Na-na, Hey-hey, Good-bye! Kiss the Firebird good-bye. Either Jeff’s getting a much cooler car (his Dad is rich, remember) or he’s S.O.L. We’ll find out once they get to San Diego.

Doing these “easy” strips is really much harder than I think. I thought “Hey, a slow zoom out then the car explodes. How hard is that?” Getting the explosion, the lightning, the motion blurs just right took forever. I’m gonna stick to the characters! Rest easy, their stage gear is in the trusty hands of Chet as we’ll see more of that on Monday.

Do I really need to state today’s title is by REO Speedwagon? Didn’t think so. I woke up from a drunken stupor in May of 1976 at an outdoor concert to luckily catch REO ending up a day long concert event with this song. I barely remember the song, but it was cool to see them just the same.

Being today is the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our fine little country, I thought passing along my story of 9/11 might be a bit interesting. Like Kennedy being shot, it was one of those moments you remember with clarity what you were doing and where. I was in Nashville, home of Country Music and a few other things.

Quickly, at the time, I developed a digital video editing system for a big Broadcast company here in Illinois. To launch this new product line (which had been a year in developement) we were attending the annual Television & Radion News Directors trade show in Nashville. It was to start on September 12th, but alas, that was not to be. On the 10th, I loaded up my trusty van with a ton of computer gear and booth accessories and headed south on my 12 hour drive from Chicago to Nashville. On the 11th, I awoke early as I was scheduled to do a demonstration early that morning for a PBS station in Knoxville, a couple hours away from Nashville. I was heading up and down the hills of Tennessee occasionally turning on my radio to listen to the morning DJs of the area. I switched off my CD player and tuned in a station only to hear screaming and tons of background confusion. I thought “what the hell kind of morning talk show crap is this?” I was quickly informed that a plane had struck the Twin Towers and second one was inbound. Moments later it hit. I stopped my van at the next exit to call my wife. It took a bit, but I got a line through and she answered “We’re under attack!” Great, here I am 14 hours from Chicago and the bombs may be coming. “Your fucked, Wilkins.” Was the first thing that went through my head. Well, cooler heads prevailed and I told my wife I was coming home.

I got to Knoxville to pick up my salesperson (she had flown in early that morning, and got in before the chaos ensued). We stopped at the PBS station only to find them all glued to their monitors watching replays of the planes exploding. We bid them farewell, and headed back to Tennessee to get my stuff from the tradeshow and drive home. With all the stops and re-packing the van, the salesperson and I got back to the Chicago area around 2:00AM. Her husband picked her up and I was greeted by a very worried wife. I spent the next two days like most Americans, glued to my TV set trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Needless to say, I will never forget that experience or how that moment crushed the introduction of this new product line, and impacted millions the same way. I feel for those who lost family that day and know my loses were nothing compared to them, but we all remember the impact personally and that is how 9/11 went down for me.

How about you?

***************