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THE LAST SUNSET |
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I was driving west through the Cleveland National Forest, past wooded groves and small settlements, when I heard the news. A jet had crashed into the sea off Port Hueneme (California).
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I remember the exact moment. It was at sunset. |
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I was 30 minutes out of Lake Elsinore on a meandering search for columns across the Inland Empire. The route I was taking, Highway 74, winds through Riverside and Orange counties, up and over a summit of about 2,000 feet. |
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The views from certain high points are awesome in their scope, looking down on open valleys and across to the crisp outline of other ridges, sketched in penciled detail against an early winter twilight. |
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The scene was especially compelling at this moment. A sunset gleaming with pastels superimposed on a sky cleansed by rain had created an iridescence that was almost blinding. |
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Few moments are more magical. |
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I stopped to stare and to marvel. The car radio was on but barely audible, a murmur in the background. But still I heard the terrible news. Years of being tuned to bulletins train one to pick out the essential words of shattering events amid the otherwise mundane. |
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A jetliner with 88 people aboard has gone down 45 minutes earlier. The impact of the news was in sharp contrast to the texture of the moment. And for reasons I can't explain, I found myself wondering if those aboard had seen the sunset too. |
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It was an odd collision of pain and beauty. My first thought was, "Oh, the humanity." It was a phrase broadcast in tears and grief by a young radio reporter, Herb Morrison, as he watched the airship Hindenburg go down in flames 63 years ago. |
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Oh, the humanity. Has it ever been said better? |
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There were 88 elements of humanity, men, women and children, aboard the Alaska Airlines jet as it dropped from the sky like a wounded bird and marked its grave with a tower of seawater shooting into the air. |
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One can only imagine the sudden,k gasping horror of the plane's final seconds. Did the passengers know they were going down? Was there a warning? Or did the end come too quickly for the mind to compute its terror? |
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The search for survivors was already underway by the time I drove out of the mountains and on to Interstate 5. Details of the crash were now coming in snippets of talk, like bits of conversation overheard across a crowded room. |
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The flight path. The words of a witness. The function of a horizontal stabilizer. The realibility of an MD-83. The litany of calamity, always the same. |
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Oh, the humanity. |
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I don't know how many plane crashes I've covered over the past four decades of newspapering. I don't know how many body bags I've seen or how many fields of wreckage. But I do remember my first. |
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It was in the mid-1950s. A four-engine turboprop had gone down in San Francisco Bay and I was there in a small fishing boat out of Point Richmond to report on the rescue effort. |
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I remember seeing bits of wing and fuselage bobbing like toys on a churning surface. I remember seeing scraps of luggage and clothing. And I remember seeing bodies, torn and mutilated beyond description. |
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Calamity has a way of imprinting itself on memory. Years later I can still evoke those moments in vivid detail. Time and similar experiences make them no less horrifying. |
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Radio reports of Monday's crash filled my car for the remainder of my trip from the Inland Empire t L.A. |
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It was late by the time I reached home and turned on the television. Harsh scenes of tragedy were repeated far into the night. Helicopters hovered over a sea illuminated by searchlights. Emergency vehicles stood ready on the shore. Body bags lay in a neat row along a walkway. |
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The voices of witnesses became faces. Graphics illustrated the plane's plunge from 17,000 feet. Airport scenes were heavy with a blend of urgency and grief. |
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I could have gone to the rescue scene, but I didn't. It was enough to have seen the sunset gleaming against the fading day. It was enough to wonder if those aboard Flight 261 had seen the same colors, the same iridescence, the same glory. |
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It was enough to ponder if, in their last moments, they had been granted one last look at a vision of life they would never see again. |
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Oh, the humanity. |
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(THE LAST SUNSET, by Al Martinez, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, February 2, 2000) |
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BEACH REVISITED |
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By Camilo |
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I remember looking into the darkness from the pier at Port Hueneme many years before. The cold breeze brushing through my face as I tossed a fishing line into the cold waters, gently splashing on the barnacle-clad posts. There were a few boats out there on certain nights--there for the bountiful catch that the site was locally famous for. Spider crabs, rock cods, smelt, red snappers, mackerels. I had my share of the catch and the pier gave me and my friends something to look forward to when nights would rather have us sob er and still enjoy a few hours telling sea stories.
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It was a place to share moments with friends. It was a place to unwind from. It was a place where people come to peek into your bucket to see if you've caught a beauty. |
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Years have passed and I have since "abandoned" fishing. Not that I have really acquired true taste of the same but because I found it much easier to go to the grocery store for a comparable fresh fish. |
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Port Hueneme welcomed me again last Saturday, February 5, 2000. The beach was quiet and there were the remnants of flowers, candles, and other things--for the 88 victims of the Alaska Airlines crash. For some reason, I felt compelled to go for a visit. Not that I miss the beach from previous trips but because I wanted to feel the pain, the void, the dreamlike terror that it can have for people who in some tragic moment, plunge into its waters and not to come up again. I felt the sadness, I felt the enormous pull of the sand and the sea. I felt the loss of loved ones as I saw friends and relatives of victims carve the sand with subliminal doodles. Some just stared at the sea as if their loved ones will still show up. Some just sat together on the sand with heads leaned on one another in paroxysmal grief. |
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Inside my vehicle, I played a song. It was enough to make me feel myself again--on being a part of humanity. A mortal being--who can be recalled at any time, rain or shine, land or sea. And I took one last look at the beach where friends and I once screamed with joy. Only this time it was awfully quiet and only the smiling faces were the unseen ones. |
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I turned the music off. But I still heard the music the waves made as they said goodbye to me. The happiness that lurked inside me was enough to evoke a feeling of sorrow. And I bowed my head, said a little prayer and said to myself, "It could have been anybody's relative, or friend." |
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WAY BEYOND |
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the uneasy gestures belittled the muffled sound |
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of clattered voices, unprepared speeches |
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the darkening horizon gleams, the whizzing clouds hushed |
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the feelings of uncertainty despite glorious moments |
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shared with feelings of togetherness. |
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again the mortified pleasures are relentlessly rehearsed, |
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the unsure winks, the unprecedented bleakness, |
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the woeful sounds of silence-- |
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the last glimpse of the earth below, and a tinge of |
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a golden sunset with gilded waves waving |
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as if inviting a group of angels to sing once more |
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only to be given the assurance that there is still life... |
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way beyond. |
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--camilo 2-9-00 |
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