"Blue Skies"

Monday, September 10 was a rainy, nasty day and I remember thinking that the summer's over. Then the early morning of September 11 rekindled hope as it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky. I remember walking through my neighborhood singing "Blue Skies" to myself. Then when I got to work, my brother - who was living in Battery Park City, across from the Towers - called to tell me to turn on the TV and see if there was any news on an accidental plane crash into one of the buildings.
The rest is history. But the memory of that beautiful, crisp, late summer day - what Irving Berlin must have felt when he wrote the song - ended up serving as an ironic counterpoint to the events of the day. The beautiful version of "Blue Skies" by Dinah Washington is the one for me that truly captures the feeling of the day.

Marc Posnock