Today we have the 20th Anniversary Cachet Remembering 9/11. In addition to the cachet today at my local post office, I am sharing five scrapbook pages from my 2001 Yearbook with photos. They are from my capturing that day live from watching the television coverage all day.
I’m posting my blog a day early to pause and commemorate this solemn occasion.
First of all, my sincere thanks to Wilmington Philatelic Society stamp club buddy Jimmy for his suggestions yesterday on ideas for creating the cachet with the black band around the envelope for it to be a mourning cachet.
Back on September 11, 2015, my blog post on 9 – 11 Commemoration features four special covers for the 10th Anniversary. In it I mention in a future post I would be sharing my layouts of September 11, 2001, and so today I am with this post.
20th Anniversary Cachet Remembering 9/11
For the cachet, I was able to get the date stamp of 2021 September 11 on it. The color printing I did on my local HP printer at home and used Canva for creating the design.
The Post Office was exceptional in their hand cancel of it for me and I am very grateful. With all of the time constraints they have, it is a treat for me to get something hand-canceled. Although I believe I should be able to have it given back to me, when I approached it was blank for the address, they insisted it be addressed and sent on its way so I sent it to myself. I’m looking forward to it arriving at our home.
Remembering 9/11/2001 from my personal 2001 Yearbook Scrapbook pages
If you are new to my blog, you may not know I have been scrapbooking since 1995 and have completed over 52 12×12 scrapbooks by hand. For many years I did an annual Yearbook, besides Beach Trip Albums, and Christmas Albums. In 2001 we were on our family beach trip to Pawley’s Island, SC, and were all together for September 11.
During the day we were all glued to the television and I vividly recall taking live photos of the television all day. As I recall this was on 35 mm and would be having to send the film off to the photo lab to get them printed and then do the layout in my pages for the scrapbook. This was back when we got our photos sent to the photo lab and then would scrapbook the pages old-school by hand. I was really good back then about scrapbooking the year events during the year itself. So the layout was done in 2001.
And I’m including this scrapbooking note about the layout – the background paper with the photos on top of them – was hand torn by me, representing my feeling the world as we knew it was being torn apart.
I remember thinking to myself it was important that I capture the day as we saw it at the time; I’m grateful I have them to share today.
Recalling September 11, 2011 20 years ago in my Christmas Newsletter that year
Furthermore, I’m sharing from my Christmas newsletter to the scrapbook in 2001. My newsletter format is to have a opening paragraph about current events, and then the rest of the newsletter (sometimes two pages typed 8 1/2 x 11) have sections about each family members by groupings. Over the years having them in the annual yearbook albums comes in handy recalling details of what we were doing at the time.
This excerpt is from my Christmas 2001 Newsletter to the scrapbook, dated December 24, 2001:
It was just a year ago with the Country had completed a contested presidential election with a divided citizenship; today, we are more united than we’ve been in a generation. Our family was on its annual beach vacation when we witnessed together the horror and shock of September 11, 2001 via television. At this time when America and her Allies are at War again Terrorism, we cherish our family, friends and freedom. The notable achievement of 2001 is our resiliency as a nation to recover, rebound and renew our strengths. In keeping with the Presidents’ request “to carry on normally”, we will do so.
Just as I did in my 2015 September 11 blog post, today I am not closing my blog post with my usual sign-off but instead am closing with revered silence.
