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Sept. 11 Places And Memories: Jeff's Beach

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The beach in Pocasset is dedicated to Jeff Coombs. (Dan Mauzy/WBUR)
The beach in Pocasset is dedicated to Jeff Coombs. (Dan Mauzy/WBUR)

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Nearly 3000 people died that day. Two-hundred-and-six of them had strong ties to Massachusetts. They left behind not only their loved ones, but an invisible imprint on places around the state.

Jeff Coombs died on Sept. 11, 2001, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11.

Christie Coombs is the widow of Jeff Coombs:

The Cape is a place that is very special to Jeff. He grew up there with his family, going there for summer vacations. It was someplace that he was really excited to show me the first time he brought me to Massachusetts.

Jeff Coombs on a family hiking trip in August, 2001. (Courtesy Christine Coombs)
Jeff Coombs on a family hiking trip in August, 2001. (Courtesy Christine Coombs)

The place was called Pocasset, Mass. And we basically brought our kids up there in the summer time. We would spend every weekend there.

There were two beaches down there, one was a big beach and a little beach. We spent most of our time at the little beach, sitting there, looking out into the channel and watching the boats go by, and wondering if we would ever be owners of one of them.

It's at the end of a little path, and you walk down this path to the beach. And there's all sorts of sea grass, and like a little inlet behind where the water sometimes comes up that high. Jeff used to go back there with the kids. There's a floating boardwalk that they would walk on to collect crabs and see the little fish and things like that.

We'd just go down and just kind of escape.

His brothers found this nice little spot to put the rock. That's what we call it. Jeff's Rock. At Jeff's Beach.

It's a nice place. We don't have a gravesite for him. So it's a nice place to go and just kind of touch his name, and wish he were there with us.

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This segment aired on September 5, 2011.

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