Saturday 14 September

This coming week sees the North Harris Mountain Festival, and they have organised a host of events. One of these is a barefoot walk in the machair at Northton, South Harris, overlooking the Sound of Harris towards Berneray and North Uist. I went on the bus at 9.35 and joined a party of 12 (including guide) for a 3 mile walk from Northton towards the old temple below Ceapabhal. The walking boots did come off and stayed off for the duration of the walk, which led along beaches and stretches of machairland. The weather was absolutely stunning, although it did start to change by the middle of the afternoon. The bus took me back to Stornoway for 5pm. During a half-hour stopover in Tarbert, I watched a bit of the action in the raft race, which was a lot of fun. People inevitable ended up in the water - which is none to warm.

Windfarm subsidy

The UK government has announced that renewable energy schemes based on Scottish islands (like the Western Isles) will be given a higher subsidy than its mainland counterparts. This effectively is an incentive to build onshore windfarms in the islands. This means that the interconnector, the subsea electricity cable taking the power to the mainland, will now be constructed as will the windfarms in Eishken and elsewhere.

This blogger has consistently spoken out against onshore windfarms in these islands. This decision is particularly galling, as the groundswell of public opinion has changed markedly in recent years. An increasing number of onshore windfarms on the mainland have been denied planning permission in the face of mounting public opposition. To my mind, the British government have designated the Scottish islands as the dumping ground for those renewable energy projects (read: windfarms) that nobody else wants, and which are nothing more than paying lipservice to the notion of green energy. Windfarms are inefficient and unreliable sources of energy (the last few days have shown how variable our windspeeds are).

This is a bad decision for our islands, who don’t stand to gain anything like what the development companies will be getting in terms of subsidies and revenue. We’re getting the beads and mirrors whilst our resources are being plundered. I’m not talking about wind energy. Having windturbines around destroys the wilderness aspect that lures so many tourists to these islands. It’s tourism that’s the mainstay of these islands’ economy, stupid. The windfarm in Eishken will yield a few million pounds in community benefit, once Comhairle nan Eilean Siar have worked out how to apply for charitable status for the relevant trust body that is supposed to receive those benefits.

Over the next two years, we’ll see a large fleet of construction vehicles on our roads. Over the next quarter century, the skyline of the Long Island will be marred by a large number of windturbines. Employment prospects for island workers will be low during the construction phase and negligible afterwards. We will not have the benefit of lower electricity prices. We only stand to lose from this announcement.

9/11 - 12 years on

This tribute is published on the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001, under the auspices of Project 2996.

Jeffrey Dwayne Collman

Image: Family photograph, via http://guy-at-judson.blogspot.com.

Source: Aurora Beacon News, Aurora IL 9-23-2001
Jeffrey Dwayne Collman, age 41, of Novato, California, formerly of Yorkville, IL, a flight attendant for American Airlines, died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:45a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

Jeffrey was a 1977 graduate of Yorkville High School in Yorkville, IL. Jeff was formerly employed, for over 10 years, at All-Steel in Montgomery, IL. He had then worked, for a brief time, at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California before attaining his dream of being a flight attendant with American Airlines. Jeffrey loved his job and traveling to other countries around the world. He also loved to play and watch tennis. Jeff was a true people person who enjoyed visiting with and getting to know others. He became a flight attendant in 1997. Two years later, Jeff received the American Professional Flight Attendant Award and was considered a spirited and dedicated flight attendant. He liked to entertain children on his flights, and he was fond of playing tennis and traveling, friends said.

He is survived by his parents, Dwayne and Kay Collman of Yorkville, IL and Beverly Sutton of North Aurora, IL; his close companion, Keith Bradkowski of Novato, Ca; his brothers, Charles Collman of Fort Meyers, FL and Brian Collman of Las Vegas, NV; his sister, Brenda Sorenson of Aurora, IL; his step-brothers, Steve (Linda) Gengler of Yorkville, IL and Chuck (Lakshmi) Gengler of South Orange, NJ; his step-sister, Susan Bohan of California; a god-child, Marlene Wakelin; his half-sisters, Laura Kries of Brooklyn Park, MN, Caroline Sutton of Joliet, IL and Vickie Michel of Aurora, IL; several nieces and nephews, many loving aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Jeffrey will also be missed by 100 other flight attendants.

