Monday, September 11, 2006

Never forget

I remember where I was when I heard that JFK had been shot.

I had heard people say that for years, and I can relate to it. I always seem to recall details of my life when I think back to a memorable event, good or bad. But I am sure that everyone does that to one extent or the other.

I thought that it was sad that my generation's equivalent to the JFK memory would be I remember where I was when OJ made his escape in the white Bronco.

But then 9/11 happened, and that changed. I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the cowardly terror attacks on our country, and I remember the days afterward vividly.

I was driving north on I-395, just south of the Massachusetts border, when I popped out my Bat out of Hell CD and tuned in Imus. It was a little before 9am, and I had a meeting with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority at 10am just outside of Boston.

Imus was already talking about the first plane hitting tower 1, but the facts were a little vague. I called my wife and told her to turn on the television and call me back. She sat in front of the TV eating her Fruity Pebbles when the second plane hit tower 2. She hasn't eaten that cereal since.

She called me hysterically crying, asking Why over and over. I calmed her down and told her to keep watching and let me know what was happening.

I arrived at the meeting place next to the tollbooths at the beginning of the Boston extension. It's about 10 miles from downtown Boston, and there is a little break room inside. I was early, so I went in to check out the news on TV. That is when I saw the towers collapse and watched the seemingly endless barrage of camera angles of the second plane hitting the towers.

I got a call from one of the guys that I was supposed to be meeting and he said that maybe we better table this for another day. That is when I noticed the state police cars flying into the city on the Pike. There must have been 150 of them in a span of a little over an hour.

By then, it was about 11:30 and I started thinking that I should get on the road home as traffic was already picking up. I stopped at a WalMart and bought an American flag and small pole and attached it to the back of my truck's cab. I got home around 1:45 and just sat there and prayed and cried with my wife.

Over the next few days, we were glued to the TV like everyone else. We bought supplies for the rescue workers and dropped them off at Cardi's furniture store in Rhode Island. We gave blood. And of course, we prayed.

Three weeks later, I had to go to work in lower Manhattan. It was a completely bizarre experience to say the least. The strangest thing was riding in a cab from Grand Central to our site on Hudson St, down 8th Ave, and not seeing the trade center towering up ahead.

I remember watching people wearing white masks as they walk along the streets. And the signs with the faces and names of missing people on them. Oh my, they were everywhere.

When I got to the site, all of my coworkers had a story about that day. They told me how the first plane flew right over the site and that they would never forget that sound. They talked about watching the back of tower 2 blow out towards them while they were on their roof watching in horror. They told me how they could see people unimaginably jumping from the towers. Just horrible.

That was my 9/11 experience. Tell me about yours.

Comments:
i was not that close, being from CA, but the television brought it right in my livingroom. those are images that i will never be able to forget... nor do i want to forget.

i was proud to be an American on that day as i am today. i am also glad that it was not al gore trying to console the family members who were left to grieve.
 
Good post. Despite being up in Canada, it was felt here to. I didn't write about the day and where I was, but wrote about someone lost that day. Itmade me feel a bit weird since I came upon him doing an Internet search for other reasons entirely.
 
mgc - I hope that I don't sound like a complete Anti-Semite, but could you image Joe Lieberman dealing with these Arab nations?

Bill - I think that everyone who has a soul felt the effects of 9/11. Creepy thing was that the weather yesterday was EXACTLY like it was the day of the attacks.
 
ÜberElder had just turned one, and was taking her morning nap. I was watching the morning news and saw the second plane slam into the building, live. The reporters, who normally have that forced morning personality joviality, were as sickened and astounded as the rest of us, on air and unscripted.

When the third plane hit the Pentagon, I remember the dread hitting the pit of my stomach when I thought, "I can't believe my sweet little baby, asleep in her crib, is going to grow up during wartime and she doesn't even know what that means."

Dilf, who worked in downtown Chicago at the time, was on a train and oblivious until he reached the station and was sent right back home by the streaming throngs of people. The commuter trains didn't have a schedule, per se; they just filled up, left, stopped at every stop, and came back for more.

My birthday is September 16. Dilf took me to dinner in the city, and as we drove eastward, we saw the fighter jets just circling and circling the Loop.
 
Yesterday was very emotional.......good post.

I will never forget that day
 
Ubie - You should have posted that on your blog! I forgot to mention the F-18s that were still circling NYC three weeks later. That was surreal.

KJ - A tough day indeed.
 
I was at work. Everyone gathered around a five-inch black and white screen. We saw the second plane hit the building.

Ubie, I obviously didn't know you then, but I had Chicago on my mind, because an employee's idiot daughter called and said she heard a plane had hit the Sears Tower. More hysteria ensued.

I went home early that day and sat in front of the TV, numb. I called my brother, who was on vacation in San Diego at the time. He lived in Ohio at the time and was supposed to fly back the next day, but of course that didn't happen.

An old acquaintance of mine was working in an office building across the street from the Towers. The windows in her building were blown out. She was one of those people you saw walking across the Brooklyn bridge back to their homes.
 
Todd - A woman from my church was flying from Boston to LA that very morning. Her plane left 15 minutes before the hijackers. We didn't know for hours whether or not she was on one of those flights that crashed.

I don't know how I totally forgot to put that in my post.
 
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