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Has it really been 5 years allready? 9-11-2001

SteveJRogers Sep 07 2006 07:33 PM

I know its not untill Monday, but I just posted this on another message board, and figured I'd share it here as well You know, its kind of... Funny is not the word I want to use, I guess thats what everyone uses when you use that phrase. Funny, ironic, whatever. I kind of considered myself lucky in a sense. That I didn't know anyone personally who died in the attacks that morning. Considering a close friend of mine (well my older sister's friend, but I consider my sister's close friends like my older sisters as well) worked in the Towers, and she was one of the first things that came to my mind that day. Well, that was untill this year when I found out I DID know someone who perished in the Towers. Just someone I knew in College. Wasn't all that close, I covered her field hockey games during my Freshman year (and last year on the school paper) up at Fairfield University. She was a year older than me. Well, I found out by way of trying to find a mutual friend back during the winter. Funny...(damn I can't think of a better word and I actually want to be a journalist), thing this information super highway is I guess. RIP Johanna Sigmund 1976-2001

SteveJRogers Sep 09 2006 01:37 PM

Willets Point Sep 09 2006 09:20 PM

A very minor thing: both New York teams play road games on Monday Sept. 11th. Is this an odd coincidence or by design?

cooby Sep 09 2006 09:25 PM

Steve, this is a nice and tasteful beginning to what figures to be a very painful thread. RIP to Johanna, and to whoever else will be mentioned here in the days to come

ScarletKnight41 Sep 09 2006 10:07 PM

Willets Point wrote: A very minor thing: both New York teams play road games on Monday Sept. 11th. Is this an odd coincidence or by design? That's not how I remember it. The Mets were in Pittsburgh but IIRC the MFYs were at home.

Willets Point Sep 09 2006 11:03 PM

ScarletKnight41 wrote: ="Willets Point"]A very minor thing: both New York teams play road games on Monday Sept. 11th. Is this an odd coincidence or by design? That's not how I remember it. The Mets were in Pittsburgh but IIRC the MFYs were at home. No I mean this season for the 5th anniversary. Since baseball played such an important part in New York's recovery after the attacks I figured one of the teams would be home on Sept. 11th but the Mets are in Florida and the Yankees are in Baltimore. I could see an opposing point of view that there should be no baseball in New York on the 5th anniversary so I was wondering if it was planned that way or just a fluke of the schedule.

ScarletKnight41 Sep 09 2006 11:04 PM

Ah - gotcha.

SteveJRogers Sep 09 2006 11:27 PM

ScarletKnight41 wrote: Ah - gotcha. Yanks were due to play the White Sox, after playing a rare Monday series ender against the Red Sox the night before. Game was never played, rained out. Vividly remember listening to it at the place I used to work at (a 1:45pm-7:45pm shift as a tennis permit checker for my local rec department. I had the 7:45am-1:45pm shift the next morning. Needless to say not much tennis goers that morning) and hearing Michael Kay and John Sterling drone on, and on about this "nifty" device the Yanks were using to soak up the water in the outfield. Called a "Water Hog" or something that just zipped back and forth.