He is preceded in death by his grandparents and his brother, Mark Allen Collman.
A memorial service was held on Monday, October 1, 2001 at the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Yorkville, IL with Pastor John Leaf officiating.

Father’s thoughts
Dwayne Collman's imagination gets the best of him when he thinks about the final minutes of his son's life on American Airlines Flight 11. He's filled with horror thinking about what the 41-year-old flight attendant from Yorkville went through as terrorists with knives steered the plane into the first World Trade Center tower. Collman knows his son received safety training in flight school, but he doubts it ever could have prepared him for the challenges he would face on the morning of Sept. 11. The grieving father is sure of one thing about his son, though, even if the details about his death are not certain:
"He would have fought like hell."

Jeffrey Collman, an American Airlines flight attendant for five years who grew up in Yorkville, died Tuesday morning when his hijacked plane, destined for Los Angeles, crashed into New York's famous landmark at 8:45 a.m. Though his body has not been recovered, his parents knew he was gone when he didn't call within a few hours after the tragedy. He had sent his stepmother, Kay, an e-mail the night before, telling her he would be flying from Boston to Los Angeles the next morning.

"I knew he was in that accident because every time there was something going on with airplanes, he would call and say, 'Hey, I'm all right,' " said Kay Collman. "So I knew that, when he didn't call, he was on that plane."

His parents [...] say Jeffrey Collman wanted to be a flight attendant because he loved to travel and meet people around the world. After working for years at Allsteel in Montgomery, he moved to California about five years ago to pursue that dream. Lifelong friend Dolores Humphrey, who went to school with Jeffrey Collman at all grade levels in Yorkville, said she feared he was killed when she heard the news because he often flew early-week flights from Boston to Los Angeles.
She said Collman never lost contact with his friends, even though his job took him around the world.

"Every time he got into town, he would call anyone he knew to meet for breakfast," said Humphrey, who last talked to Collman [5 days before 9/11]. "He would talk for a couple hours, then have to go fly somewhere else."

His stepmother said Jeffrey was the type of person who could "sit down next to someone on a plane and walk away knowing their life story." His father said Jeffrey loved tennis and flew around the world to watch professionals play. Kay Collman says her stepson never went anywhere meekly, and he loved his job so much that she's sure he didn't back down in the face of terror. "He took it seriously," she said, "and he would not have let anyone walk on him."

Humphrey said Jeffrey talked of flying even when he was a child, and his dream came true when American Airlines gave him a job. He was never afraid to fly, she said, always asserting that he was safer in the air than anyone on the ground. Collman's parents have begun to realize how their son died, and that he will always be remembered as a victim on one of the saddest days ever in the United States.

"It's completely different than just someone dying," Kay Collman said. "We'll have the pictures forever. We'll always see where he died. It's part of history."

Seattle Times, 17 September 2001
His partner, Keith Bradkowski, said Collman was courageous and safety-conscious. "He was so focused on safety," Bradkowski said. "If there was a threat, he would have done anything in his power to prevent it." He didn't normally work the Boston-to-Los Angeles route but made an exception to get vacation time at the end of the month. Collman grew up in Yorkville, Ill., and besides Bradkowski left behind four brothers and a sister. (Seattle Times)

Further information: the fate of Flight 11.

Memorial to flight crew

Source: www.maritimequest.com


Postscript
Blogger Nathanael V.  found out 5 years after 9/11, that Jeffrey Collman was a neighbour's grandson.

Sources
http://www.afacwa.org/memoriam/jeffreycollman.htm
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=jeffrey_collman_1
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5767989

and as attributed above.

9/11 - 12 years on

When this post is published, it will be exactly twelve years to the minute that the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center in New York. The events of what is now referred to as 9/11 are only too well known.

