As darkness fell on Halloween eve, children donned in Princess Fiona and Shrek costumes scurried from door to door in search of mass amounts of chocolate. The singsong voices calling “Trick or Treat” could be heard up and down the streets of this city smack dab in the heart of America.
St. Louis had already felt the stinging loss of the World Series to the Boston Red Sox. It was just a few days before the presidential election and the majority of the lawns here were casting their vote for Bush and Cheney.
It was on that same night that 10 men boarded their small crop duster planes outside of St. Louis with only one objective in mind-- striking terror into the hearts and minds of even the smallest of American citizens.
Taking off from regional airports in places like Joplin and Columbia and Cassville, the ten small planes headed for the symbol of America’s heartland, the Gateway Arch. By the time they were finished, the Gateway Arch lay in rubble, as did the Old Courthouse and Busch Stadium and most of downtown St. Louis. Thousands were dead and across America people were wondering just how this could have happened and who was responsible.
Within hours, President Bush was on radio and television encouraging America to remain calm. He blamed Osama Bin Laden and the evil terrorists for yet another strike against our great nation. And he promised that we would seek out these evildoers and kill every last one of them.
America was a land of freedom and democracy and these terrorists had chosen to strike on the eve of the event that symbolized those two things more than any other. The Presidential Election. President Bush urged all American citizens not to let this act of terror frighten them or take away that freedom. With a bullhorn in hand, standing atop the rubble that was once the Busch Baseball Stadium, he urged all Americans to go to the polls and vote.
And of course you know what happened, right? They did just that. And Bush won.
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I’m really hoping that this particular nightmare does not come true. I really need this election to be over. It’s making it quite difficult for me to get any real sleep at all.
