Is It Me, Or Is the Message Getting More Heavy-Handed On Purpose? Like a Sinister---Dare Ya---Try and Do Something About It?

May 19, 2012, New York Times, What Did You Keep From Sept. 11, 2001?

What is this relic? A custom vinyl support-pillow for some esoteric S & M practice? In Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn's original, Jan. 30, 2002, article, Before the Towers Fell, Fire Dept. Fought Chaos, they describe the amount of time between the first plane strike and the second tower's falling as being 100 minutes. This figure morphed into the title of their best-selling book, "102 Minutes : The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers." So somebody gave as well as kept.

I have my 9/11 relics. I don't know why I keep them; I can't say that they make me feel any better. But I keep them nevertheless, as reminders of a world-altering moment, close to where I live and work.

I have a couple of crosses, one made from World Trade Center marble and given to me by a police officer, and another made from the twin towers steel and given to me by a friend who lost someone very close to him. Her name was Ann Nelson, she was from North Dakota, and well after she died, her mother discovered a to-do list on Ann's laptop: "learn a foreign language; Kilimanjaro; never be ashamed of who I am. ..."

I am so infinitely tired of adults simulating the handwriting of a small child in the 9/11 memento business that it is seriously altering my brain chemistry.

I have the construction helmet that I wore when I camped out near the site with the National Guard, several days after the collapse. I have a flier from the Dakota Roadhouse bar in Lower Manhattan, saying in colorful language that since Osama bin Laden has us working overtime, it's time to drink. There are other things. 

What relics do you have? Do you have scraps of the papers that blew all the way to Brooklyn? A photograph or two that you need to brace yourself to see again? Does your community have a memorial that incorporates something from the catastrophe? The New York Times would like to know. Please send photographs of the relics you have. Tell us, in 125 words or less, why you saved these items and what they mean to you. Some photos will appear in a special report to be published in print and online this Sept. 11. Thank you very much. – DAN BARRY

Cottleville? This looks like nothing more than some dream high-school football trophy case.