Before dashing each morning from his Selden home to catch the 5 a.m. train from Ronkonkoma into the city, Stephen Masi would kiss his wife, Joan, goodbye, kisses she would somehow discern in her drowsy, half-sleep state. But the morning of Sept. 11 was different. Her sleep that night had been disturbed. She felt, she said, a strange, indescribable sensation in the pit of her stomach. Exhausted from a fitful night, she slept deeply that morning, oblivious to the world and her husband's usual farewell.

She stayed home from work. Later, over coffee, she flipped on the television and saw the blazing towers. "I screamed at the top of my lungs," she said. "I just knew he wasn't coming out."

He did everything around the house. She, in turn, watched and learned from him, and they became a team. She would install a light fixture and put up wallpaper right alongside him.

. . . . he and his wife were both very much into cooking. He liked to watch cooking shows, and they found it fun to go out to dinner and, when they enjoyed a dish, to go home and try to figure out how to prepare it. And they invented their own recipes, dozens of them: lots of soup, a tasty chicken-and-tomatoes dish and plenty of desserts. There were some missteps, dishes they concocted that after one tasting they swore they would never make again, but the good ones far overwhelmed the errant ones.

"He loved to entertain," Mrs. Masi said. "He always made sure there was tons and tons of food."

Masi was spontaneous by nature, his wife said. He was the type who, at any given moment, would come up with a plan for a trip to some far-off place. Like the time two years ago, when, out of nowhere, he came up with the idea for them to take a cruise to Alaska. It didn't sound like a bad idea, his wife said, except that she has an intense fear of water. Calmed by his assurance, she plucked up enough courage to join him last July on a Caribbean cruise - a seven-day adventure taking in San Juan, St. Thomas, St. Croix and Nassau in the Bahamas. "He just kept telling me, 'Everything will be fine, I'll be there.'

"He just got along with most everyone," his wife said. " He was special."

(A nod to the project from Michelle Malkin, who contrasts it to the DU version of 9-11 remembrance.)