalienable rights accrue to the common man, whose life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness necessitate keeping things simple. And is any form of theater simpler than a fireworks dispay? No plot to keep up with, no dialog to follow, just plenty of action. America feasts during many of its holidays, but with varying complication - where Thanksgiving is an elaboration of side dishes and stuffings and sauces, July Fourth is plain barbecue. Sauces? What do you call mustard and ketchup?
HISTORY:Rescuing the Rescuer
According to the Baltimore Sun last April 21, 100,000 visitors came to town the day before, just to see the boats. Most had arrived for the Volvo races, an endurance test of sorts. But without so much press, from as far off as Seattle, another 48 came for a ship whose endurance was legend already. For a near half-century with the Coast Guard, the Tamaroa fought famously bad seas - and before that, enemy fire. Her quiet admirers arrived Balto with scrapers in hand, wrenches at the ready, plans in mind. Tamaroa had taken world wars and nature's wrath in stride. But civilian life got her down. Her preceding nine years were spent in near-isolation, open to intruders and the elements, gathering rust. April 20 was the day all that would change. Some of the 48 came to relive, some to renew.
