A sign of the times.

The other day I heard the loud roar of planes above the house. Now we live a couple miles from a small municipal airport and we are also in the flight pattern for our states regional airport. The regional airport is quite large as it handles 727's and, of course the 747 for the president who lands there quite often. My point, is we hear planes all the time but.... These were "fighter planes". We went running out because everyone in this family is fascinated by planes. At first we didn't see them even though the sky was a beautiful blue. After looking for a few moments we saw two fighter jets taking huge circles around the airport, and also in that space is the FAA Center for the New England area. During 9/11 the FAA and most of the roads around were guarded by the military with weapons drawn.
The fighters passed a couple of times. They didn't appear to be flying any spectacular patterns. They just followed each other in circles. After the fifth time the neighbors started coming out and watching. We all stood around and watched and debated what they could be doing. After about 5 times we all started to panic a little (ok a lot). It was just really strange to see these planes flying in huge circles. Each time they passed the path was slightly different but nothing fancy.
I kept looking in the sky for other planes. Not a single one. That doesn't happen very often. You can almost always see a couple planes flying at 36,000+ feet.
The fighters were on lap 10 when my neighbor said "This is ridiculous, I cannot take it. If something is happening I need to know." We all decided to return to our homes and turn on the news. NOTHING. After a few moments the phone rang. My neighbor yelled "It's an air show!" and hung up. We all sat for a few moments going over the "what if's", and thought about the World Trade Centers. Our city could definitely be a target for terrorists. Before 9/11 the planes flying around would have been a source for entertainment. After 9/11 the planes were a sign of total and complete FEAR!