Nineteen Years Ago This Minute

[Proximate Centurion]

I was on a business trip in Medford, Ore. It was 5:46 AM PDT, so, as you might expect, I was asleep. Breakfast started at 7 AM local, but my meeting wasn't till 10:30, so I didn't go down to eat until just before eight (again, local times in effect). You know what everybody was talking about.

I was shocked just like the whole country. But what was fascinating to me was hearing the conversations taking place. Oregon is, of course a reliably-blue state; this does not mean there are no right-wingers. Far from it! Naturally I heard Arabs/"Mooslems" blamed, but more than a few were talking about a false-flag operation by the Israelis, except no one was calling them Israelis. Do I really need to explain what words were used. Didn't think so. And of COURSE some we talking about God's Punishment On a Sinful America, which led to mutterings about LGBTQ people (DEFINITELY not how the right-wingers were referring to them!)

The dining room was packed. I guess no or very few had left after finishing their breakfast, sharply focused on the big-screen TV on the wall. A woman at the closest table asked me if I had family or friends in NYC or Washington (by this time, time, all four planes were down.) I said no, as I was from Minnesota and didn't have anybody in the areas of the strikes.

The weirdest part of all is the no one was crying.No one was shouting, either. Opinions were expressed in lower tones and, as mentioned earlier, mutterings. I guess we were in a kind of shock, but not the kind we normally associate with the word. My meeting ended up getting postponed for several weeks later, and, as soon as the skies were reopened, I flew back home.

[Zoonart]

1. Thanks for sharing...

Last edited Fri Sep 11, 2020, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

I was in the family room of my then home in PA. I was sitting on the packing boxes that held my belongings having a cup of coffee and watching Good Morning America. I had been packing most of the night. My husband was already in NYC working the job that we were preparing to move for. I watched the plane sail into the tower video loop and then the second live. I was in absolute shock.

I waited anxiously for someone to find him at his company. Finally, he came to the phone. They had been watching on the TV in the board room. The company was not downtown, but, at the time... no one knew what would be next.

I had lived most of my life in New Jersey, mere minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel. The NY skyline was visible from the back yards and highways surrounding my home and occupied the imagination of my childhood.

I remember that it was a beautiful day in Pennsylvania, much like it is today. That evening it rained and in the morning the 12th, the ashes of New York coated my car windshield in Bucks County, PA.

Years later, while vacationing on LBI, NJ, we became friendly with a NYC Fireman who had worked the pile and he told us many stories about the days that followed. He had lung cancer related to his heroism. He has since passed.

I will never forget.

RIP heroes of NY.

[Aristus]

2. I had just gotten into my car to go to work. I turned on the radio and heard a scream.

Then another scream, unintelligible voices in the background, the sounds of running and confusion, disjointed on-the-ground reports.

It was five minutes of this before I could even begin to get an idea what had happened.