Science Friday: 9/11 and the Strange Story of the Mini-Golfers
The Science Friday video below (and here), having to do with mini golf, is actually a sort of strange (and, frankly, comical) remembrance to that terrible Tuesday in 2001. Everyone — just everyone — remembers where they were. I was at my house on Capitol Hill, watching the events unfold on TV, wondering if I should go into the basement to avoid the planes supposedly heading my way. Practically everyone I knew called me — uncles, sister, parents — trying to make sense of it all. But I could not catch up with the boyfriend. Where was he? Cell phones were jamming; not all calls were coming in or going out.
Turns out, for the better part of the morning, he was blissfully unaware of what was going on, having met his brother at a mini golf course (instead of, like, working). Keep in mind, these are two adult males, gainfully employed and supposedly sentient, mini-golfing in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region on the morning of 9/11. Mini-golfing — an activity most people associate with the worst vacations of their childhood or the worst part of the fraternity hazing. People rarely mini golf when it’s the only activity choice, let alone opt for it during work hours. It’s absurd. It’s even offensive. But finding out that the man I love and his brother (did I mention the brother is a married father of two?), paid good money to play putt-putt on the most tragic day in American history made me realize that life would — someday — go on. (Oh, it also made me realize, not for the first time, that I shared a home with a total goofball, quite possibly from a family of goofballs, but no amount of reflection can ease the tragedy of that knowledge.)
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