My thoughts are with all victims, whether identified afterwards, or not. In New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

My thoughts are with the passengers and crew on the four flights destroyed. My thoughts are with the victims killed in the World Trade Center. My thoughts are with those emergency workers who lost their lives trying to save others'.

My thoughts today are with the families of those who perpetrated these atrocities, for they lost too. Even before the events of September 2001, they lost their loved ones to a delusion of hate that is not of the religion they claimed to be faithful to. Hatred leads to destruction - as shown seven years ago. Forgiveness is a pillar of Christian faith, as it is one of the Islamic faith. Whether those that lost a loved one in 9/11 can find it in themselves to forgive is beyond my scope.

But first and foremost, my thoughts are with Norberto Hernandez, whose tribute I first filed on Northern Trip, the predecessor to Atlantic Lines, in 2006. The searches for Norberto on Google are contaminated with references to the Falling Man, who was in fact another victim, Jonathan Briley. This confusion has led to much anger and anguish, something the families of both men could do well without.

Norberto, rest in peace.

This entry, as stated above is dedicated to the memory of




Norberto was a pastry chef from Elmhurst, working in the restaurant Windows on the World on the 106th and 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. After the attacks, he was reported missing for a week until parts of a torso and an arm were found in a collapsed stairwell. DNA testing and finger printing reveiled that these were the remains of Norberto. It also invalidated claims that the image of the Falling Man was that of Norberto; this was another victim of 9/11 who will be the subject of a different tribute.



At the time of the attacks on the WTC, Norberto was aged 42 and had been married for 25 years. He was the fourth of ten children by his parents’ marriage, and also had six half-siblings through his father. His parents separated when he was young. Norberto himself had three daughters, three grandchildren and 37 nephews. He was a man of Puerto Rican origins, and had hoped to spend his final days there. Instead, after 9/11, a funeral service was held and his remains cremated in Puerto Rico.

His sister Luz described Norberto. “He was quiet, kind”, she said. “He was a handsome man. Everybody loved him, you know. Everybody.” Norberto’s nickname was Bible, as he was very dependable. Together Forever was his motto.

Norberto started work in Windows on the World at the age of 17, washing dishes. He was interested in cooking, so a manager paid for his tuition at cooking school. Norberto became pastry chef and worked up to 10 hours a day. His sister Luz said that he made cakes, desserts, cookies and bread. His cakes were fabulous.

Outside work, Norberto loved sports, and was a fan of a Puerto Rican boxer, Felix Trinidad Jr. Four days before the attacks, he rang his mother and asked her to play “I would cry but I have no more tears” four times.

In the immediate aftermath of the plane striking the North Tower, Norberto called his sister Luz. “He said: ‘Yeah, don’t worry, I’m OK”.They were disconnected, and when Luz tried to call back she could not get through. Other accounts from Windows on the World tell that smoke and dust filled the restaurant after the strike, and that people lay on the floor to escape the worst of it. Air was beginning to run out at the time of the last contact.

These are the facts that I have managed to pull together from the Internet.

From the little that I have learned of Norberto, he came through as a gentle giant. Although 6’2” (1.84m) tall, he was always listening, and talked later. His family suffered a double loss, as Claribel Hernandez (his sister-in-law), a secretary working elsewhere in the North Tower, was also killed in the attacks. Norberto was close in the family and responsible, which earned him the nickname Bible. He loved his work, and by the look of one of the images, loved to impart that knowledge to others around him.

September 11th, 2001, dawned as a brilliantly sunny morning in New York. Two planes were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center, leading to their collapse within 2 hours. The destruction of so many lives was brought about by mindless hatred and madness, fuelled by religious zealotry which was not based on any writing in any scriptures in any religion.

Norberto may have heard of that on news reports, but it was probably quite far from him. He was a man that lived for his family, always there for them. A diligent worker, putting in up to 10 hours a day, loving his creations from the oven. Travelling to the WTC on the Subway every morning, his thoughts were probably far from what was to happen not that much later on that fateful Tuesday.

Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-six are known to have died that day, or in its immediate aftermath. Norberto’s ashes were scattered in his homeland of Puerto Rico. His memory lives on in his family, and in the memory of those that read this. He is deeply missed by those close to him.

To Norberto Hernandez

Rest In Peace


Links
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/terror/sep19/three_lives.asp
This link is no longer operational

I have attempted to contact the University of Columbia to use the material in this link, but have not received a reply. As it is central to the tribute, I have used it, and acknowledge the writer, Sarah Clemence.

http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/tw6/pg05.htm


This is a poem by Barbara Phillips, from which I have used some factual references to Norberto. It refers to him being the Falling Man though.

http://www.unitedinmemory.net/QuiltH/QuiltH.html

I have been granted permission by UIM to reproduce the commemorative quilt for Norberto.


http://www.queenspress.com/archives/coverstories/2001/issue38/coverstory.htm
Link no longer operational
The poster, pictured above, proclaiming Norberto as missing after the attacks, hung on a walkway of Manhattan for more than a week

Tuesday 10 September

It was overcast and not too cold today - in other words, unremarkable in terms of weather.

I have updated the sidebar and front picture of this blog, which I had not really attended to over the past three months. I had not even switched the seasonal picture over from spring to summer; I could immediately post an autumn pic, in this case of the spider I spotted on Sunday. Sunday's pictures also provided the front pic, which is the blog header. Tomorrow is 9/11, so you will only get two posts in memory of two of the victims of 9/11. The posts are scheduled to appear at 1.46pm BST or 8.46am EDT, the time that the first attack on the WTC in New York took place on 11 September 2001. I intend to update this blog more regularly from now on; October will see the 5th anniversary of this blog and the 9th anniversary of my blogging activities. I commenced my first blog, Northern Trip, on 8 October 2004 at Kyleakin, Isle of Skye, some 75 miles southeast of my current position in Stornoway. At the time, I only had one blog. There are now have 69 blogs on my Blogger account, most of them static, doubling as websites. I also have one or two blogs outside Blogger.

Monday 9 September

The cruiseliner season comes to a close with a visit from the Marco Polo, its 4th visit this season.The day started with a flat calm, which allowed the big spider outside to weave an even more impressive web. Although cloud bubbled up through the morning, it did stay dry. I made further progress with my sixth short story, as well as research into the WW1 casualties from North Uist. In the afternoon, it was reported that Matheson Road in Stornoway was closed following a collision at the junction with Church Street. Later pictures showed that the crash must have happened at quite some speed.

Sunday 8 September

A beautifully sunny day, with only a few fluffball clouds and the mercury at a pleasant 16C / 60F. It was very nice and warm sitting in the sun and out of whatever wind was blowing. A large spider had woven a web and was busy catching wee flies. Bumble bees were flitting about the flowers - a nice late summer's day.

Saturday 7 September

11 degrees this morning with this northerly breeze. Bit nippy. I'm pretty good, even if I say so myself, at working public transport timetables. They can be tricky, certainly in parts of these islands. So I was quite proud to be able to help a visitor who wanted to go to a beach, Callanish and Harris today. No mean feat on a Saturday. By 6 o'clock, the cloud and rain had moved away, leaving us with a nice evening.

Friday 6 September

Fairly bright today, but mainly overcast. Just watched the ferry coming in on the last day this summer that we have three sailings - on Wednesday and Fridays from late June till early September. Normal service, two a day except Sunday, will resume tomorrow. The cessation of the 3 a day service will really mark the end of summer for me. The tourist season will continue until the mid-term holiday in late October. The weather is nice enough, but decidedly autumnal. How about the mushrooms out the back? The starlings are flocking, the days growing shorter. The equinox is nigh, what else to expect?

Wednesday 4 September

Wet, windy and grey sums up today. It was only at sunset time, 8.15pm, that the sun came out in blazing colours. Spent the afternoon compiling more information on WW1 casualties from the island of Berneray.