MFS62 Sep 11 2006 09:13 AM

On September 11, 2001 I was in the office of a State Agency in Connecticut, getting ready for a meeting. Someone came in and said, “A plane has hit one of the World Trade Center buildings.” We were shocked, but the initial report had said it was a private plane. I didn’t think a private plane could cause much damage, and went back to prepare for the meeting, as others gathered in the room. Then, someone lese came in, told us that a second plane had hit one of the other buildings, and that the State office was being closed. I got in my car and turned on the radio. The reporters started telling about the two other planes that had gone down, and the flight numbers of all four. That was when I remembered that my daughter was flying to the West Coast that day from Kennedy Airport and I didn’t remember her flight number. My wife had always kept a copy of my daughter’s itinerary in the house whenever she traveled, so I called home. No answer. I started to panic, and immediately drove home. The itinerary would be on the dresser in the bedroom. It was the longest fifteen-minute drive of my life. When I got home, I raced upstairs. The itinerary wasn’t there. There was a message on the answering machine from my son-in-law who was out of town on business, asking if we had heard anything. I found my wife’s work number and called her. She told me that for some strange reason, she had carried our daughter’s flight information with her that day, and that she had heard from our daughter. She was ok. Her flight was to have taken off about an hour after the hijacked flights. I called my son-in-law and left a message on his hotel voice mail that she was OK, just to make sure he got the message. Later that morning, I heard from our daughter. She said that she saw the plumes of smoke as she was driving over the Whitestone Bridge toward the airport. When she and her companions got to the airport, they were informed that all flights had been cancelled. So they rented a car to drive back to their office in Connecticut. They were in a traffic jam leading to the bridge when they heard on the radio that the bridges were closed. That’s when she called home. She said that they would try to drive to Port Jefferson and catch the ferry to Connecticut. And if they couldn’t get on it, one of the other people in her group had relatives “on Long Island” and they would try to go there until the ban on bridge traffic was lifted. She said. “I’ll call you later to let you know what happened”. About six o’clock, we got another call from her. I asked where she was. She told me that the friend’s place “on Long Island” was on the beach in the Hamptons, and added “I’m sitting around the pool with a good stiff drink”. That’s when I knew that a “good stiff drink” sounded mighty good to me, too. Later

Yancy Street Gang Sep 11 2006 09:18 AM

I can imagine the anxiety you felt until you found out your daughter's flight number. Why is "on Long Island" in quotes, by the way?

MFS62 Sep 11 2006 09:29 AM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Why is "on Long Island" in quotes, by the way? Those were her words. She didn't know one place from another on Long Island, and the person didn't specify what town his relatives live in. I put it in quotes because from the way she said it I knew she didn't realize how big an island it is. Later

Yancy Street Gang Sep 11 2006 09:32 AM

Okay. I thought you were implying "[sic]" meaning that "on Long Island" is incorrect and "in Long Island" was proper. A point I would have argued strenuously! End of thread hijack.

Edgy DC Sep 11 2006 09:55 AM

I didn't believe a thing I heard that day. Half or more of the reports I heard (State Department bombed, National Mall on fire) turned out to be crap, and I wasn't watching the pictures on TV, so I assumed that reports of the collapse of the towers was hysteria well into the afternoon.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 11 2006 10:12 AM

I was eating blueberry pancakes with my family in a restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine. We overhead the waitress calmly say that the World Trade Center had been bombed. I thought that maybe she was talking about the incident from eight years before. Or that maybe she was talking about the World Trade Center in Boston. (I think there is one there, as well as one in Baltimore.) We were going to spend the day at the beach near our hotel, but as we left the restaurant I suggested to my wife that we turn on the TV in our hotel just to see if CNN had any news. Boy, did they. By the time we heard about the attacks both towers had fallen. At the time I was working for a client in downtown Manhattan, so if I hadn't been on vacation I would have been in the neighborhood that day. All of my co-workers witnessed the attacks and fled the city on foot, like so many others did. My first day back was the same day as everyone else's first day back. (I think it was Monday the 24th before we were allowed back in the neighborhood.) The desks had half-empty cups of coffee and half-eaten breakfasts that remained from the sudden evacuation. Everyone in the office was uneasy at returning. I realized, not for the first time, how fortunate I was to have been in Maine that morning. Ogunquit seemed like a very safe place to be on September 11, 2001.

