Chicago - A message from the station manager

Chicagoetry: I Was Watching Jim Miklaszewski

By J.J. Tindall

I WAS WATCHING JIM MIKLASZEWSKI
I was watching Jim Miklaszewski when the plane
hit the Pentagon. I did not yet know that my friend
Dan was killed. Rod would call
with that “news” the following day. Our hilarious, radical, knucklehead
high-school buddy had become Commander of Naval Intelligence


for the Middle East. Later on 9/11, on the
radio, I heard that the plane hit the Navy part of the building.
I went, to myself, “I didn’t hear
that.” When the Cole was bombed a year or two before, I was glad that
Dan was safe in the
Pentagon.
On, 9/12, I sent him an e-mail: “You OK?”
We hadn’t been getting along so well
of late, and that made me more
worried.
Then, Rod
called . . .
I’m losing it right now . . . shit! . . .
(SHIT!) He was our
friend, and
we miss
him
a
lot . . .

J. J. Tindall is the Beachwood’s poet-in-residence. He can reached at jjtindall@yahoo.com. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

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Posted on September 11, 2007