Weird what sticks with us through the tragedies in life.

My two lasting memories of being a community newspaper’s sports editor on Sept. 11, 2001, had nothing to do with a game, or a story, or a picture.

There was the day itself. That eerily cloudless sky decked out in azure and gold. That chamber-of-commerce, sun-drenched, zero-humidity day, in all its contradictory perfection.

Our news editors, designers and writers stepped into that selfless zone that makes them the best at their craft. They hugged loved ones, broke away from the television, reported for duty and churned out that extra, read-all-about-it edition that might still sit, folded and slightly yellowing, on your bookshelf.

Lost in that invisible fog that enveloped a nation, rarely called upon to document life-and-death events, I volunteered to stand on the corner of Park and Pine and present copies of the free midday newspaper to passers-by. There we stood, in high gear with the brakes on: A customer service representative, an ad designer and a writer who had recently crossed over to the dark side of management.

All on the same team.

One by one, the people found us. Some pressed us for details we didn’t have. Others simply wanted to talk.

They were attorneys and accountants in suits. They were women with young children sleeping on their shoulders or even growing in their wombs. They were shirtless kids on BMX bicycles, perhaps not old enough to grasp the gravity or fully absorb the fear of the moment.

All on the same team.

Deadlines didn’t stop, nor did time.

Two Friday nights later I drove through the fog and darkness of the Maine Turnpike, past the very hotel and airport some of the terrorists used as their starting point.

I had endured a high school football game in Old Orchard Beach littered with every extraneous whistle and tedious time out imaginable in its fourth quarter. Driving a little too fast, focused on game minutia a tad too closely, I spun the radio dial until it landed on a simulcast of that night’s televised Concert For Heroes.

Armed with only an acoustic guitar, a couple of backup vocalists and an Old Testament prophet’s knack for communicating the cry of man’s soul, Bruce Springsteen launched into what would become a timeless version of his as-yet-unreleased “My City Of Ruins.”

And I wept bitterly. Not a great activity for the 50-minute drive back to a testosterone-drenched office where I would be afforded half that much time to spin a coherent game story.

The left-leaning Jersey boy with the blue-collar background, millions in the bank and millions more listeners in the palm of his hand. The right-as-rain college dropout from Maine, floating through life in the toy department, writing just enough words to pay his bills and feed his mouths.

Both on the same team.

Music has a way of providing the soundtrack at both the summits and death valleys of life, and so do sports.

Aside from those moments of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance that accompanied the defining historical event of my lifetime, that — for better or worse — is the other thing that stuck with me.

Sports went on, mostly as scheduled.

There were delays, of course, in the name of both respect and safety. Before long, though, we started throwing, catching, swinging, racing and paying to watch again.

And damned if the embodiment of evil would stop us from playing and spectating. There would be a winner, but it wouldn’t be Al-Qaeda. There would be highlights, but they wouldn’t end in an inferno or a cloud of rubble.

If planes were grounded, stadiums were unprepared and an entire NFL weekend had to be put on hold, by God, we’d play it in January.

If there were no logistical way to make a NASCAR race happen, hey, keep those tickets under lock and key and come back the day after Thanksgiving.

If high school football teams were forced to push a game to Saturday night or Monday afternoon, then turn around and do it again the following Friday, so be it. Warm up the bus.

The activities that teach us such priceless life lessons and bring us such sophomoric joy did their job in abundance as summer morphed into fall and the world changed forever in 2001.

Sports distracted us and united us, and it was neither irreverent nor insensitive. It was necessary.

And maybe on this most solemn of anniversaries, it’s a long-overdue time to recall the flag-draped games of that agonizing aftermath.

Look what forgetting or at least overlooking history has done for us.

We vote our party line. We embrace the lowest common denominator. We adore the last word. The worst among us accost or even assault someone with the gall to wear the opponent’s gear in our stadium.

Maybe we need Jack Buck returned from heaven for three minutes so he can read us one more poem. Perhaps it’s time for the Andruzzi family to oversee another coin flip, or for Robert Kraft to remind us that we are all Patriots.

Short of that, take it from the sports guy who was there that morning, who was there for the mourning, and who vows never to forget.

We are, now and forever, on the same team.

Go. Fight. Win.

— Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected].