I saw summer turn to fall on the median of the West Side Highway where I stood waving my American flag, holding up hand made thank you signs, saluting the rescue and recovery workers. The crews, coming from long shifts, appreciate the support. When they pass in their various vehicles, (fire engines, police cars, ambulances, motorcycles, army trucks, heavy rigs, MTA buses, Verizon vans, sanitation trucks,Con Ed trucks, food and water trucks), they honk, blow sirens, wave back.

By the second week, a system had developed. Someone would yell “incoming” and we rushed to the downtown side. “Outgoing” we rushed to the uptown side. The first few days, it was so crowded, we did not have to do this; both sides were lined thick with cheerleaders.

I know people went to back to work after a few days, but I teach at Manhattan Community College, which was commandeered, so this became my job.

The second Sunday after, two police cars stopped, and the officers got out to greet us. This had not happened before. It was the canine rescue unit from Knox County, Tennessee. The officers wore green uniforms and had heavy southern accents. Two of them removed their hard hard hats and asked us to sign them!

I wrote “New York Loves You-Thanks.” Then they took our pictures and we took their pictures.

The dogs jumped out too. We asked if we could pet them – Max and Chase – the hero dogs from Tennessee. The cops told us the dogs were stressed out and needed attention. Everyone petted the dogs.

We asked the officers if they had ever been to New York before. “No, first time,” one drawled.

“Ya’ll come back,” we said as they sped off.

As our ranks thinned into a raggedly encampment at the corner of Christopher Street, it seemed important to maintain the vigil on this site, dubbed Point Thank You on Hero Highway. I felt guilty if I missed a day. Although I never did an overnight shift, I was a regular on the highway for a month. We shared bottled water and Gatorade donated by the Red Cross. Most people were freelancers, retirees or the unemployed. As one woman explained, “I’m on the dole, this is how I’m earning the money.”

Our group included a few attractive looking 3O something women in tight American flag tee shirts and Yankee caps. They flirted with hunky looking cops or firemen. One officer from Buffalo who paused to snap our picture, insisted this sexy woman in a red tank top get into the fore front, “For the boys back home,” he joked, using a WWII reference, reminding me we are entertaining the troops of this new war.

As the second and third weeks wore on, more personnel stopped. A member of the FDNY handed out posters of the three firemen raising the flag at the site. A FEMA worker filled up with tears. Police officers from Fitchburg, New Hampshire gave us special pins stating, “National Disaster Medical System”. I fixed one on the collar of my jacket and felt recognized as part of this effort.

Police from Rhienbeck paused to say goodbye on their last day before heading back upstate. One said, “The people of the city have been great. We wanted to thank you guys on the highway. Your support means a lot.”

“Can you believe they are thanking us?” we asked each other.

On Sept 28, an official government car pulled up. A tall man emerged, wearing crisply pressed dark pants, a blue shirt and navy tie; two i.d. cards hung around his neck. He came over with a handful of boxes and said, “These are gifts from the President of the United States. He wants you to have them.”

First I thought it was a joke. Then I realized it was not. He gave us boxes of M&M candy with the presidential seal and blue stripes and white stars. “Thank you. What an honor,” I managed to say, forgetting I am a liberal Democrat.

One Saturday, Police Commissioner Kerik stopped to thank us.”You’re doing a great job, sir,” I said, surprised at myself. I once called cops pigs.

Throughout the fourth week, state troopers and cops from the NYPD and the NY Sheriffs office visited for longer periods. I wondered if the state trooper smiling at me was the same scary guy who gave me a ticket upstate or if he understood the pink triangle in the middle of my flag button. No matter. The cops hugged the women, shook hands heartily with the men.

For a month, I donned my NY Liberty cap and went to the highway religiously. I ask myself why I did this and why I kept coming back. The first week, I was caught up in the rush to do something. After a month, I realized cheering the workers was my way of coping. I didn’t feel helpless. I felt needed. It was my therapy

An officer told us about driving back at midnight on a rainy night. They were betting whether anyone wouldbe out on the median. “You guys were there,” he reported, ” We couldn’t believe it. You were there.”

That kind of feedback keeps this vigil alive. I hated to see the site empty, but something shifted for me. When I arrived for duty Saturday October 13, I saw that the West Side Highway was open to downtown traffic for the first time since Sept 11. Two lanes of regular traffic and only a few rescue vehicles in one lane had altered the atmosphere. Now visitors from New Jersey and New York and Connecticut in flag decorated cars were honking and waving at us.

“Welcome back to New York. Welcome back to the Village,” I chanted, knowing it was time for me to break camp and leave the median.

I had done my duty and was needed back at my job at Manhattan Community College. Fiterman Hall, our new south building, is under the rubble and may have to be razed; my class now meets in a trailer on the West Side Highway, right across from the pollution spewing operation where the wreckage is dumped from trucks onto barges in the river. I walk down Chambers Street past the carnage to teach in this depressing environment. My students have been great and they keep me going. The dust flies all the time. My throat feels like I swallowed chalk. The college assures us the air is not toxic, but face masks are available in the nurse’s office.