Last night CCSO walking club took part in an awesome community event… tragically, 343 firefighters died on September 11th, 2001, and last night a whole lot of folks joined the Galax Fire Department and Curtis Bartlett Fitness Center for the annual stair climb. It’s not done to celebrate, because 9/11 was a dark dark day for our country. But out of that dark came heroes, and this is to commemorate their sacrifice and bravery. If you’ve never been able to join us, I’d like to explain what happens in Galax at Felts Park every year so that we do not forget. First responders and ordinary citizens show up to listen to Chief Mike talk about what happened that day. There’s a flag down front with the names of all 343 that died running towards the danger instead of away. You can pick a name from the flag and carry a piece of paper in your pocket so that, in effect, you are finishing his or her climb up those stairs in the towers that they did not get to complete when the towers collapsed. If you do seven circuits of up, across, down, up, across, down, up, across, down, across, all of the painted steps on the concrete bleachers, you have done the symbolic climb in its entirety. Now, not everybody there does the entire climb. Everyone just does it to the best of their ability. And there are young people there, there are old people there, there are children, there are firefighters and law-enforcement officers from across many departments, there are nurses and EMTs, there are people from every walk of life.

      Some do not climb at all…..they have come just to clap and support what is being done. When someone has done all they can do or when they have completed the seven circuits, they ring the bell. There are people there that are in the best shape of their lives. There are people there that struggle to go down those steps, and people who struggle to go up the steps. Sometimes, someone stumbles, and someone else puts out their hand and steadies them so they can continue. Every year, it is an amazing sight to see everyone start off in a thundering horde and then fan out to a steady line up across down up across down up across all the way. Some people run at the bottom to get back to the beginning to start again….some people hobble or go slowly. Encouraging words are spoken. Fire gear is there for citizens who want to see what it feels like to carry a fire ax or breathing apparatus. All of us imagine how much harder it would be to do these steps in the middle of thick choking smoke.

    When the event concludes, none of us probably feel like we saved the world, but we will NOT forget, ever, what happened on 9/11. Thank you, Chief Mike. Thank you, Randy and Sam and Caleb from Curtis Bartlett Fitness. Your words made it real for us. Thank you, everyone, for showing up year after year. It means something. It has value. And when I look around, I always think that it has the most meaning and value simply because so many people on those bleachers were not even alive on 9/11/2001. The only reason they know what happened is because we tell them.