Are we done with 9-11?

I realize I may get flamed into the pit of hell for even bothering to posit this, but I'm interested in what people think.

Are we done with 9-11?

I'm not being crass, I'm just observing. For the first few years after 9-11-01, the anniversary remembrances were always quite poignant, and always televised, usually taking up the entire morning block on most TV channels.

Now, not so much. It seems as a nation we've moved on a bit. I saw a couple of little blurbs on TV and the net today, but honestly, had I not looked at the calendar I probably wouldn't have known it was 9-11.

Now of course, the previous administration barely let a day go by without a mention of 9-11, Code Orange, or "The war on terror." Honestly when I think back on that era, it creeps me out a bit. It's a little weird to remember my heart going into my throat just a little bit the first time they raised the threat level to Code Orange. I even remember finding an abandoned backpack at work and everybody freaking out because they were convinced it was dirty bomb.

It's obvious that the most positive days of the Bush years will be remembered as those weeks and months immediately after 9-11 when he stood on the rubble of the twin towers with his bullhorn and championed the American resolve from the halls of Congress. These are moments that, love Bush or hate him, will be forever etched in American History, up there with Pearl Harbor, JFK in Dallas, Gettysburg, and Yorktown.

But what about now? We remember in passing, most of us. I saw a few mentions on Facebook today, but obviously we're not in the same wrist-slashing sorrowful mood we were in 5 or 6 years back.

So what should we do with this day, September 11? Should we make it a Federal Holiday like Memorial Day? Or does that trivialize it, just giving people across the country one more excuse to have a late summer BBQ? Should we just let it ebb throughout the coming years?

Personally, I think we have to move on. The best way to show American resolve is keep up our day to day lives. Let people remember 9-11 in their own way, let people go out and do service projects, let them go on Youtube and find the original news footage. Don't make it a holiday though. Don't let these people's deaths become another excuse for the kids to be out of school. Don't let the sacredness of that original memory become an excuse for moving the observance to the closest Friday or Monday so that Federal workers get a 3 day weekend. To me, that's not proper.

I'll never forget, most people won't, but let's not let those poignant memories keep us from dealing with the present and looking to the future.