Monday, September 09, 2002
9-11 birthdays take on new meaning
Some distressed, others unfazed
By Mike Pulfer mpulfer@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Kate Pahls has come to realize her birth date doesn't belong to her anymore.
“Sept. 11 will forever now be a special day for reasons far more important than my birthday,” says the Columbia Township woman, who was a contender on television's The Mole in January and February 2001.
Some Greater Cincinnati people who have a Sept. 11 birthday say they will worship on that day, or alter their celebration plans, because the rest of America will be in mourning on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on America.
Others may have a quiet dinner.
“I don't have any celebration planned at all,” says U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott. “I think it would be hard to do this year.”
Instead, the judge - who has been overseeing the settlement of a high-profile racial profiling lawsuit and Justice Department investigation of the city of Cincinnati for more than a year - will be making a trip to a Columbus veterinary hospital with her dog, Dickens, who is ill.
“It's just horrible to have a birthday on that date,” says Bernice Stevens of Hyde Park, whose granddaughter is Star Wars actress Natalie Portman. “Very sad.”
Ms. Stevens, 77, will be traveling in the Canadian Rockies on Wednesday and said she would probably go to a temple to worship.
The birthday, she said, is incidental.
“When you get to be my age, (a) birthday doesn't mean that much anyway,” Ms. Stevens said.
Marty Finan, a Covington EMT who was born on Sept. 11, says he doesn't worry about his birthday.
“Not anymore,” he says. “Now that we're older, we don't celebrate so much. ... We do the kids' birthdays, and maybe we'll go out to dinner.”
And if he and his wife feel like having dinner Wednesday night, they will, he said.
Mrs. Pahls has already celebrated. She started this past weekend - and says she may make it a tradition.
USS Cincinnati caught in tug-of-war
Shooting raises alarm on Main St.
Tristate better prepared for attack
NY vendors hawk 9-11 memories
Sept. 11 baby reason for joy
9-11 birthdays take on new meaning
Tristate events mark Sept. 11
CPS fails graduation test
Tailgate parties only reason to cheer
Wrong-way crash causes I-275 pileup
Cincinnati bucks crime trend
Girl, 10, gives birthday money to Afghan children
Health Foundation forms fund to assume new roles
Man accused of propositioning child
Mason sewer rate change proposed
You Asked For It
Good News: Show raises money, awareness
History teaching plan has critics
Midwest not popular for exchange students
Train, pickup truck wreck kills four
Alternative schedule has parents on day-care ropes
Deaths investigated as murder-suicide
Council becomes video camera-shy
Fort Campbell soldiers face anxiety of war
Grocer brothers convicted of racketeering
Militia movement fading in Kentucky
Poll: Kentuckians back strike on Iraq
Theft suspect accused of IRA connections
