Always something there to remind me.

I was given this as a Christmas present by my wife, back in 2000.

Where did it come from? Let's see the reverse side:

It was a big seller for Macy's that Christmas. I remember them advertising it.

Before the next Christmas, those two towers would be destroyed, along with thousands of innocent people, in an act of unspeakable evil.

The first memory to fade, to me, was how important the World Trade Center was downtown. You could see the towers from everywhere. Everyone knew someone who worked there, or had done, or had worked there themselves. The complex was as big as a small city, only vertical. And deep; there was a full-fledged shopping mall in the cellar, which was awful and empty for a long time, but became popular and thriving in the 1980s. It was easy to forget those things later, the way one's memory of a family member becomes consumed by the memory of his long and painful decline.

But there's always something there to remind me.

A Monopoly game Mom got in the 1990s.

Trump Tower is the equivalent of Boardwalk, by the way, and Tiffany's is Park Place. The World Trade Center is actually not a property on the board, nor is it mentioned in Community Chest or Chance cards, like other properties. But there it is on the game board, dead center.

I noticed that the iPhone U.S. holidays calendar did not list Patriot Day today. For that matter, neither did the calendar we got from the church. I don't need to see it on the calendar. It's not like I've forgotten.

It's all right. I want to remember it. I want to remember it all.