September 14, 2001

I am here with my 98 year-old Grandmother in her little place, way far away from where everything happened on September 11, 2001. Peaceful when you look outside, the sky bright blue and balmy desert breezes, a roadrunner and a cat named Leo who likes to sleep on the ledge are the only things moving out there.

Inside, Grandmother's apartment is filled with decades of love tokens from loved ones. And little children all around, her children and grandchildren in picture frames. And little chubby Hummel children: book readers, cake bakers, flower givers, umbrella toters, musicians. And Toby jugs in the hutch, looking down benevolently . . . all those kindly, cheerful, whimsical faces of Dickens characters, Bacchus, and Pearly King, among others.

Grandmother wants me to play some music for her; so, I get the old Orgasonic revved up and play "Edelweiss", "Irish Eyes" and that part of "Clair De Lune" that I know.

"Honey, when are you going to learn the rest of that?"

I tell her that I finally bought the sheet music and I am going to work on it.

I think of all this peace and coziness here, and how much my Grandmother and I have . . . then I wonder, to myself, how much would any of this be objectionable to those terrorists who might have done even more to our country if their other efforts had not been thwarted.

I turned off the news a while the other day and listened to Maria Callas in "Tosca". The terrorists would not have liked that. No opera. No Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, either. No "Clair de Lune".

I think what we ought to do, in defiance of those who would destroy all that we consider precious and civilized, in addition to flying our flag, and singing "God Bless America" and shouting "USA! USA! USA!" . . . we ought to fill our homes with all the music each of us loves and give the gift of music to the children in our lives; give them music lessons: piano, violin, guitar, flute, clarinet, cello . . . whatever it is that suits them, and give it to them NOW, for it is needed now, more than ever.

I think of the Ray Bradbury novel, "Fahrenheit 451" where there were hidden groups of people who memorized the great works of literature and passed them on, because the books that had contained them were no longer allowed. If these same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had their way, the great literature and music and art that we cherish would be destroyed . . . and so would all the little knick-knacks be that lit up a dear old face.

Let us have a lot of music, and every song is an anthem of defiance against those who would destroy who and what we love.

Susan Jacob

Published in "The Desert Sun" (Palm Springs, California) on November 9, 2001 as a "Valley Voice" article; they edited it and titled it "Let's Blast Away the Darkness of Terror with Music"