Fanfare, flags, and silence mark 9/11

Sierra Madre, Calif., is some 2,765 miles from ground zero in New York. But Wednesday, in this Los Angeles suburb, choirs will sing the national anthem, seven pastors will preach, and firetruck bells will toll, symbolizing loss.

Tim Alvine, a retired Colorado police officer, didn't know anyone who died a year ago. But he plans to wear a bracelet bearing the name of a victim during a 36-mile ride to Phoenix with thousands of other motorcyclists. "I feel it's my duty as an American," he says.

And at Columbus Stadium, 6,000 Ohioans will hold colored cards to form a "living flag" while news helicopters film it from above.

These are just some of the ways that Wednesday America will remember and reflect on the events of a year ago. It promises to be a day filled with sound: Mozart's Requiem, the pealing of church bells, and the Pledge of Allegiance. It also promises to be a day of silence: candlelight vigils and prayers. It will be a red, white, and blue kind of day. But some activists will wear white to symbolize peace.

Some Americans see it as day to help others. A woman in Irvine, Calif., for example, is taking a day to work with guide dogs as part of a program called One Day's Pay. Some companies, meanwhile, are giving workers the chance for a moment of silence at exactly 8:46 a.m., when the first plane hit the North Tower. And there is hardly a college or university in the nation that hasn't planned day-long discussions and events.

According to one survey, 42 percent of Americans plan to participate in a Sept. 11 observance. By the end of the day, there will hardly be an American who hasn't been touched in some way.

The scope of the reflection is as unprecedented as the attacks themselves. One year after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the nation was busy with the war effort. One year after President Kennedy was assassinated, the nation was debating its growing Vietnam commitment. Natural disasters, such as the San Francisco earthquake, have also not generated this kind of response.

"This impulse to memorialize immediately is a relatively new phenomenon," says Prof. James Young at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "Some national need is being fulfilled here."

All the candlelight vigils and motorcycle rides may help the nation move on in a certain way: The observances may offer a chance to think about the events from a slightly greater distance. "I think the purpose of it is to sort of catch our breaths and to see what this is and what the meaning of this is," says Richard Raskin, director of the counseling center at Pace University in New York. He adds, however, that one year is probably not enough to put the attacks into perspective.

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