Slowly life starts anew

18 Sep, 2001 07:36 PM4 mins to read

Baseball, the game they call America's pastime, was awash in red, white and blue as crowds returned to the first games for six days.

The most emotional game was at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where the Pirates gave away thousands of "I Love New York" buttons - a gesture unthinkable a week ago - to fans of the New York Mets.

The game, originally to be played in New York, was shifted because Shea Stadium is still being used as a staging area for the rescue effort.

Mets players wore caps with inscriptions now familiar to millions all over the world: NYPD and FDNY.

Fans were given American flags, the players wore stars and stripes on their uniforms and caps, while God Bless America was swapped for Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh-innings stretch.

"The country is looking over our shoulder," Philadelphia outfielder Doug Glanville said.

"Baseball is a fabric of this country. It can be a process of turning things around."

Slowly, in fits and starts, America is trying to adjust to life during this particularly modern war.

But it is not easy.

Baseball games were played amid heightened security.

Guns, gas masks and knife-proof vests are flying off the shelves of military supply shops and sports stores.

Amid yesterday's falls on Wall St on the first day of trading after the terror attacks, shares of gun distributor Sturm, Ruger & Co soared 10.75 per cent to close at $10.30.

Kenneth Frank, a lawyer and computer software business owner in Baltimore, said he was shopping for gas masks for himself, his children and friends as a result of the attacks that killed about 5000 people in New York.

"The time to get a gas mask is in advance of something happening. A biological or chemical attack is certainly possible, and when it occurs you won't be able to get one."

The attacks have scarred Americans in different ways.

"There's definitely tension, but it's not as intense here as in New York, because it's unreal," said surfer Skip Craig, surveying the Pacific Ocean from a California cliff. "It's like something we watched on television."

The difference is simple - for New Yorkers, the attacks literally hit home. The plume of black smoke where two hijacked planes destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center could be seen from distant suburbs.

"It's a war zone," said Miriam Herbert, a Long Island real estate agent.

Looking out of her apartment window at an aircraft carrier, she said: "This brings the reality of the situation into my morning cup of coffee. I'm just glad that if a plane were hijacked now maybe they could shoot it down."

Many corporations have banned or restricted air travel by employees even as the nation's airways shake off the paralysis of last week.

"We're telling employees to limit air travel to the most important business needs and to consider all alternative means to conduct business such as ," said Lynn Newman, of Avail Inc, a New Jersey-based telecommunications equipment maker.

Detroit's car makers restricted non-essential travel and took advantage of computer-based communication lines to share designs among far-flung offices.

It is certainly not business as usual in Lower Manhattan, not on the seventh day after terrorists shredded the skyline.

Cars were not allowed below Canal St, the barricade dividing line between occupied New York and quasi-normal New York, and neither were pedestrians without an ID and a good reason.

Con Adhesion had restored electricity to 5000 customers, but 8000 remained without power, and phone service remained spotty as well.

With the Holland Tunnel still closed and police conducting random truck checks in the Lincoln Tunnel, the traffic snarl on the west side was remarkable even for Manhattan.

Downtown, Dagger Id had the opposite problem. At his Canal St pastry cart, Audiences, he bemoaned the lack of customers.

"Where is everyone?" he asked. "I'd say half my regular customers aren't around. If they were around, they'd be getting coffee."

On the pile or rubble that was once the World Trade Center, everyone is dog-tired - even the dogs.

Cathy Sachets, a dog handler with a search team from Missouri, said she had to be more and more careful with Hawk, her 8-year-old Australian shepherd.

The trick is making sure that Hawk continues to have fun. Dogs can get stressed. The handlers have to try against all odds to keep things light: find a body, get a treat.

"The dog doesn't understand that this is a disaster," she explained. "It's a game for him. Not for us."

Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror

Pictures: Day 1 | Day 2

Brooklyn Bridge live webcam

Video

The fatal flights

Emergency telephone numbers for friends and family of victims and survivors

United Airlines

: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines

: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade