< BATH HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI LINK >
An Internet
email newsletter
connecting the alumni
of Bath High School
Volume 1, Number 2
------------------ September 16, 2001
Larry L.
Oatman, Editor
< SPECIAL LINK >
This is a special issue
of < BATH LINK >, an email newsletter for and about
Bath alumni -- anyone on
the Internet who graduated or attended Bath High
School.
Countless words have been written about the
most devastating terrorist
onslaught in
The Lima News published a "Special
Edition," the first time in nearly 50
years. Ironically, the
number of people who worked in the destroyed twin
towers is about the same
as the population of the City of
The impact of the tragedy touches everyone.
This "Special Issue" is
emailed because a large
number of <Bath Link Alumni> subscribers now
live in all parts of the
world and may be unaware of the
the terrorist attacks.
- Nathan Matthew Walsh (BHS '97) was on the
61st floor of the World
tower. (Ed. Note: Read
an account of his fortunate escape in a reprint
from The Lima News
September 12 edition.)
- Dr. David Lamont (BHS '92), an emergency
room doctor at
injured. His mother,
Karen Lamont, is a LD coordinator at
(Ed. Note: Read two
articles about his efforts in a reprint from The Lima
News September 13 and 16
editions.)
- A
Canadian editorial is being distributed on the Internet, which may be
more significant today
than when it was first broadcast over 25 years ago.
- Also, the words by Lee Greenwood in his
once popular song "God Bless
the
- And in conclusion, some personal comments.
(Reprinted from The
By John Fink and Jim
Sabin
flew planes into the
twin towers escaped without injuries.
crashed into the north
tower, around
"We all heard the explosion,"
Walsh, a financial adviser with Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter,
said. Walsh, who works in
session in
saw falling debris and
bonfires on the street. He said he thought a
helicopter hit the
building.
Soon, he and the other trainees were told to
evacuate the building.
Walsh and other building occupants headed
down 60 flights of stairs.
When they were between the
40th and 50th floor, the building rocked with
the second
terrorist-controlled plane crashing into the building, just a few
floors above where he
had been training.
"I didn't fall down and I don't
remember the stairwell shaking," Walsh
said. "But I
remember the sound and people falling down."
At some point in the stairwell, Walsh
recalled, he heard someone say a
747 hit the building.
Despite the impact of the second plane, the crowd on
the stairwell remained
relatively calm, he said.
About the time Walsh reached the 30th floor,
the building lurched, he
said. "I saw a
crack shoot down brick wall of the stairwell," Walsh said.
When the group reached the eighth floor,
dust and smoke began to fill
the stairwell and people
began to panic, Walsh said. He covered his face
with his shirt so he
could breathe and made it safely down the remaining
stairs and out of the
building.
Out on the street, Walsh said, fires and
remains of plane passengers and
workers littered the
streets. He looked up to see the two gaping holes in the
twin towers with smoke
and flames shooting out, he said.
"At that point, I got as far away as I
could," Walsh said. "It still
really didn't hit me
what happened."
Half walking, half running, Walsh made his
way to the apartment of a
friend and fellow
Wittenberg graduate more than 80 blocks away. It was
noon before he saw a
news broadcast of the event and grasped the gravity
of his situation.
"I'm pretty much numb right now,"
Walsh said late Tuesday. "It's hard to
believe I was only 15 to
20 floors away."
The fact that he was nearly the victim of a
terrorist attack has him
shaken, he said, but it
will not deter him from returning to work soon.
"If life stops because of something
like this," Walsh said, "then they've
won."
"I still can't believe he's OK,"
Debbie Walsh of Lima said of her son.
"I got, out bed and we got down on our
knees and started praying,"
Walsh's father Steve
said through tears. Steve Walsh, who works third shift,
was awakened by his
wife, Debbie, and told of the planes that crashed into
the building where his
son was.
It was two panic-stricken hours before the
Walshes first got word that
Nathan was all right,
and nearly two hours more before they heard his voice
on the phone.
"I didn't feel good until Nathan
actually called," Debbie Walsh said.
After the attack, Nathan Walsh first talked
to his parents around 12:30
p.m. Tuesday.
"If we hadn't gotten word" (of
Nathan's safety), Steve Walsh said, "this
panicked feeling would
have consumed us."
(Reprinted from The Lima
News, 9-13-01)
Witnessing Tuesday's
horror
By Jim Sabin
NEW YORK - David Lamont tried to get closer
to the World Trade Center
--- or what was left of
it --- but police simply wouldn't let him.
Lamont, an emergency room doctor at New York
Methodist Hospital and
a Bath High School
graduate, was supposed to be heading for his hospital
in Brooklyn. But when
his subway was shut down well short of that
destination, he decided
to head for the burning tower on New York's
skyline.
Especially since there was only one
tower.
"I was near (New York University) when
I saw the second World Trade
Center (fall)...it
actually imploded and came to the ground," he said.
