interesting pre 9-11 story

the kids and i went to mom & dad's yesterday after our visit to the yellow river game ranch. as sean was making dinner (his hand is healing very well, and very exspensively since a certain someone has kicked him off her insurance) denise and niko arrived. niko and my kids and david played po-ke-no in the kitchen with mom while denise, joe, dad, and i talked in the living room. somehow, the hudson river miracle came up. dad started telling us about how he flew that same model years ago. denise asked if he remembers flying over the hudson on his way into laguardia. he corrects her and says something about the landing route being way to the west of the city. he said he used to call into the tower and tell them that he'd prefer to fly over the hudson. that he'd also prefer to fly at 500 feet. and i was shocked at the tower's answer. they "okay'd" it! i'm sure to new yorkers back then it was probably a marvelous sight. but i'm so used to post 9-11 thinking that my head can't fully wrap around that idea without flashing to the news reports of the attack. it kind of made me mourn the lost innocence of our country. i pray things like that never happen again. thanks to all the troops for taking measures to make sure it never does.