Monday 2 September

Another windturbine unloaded for installation somewhere in the island. Don't know where, don't really care. The renewables industry was supposed to be the salvation of the islands economy, with the diaspora flocking back to snap up the 400 jobs at the Arnish Fabrication Yard to make all those turbines for all those windfarms that would soon embellish the moors of Lewis and beyond. Well, nothing of the sort has happened. A lot of the turbines are made overseas; one of the them is making a marine habitat somewhere in the North Sea after it washed overboard from the good ship Lass Moon, back in 2006. And those that install the windturbines are not local either - I have seen crews of German workers out and about in the island, putting up the Pentland Road windfarm earlier this year.

Sunday 1 September

A walk around Stornoway on Sunday usually shows nobody about. One thing of note: the poor old Monaco has now well and truly sunk, and is just sitting on the bottom of the harbour. The tide is going up and down in and around it, so that shows the state the wreck is in.

Syria

The House of Commons have surprised all tonight by voting against military intervention in relation to the chemical attacks in Syria last week. That has come as a huge relief to myself, as the consequences of such action were potentially quite serious. However, it should be borne in mind that at present, there is no UN mandate for undertaking such action. The UN Security Council is likely to see a Russian veto against any military action against Russia's ally Syria. The only one who could still mount unilateral military action is the USA, but I'm not so convinced about that happening either. Substantive measures still should be taken against Mr Assad's horror regime, but it's not clear to me what they will me.

Egypt

A few words about events in Egypt in recent weeks. It may be held that the Arab Spring there has failed, with the Muslim Brotherhood's president Morsi being deposed by the Army. The murder of hundreds of people in Cairo and other places around the country is a demonstration of appalling brutality, justified by the current military regime by referring to law and order.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not universally popular in Egypt, far from it. A large number of people are apprehensive about the Islamists, fearing the imposition of strict Islamic rule - look at Iran as to what that looks like. Since the Brotherhood came to power, people who initially opposed deposed president Hosni Mubarak increasingly expressed a longing for his return to power. Although his was an oppressive and repressive regime, it was seen to provide a degree of stability at home and abroad.

There is a huge divide in Egyptian society, and for the moment, the military have patched the gap. But for how long, I wonder.

Syria

I just want to say that I abhor what happened in Syria. Although there is no cast-iron evidence, I hold the Assad regime responsible. The Russian government, being Assad's primary backers, are indirectly complicit. Mr Putin &co are in a position to reign in the worst of the excesses of the Syrian regime. However, they have swallowed hook, line and sinker, all the lies and fabrications that have come out of Damascus over the past two years. I am not saying that the rebels are any better. They are not. Given the right hardware, they would behave in exactly the same fashion as the Assad regime would.

David Cameron and William Hague (the British prime minister and foreign secretary) are treading a very dangerous path, if they are aiming to militarily retaliate against Syria for the use of nerve gas in Damascus last week. When you engage in a military campaign, you can NEVER anticipate how your adversary will react. I'm not a betting man, but I'd be prepared to wager that Assad will react in the worst fashion possible. An attack on Israel, aided and abetted by his regional ally Iran is almost a certainty. Also, what would the Russian government do in this situation, as in, would they continue to back the Assad regime in the face of an all-out assault? At any rate, the resulting conflagration will spiral out of any control of Mr Cameron and Mr Obama may think they have before you know where you are. I would

The British parliament will debate the issue tomorrow, Thursday 29th August. The motion being debated will be worded in such a way that it its passage through the House of Commons is a virtual certainty, leaving the door open for the prime minister to act as he sees fit. Including military action. I'm not looking forward to the next few days and weeks.

Tuesday 20 August

The day started misty, but in the end the cloud lifted and let in warm sunshine. Early in the evening, the mist rolled in again from the sea and it became quite grey and chilly. Late August in the Hebrides - a distinct whiff of autum in the air.

Monday 19 August

The men of Ness have set off for the annual guga hunt. The guga is the salted meat of a gannet chick. They are culled under an EU license to keep their tradition alive. A local wag has previously suggested they be boiled in diesel - guga is reportedly very oily. After a two week spell on Sula Sgeir, 40 miles north of Lewis, the men will return with 2,000 guga.