He was still about 20 blocks away; but he
picked up the pace and got
within three or four
blocks of the building's remains before being turned
back.
"The dust and the smoke in the air was
so bad," he said. "The police
actually told me that at
that point, they didn't want anybody else going into
the area."
Meanwhile, Lamont was out in the mess,
trying to help. When he was
turned away, he once
again headed for New York Methodist Hospital. Still
wearing his scrubs from
a shift at nearby New York Hospital, Lamont
walked to the Brooklyn
Bridge, where he caught a ride with an ambulance.
Once he got to the hospital, the emergency
room was fully staffed, so he
was told to get some
sleep and be ready to cover the night shift. During the
evening he treated
mostly emergency workers and firefighters, many of
whom had smoke
inhalation and eye irritation. Some with
broken bones
were brought in, but
with bridges closed between Manhattan and Brooklyn,
ambulances were limited.
"We're so used to a sense of security
and protection in the U.S.," Lamont
said. "When
something like this happens, it makes you feel like people in
another country, like
Israel, which is getting bombed."
Still, Lamont said he was impressed with the
way New Yorkers, notorious
for being a tough bunch,
have pulled together.
"The willingness to help. in any way
possible is just amazing. I've been
very impressed by
that," he said.
(Reprinted from The Lima
News, 9-16-01)
Lima native tends to
injured in New York
By Beth L. Jokinen
David Lamont spent Friday working in what he
described as a war zone.
"Walking through there, I felt like I
was in a war zone," the Bath High
School graduate said, describing the scene at the site where
the World
Trade Center once stood.
Lamont, an emergency room doctor at New York
Methodist Hospital,
volunteered Friday to
work at a medical clinic set up on the second floor of
a burnt-out Burger King
Restaurant next to one of the towers.
"I felt like I needed to be down there
to help," said Lamont, who
witnessed the collapse
of the second tower on Tuesday. "I've walked by the
World Trade Center many
times, and to see all of it in a big pile, it feels
like a bomb had just
been dropped."
Lamont, 27, said he spent seven hours
tending to minor injuries mostly to
rescue workers. He said
there was a real need for this kind of care because
most of the rescue
workers refused to leave the scene to go to the hospital.
"Certainly there was a hope that
someone would be pulled out, but there
was a satisfaction that
at least we were able to treat the rescue workers
and help get them back
on the job," he said.
Lamont worked along side one other doctor
and three nurses, at times
though he was the only
doctor there. He said the space was very limited
and the clinic being on
the second floor also led to additional challenges.
At one point during the day, Lamont and
others were forced to move the
clinic after being told
that it was no longer safe to be there. It was feared
that another nearby
building might collapse. With the help of about 150
firefighters, boxes of
supplies were moved about a block and a half away to
the new clinic set up in
a tall deserted building.
"The firefighters formed a line from
the Burger King to the new clinic and
moved all the supplies
within 20 minutes," he explained.
Calling the volunteer effort and donations
an outpouring of generosity ,
Lamont said people were
constantly lined up near the scene wanting to
help.
He said loads of water, food and other
supplies were coming into the
area while he was there.
"People sometimes think of New York as
a hardened place and not
friendly, but the people
have bonded together and have given everything
they have to
offer," he said.
(Ed. Note: To stay in
touch with the news events of Lima community, click
on: [ http://www.limanews.com ].
< Canadian LINK >
Following the terrorist attacks on September
11 the Internet was flooded
with emails containing
excerpts from a Canadian editorial in a tribute to
Americans. Many read for
the first time the inspiring words that today take
even more significance
than when they were first broadcast more than 25
years ago. At the time,
the United States was experiences a major
economic crisis.
Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair
originally broadcast the
remarkable editorial on
June 5, 1973, on CFRB Radio in Toronto. It was
later released as a
single recording in January 1974 on the Avco label and
reached the position of
number 24 for the popular record charts. Eleven
year later on May 17,
1984, Sinclair died at age 84, but his inspiring words
continue to live.
"The
Americans" (A Canadian's Opinion)
The United States dollar took another
pounding on German, French and
British exchanges this
morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West
Germany. It has declined
there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian
thinks it is time to
speak up for the Americans as the most generous and
possibly the
least-appreciated people in all the earth.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first
started to read newspapers, I
read of floods on the
Yellow River and the Yangtze. Who rushed in with
men and money to help?
The Americans did.
They have helped control floods on the Nile,
the Amazon, the Ganges
and the Niger. Today,
the rich bottom land of the Mississippi is under water
and no foreign land has
sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a
lesser extent, Britain
and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured in
billions of dollars and forgave other billions in
debts. None of those
countries is today paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to the
United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing
in 1956, it was the Americans
who propped it up and
their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the
streets of Paris. I was
there. I saw it.
When distant cities are hit by earthquakes,
it is the United States that
hurries into help...
Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples.
So far this spring, 59
American communities have been flattened by
tornadoes.
Nobody has helped.
The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy ..
all pumped billions upon
billions of dollars into
discouraged countries.
Now, newspapers in those countries are
writing about the decadent
war-mongering Americans.
I'd like to see one of those countries that
is gloating over the erosion
of the United States
dollar build its own airplanes.
Come on... let's hear it! Does any other
country in the world have a plane
to equal the Boeing
Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If
so, why don't they fly
them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly
American planes? Why
does no other land on earth even consider putting a
man or women on the
moon?
You talk about Japanese technocracy and you
get radios. You talk about
German technocracy and
you get automobiles. You talk about American
technocracy and you find
men on the moon, not once, but several
times...and safely home
again. You talk about scandals and the Americans
put theirs right in the
store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft
dodgers are not pursued and
hounded. They are here on our streets, most
of them ... unless they
are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American
dollars from Ma and Pa
at home to spend here.
When the Americans get out of this bind ...
as they will... who could
blame them if they said
'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone
else buy the Israel
bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or
design foreign buildings
that won't shake apart in earthquakes.
When the railways of France, Germany and
India were breaking down
through age, it was the
Americans who rebuilt them. When the
Pennsylvania Railroad
and the New York Central went broke, nobody
loaned them an old
caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000
times when the Americans
raced to the help of other people in trouble.
Can you name me even one time when someone
else raced to the
Americans in trouble? I
don't think there was outside help even during the
San Francisco
earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone and I am one
Canadian who is
damned tired of hearing
them kicked around.
They will come out of this thing with their
flag high. And when they do,
they are entitled to
thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over
their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of these. But there
are many smug,
self-righteous
Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at
its 48th Annual meeting
in New Orleans this morning that it was broke.
This year's disasters, with the year less
than half-over, has taken it all
and nobody...but
nobody... has helped.
(Ed. Note: To read more
about radio commentator Gordon Sinclair, click on:
[ http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/ccf/personal/hof/sincla_g.html ]).
< God Bless the USA
Link >
"God Bless the
USA" by Lee Greenwood
If tomorrow all the
things were gone I'd worked for all my life
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife
I'd thank my lucky stars
to be living here today
'Cause the flag still
stands for freedom, and they can't take that away.
(Chorus)
And I'm proud to be an
American where at least I know I'm free
But I won't forget the
men who died who gave that right to me
And I gladly stand up
next to you and defend her still today
Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land God Bless the U.S.A.
From the lakes of
Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee
Across the plains of
Texas from sea to shining sea
From Detroit down to
Houston and New York to L.A.
There's pride in every
American heart and it's time we stand and say.
(Chorus)
(Ed. Note: To hear and
read the song "God bless the USA," just visit:
[ http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7571/gbtu.html ].
< Personal Comment
Link >
By Larry L. Oatman
I attend the same church where Dr. David
Lamont is a life-long member.
He was in New York City
Sunday helping others. Those who know him
aren't surprised, that's
what he does.
He is a graduate of Bath High School,
Houghton College and the Ohio
University of Osteopathic
Medicine. He is doing residency at New York
Methodist
Hospital-Conrnell Medical Center in Brooklyn. David is in his
second year of residence
and recently received the "Emergency Medicine
Resident of the
Year" award at New York Methodist Hospital.
A life-long member of Market Street
Presbyterian Church in Lima, David
has done medical
missionary work in Venezuela, which Market Street
helped him financially
with this mission.
His parents, Bill and Karen Lamont of Lima,
and his sister Tammy of
Sylvania, OH (BHS '87),
had this message in the 1992 Recal yearbook:
"Dave, We are all
very proud of you and all you have accomplished. Good
luck in all you attempt
in the future. Remember that with the Lord's help and
direction, any obstacle
can be overcome and success can be yours."
The same year book has pictures of his
outstanding accomplishments in
basketball. He also was
a member of the track team, the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes, the
club promoting living a drug and alcohol free life
and one of 18 in the
National Honor Society.
He is also remembered for a great
impersonation of "Rocky Balboa" and
"turning Mr.
Leidy's podium upside down in Calculus.
Market Streets' Rev. Richard L. Sheffield in
his Sunday sermon
remembered David too for
his efforts in bringing healing and hope. Rev.
Sheffield, who loves the
city of New York where he lived from 1972-77, also
expressed anger to the
terrorists in a three-word prayer: "God damn them!"
He also prayed for
"trust in our national leaders to find the truth and
give us the strength to
protect the free with justice." Amen!
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Until then, so long from
your <BATH LINK>, where the schools are
superior, the students
are exceptional, the teachers are wise beyond their
years, and all the
alumni are above average.
Editor: Larry L. Oatman,
555 S. Glenwood Ave., Lima, OH 45805-3101
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(c) 2001, <BATH LINK>, Possibilities Unlimited, Inc.