ScarletKnight41 Sep 11 2006 10:20 AM

I missed the first hour of 9/11. I was at the supermarket. When the first plane hit, I was probably talking baseball with the guy at the coffee kiosk (he's a Philly fan, and we were talking about their upcoming series with the Braves, as well as the Mets/Pirates series). On the way home I had a CD on in my car, and when I got home I put on MSG to watch that week's TWIB rerun. After that, I went to my computer. The AOL home page had a story about a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. I was wondering why they were featuring an 8-year-old story, and also was puzzled because the picture was wrong - the World Trade Center was attacked on February 26th, 1993, and it was a grey day. Then I went to the MOFO. In the Nonbaseball Forum, I heard the news in a way that it cut through my denial. Then I turned on the television, and saw the Towers on fire. MK, who had afternoon kindergarten at the time, asked, "Is that Carol and Gerry's apartment?" No, I reassured him. But then I ran to the phone, in a panic because Gerry worked downtown. When I called the apartment he answered the phone, so I knew that our close friends in the City were ok. I also turned the TV back to PBS or Nickelodeon or whatever it was that MK was watching. It still feels wrong not seeing the Towers when we're driving up the NJ Turnpike. And when I'm downtown, my compass is gone - I always knew where I was based on the Towers. In some ways I guess I'm still in denial.

ScarletKnight41 Sep 11 2006 10:26 AM

[url=http://www.kcmets.com/MondayMorning091701.html]My Mets-Related Thoughts a Week Later[/url]

Johnny Dickshot Sep 11 2006 10:31 AM

You know how when you looked at the Towers from a certain angle, one would obscure the other and it would look like a single structure? The purest moment of terror for me came when I realized I wasn't looking at that angle at all -- it was that there was only one tower standing. The first one had fallen while I was on my way from my apartment to my vantage point at the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel in LIC. I had just been laid off from my job, so I was at home having coffee and listening to Howard Stern when the planes hit -- Future Wifey was at work on William Street, only a few blox away. Her stories are a lot more harrowing than mine. But what I remember was confirming that a tower had fallen with the guy next me, and then: Fallen? Fallen how? Fallen OVER?!? and thinking that everyone downtown had just been crushed.

seawolf17 Sep 11 2006 10:42 AM

We were in a systems training session, in a windowless room, starting at 8:30. I was sitting in the back of the room, poking around the internet, when suddenly our internet went down. (Apparently, the internet connection to the SUNY Old Westbury campus somehow ran through downtown Manhattan.) I kept trying to get it back, but then gave up and just paid attention until we took our break at 11:00. We opened the doors to hysteria in the hallways; people just kinda running around, with rumors flying. We had no idea what was going on, but we knew that the Student Health Services Center had a TV, so we ran over there to check it out. The towers were already down, and it was just smoke; I remember thinking the same thing as JD, that there must have been 50,000 casualties. It's an incredible testament to our emergency services personnel that they saved as many lives as they did. Two weekends earlier, we were coming back from a friend's wedding in Jersey; we decided to drive back through the BQE, so we could see downtown. (My wife had never seen that view, and we were at the Seaport the previous weekend, so we went that way to check it out from the other perspective.) We have a cool photo of the towers taken that morning from our car. Unrelated, but fascinating: a few days later, one of those insipid storks appeared next to our neighbor's house, with "BORN 9/11/01 9:15 am" on it.

Willets Point Sep 11 2006 12:30 PM

Worst. Birthday. Ever. Beautiful photo, but still something missing.

metsmarathon Sep 11 2006 01:09 PM

i was at work. a coworker mentioned htat he heard on the radio during his commute that a cessna had struck the tower, and i thought to my self "no big" - that can't cause any damage. there were some rumblings around about the amount of damage, and i still was telling myself that it was nothing. then somebody turned on a live feed to CNN that we have available over our networks here (also watched the fall of baghdad while at work). we were actively discussing the events and how a plane could have done the amount of damage that had been done to the first tower when teh second plane hit. my first thoughts were "what the hell is wrong with those planes", failing to imagine in that instance that they were being intentionally flown into the buildings as an attack. i actually flashed back on die hard 2 for a second... for the rest of the morning, i was glued to my monitor, and was in constant contact with my then gf, now wife, who was across the river in hoboken, going to to college. she was pretty freaked, and i was trying to calm her as much as possible. i couldn't believe it when the first tower fell; after it happened, tho, i found myself fairly amazed that it had held for so long. i find myself very easily absorbed into the technical details of how the attacks transpired, how government failures at every level led to the successful execution of the attacks, and how the buildings themselves stood and subsequently failed.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 11 2006 01:19 PM

Six days before, on September 5, I was on the roof of the Municipal Building on Centre Street. (We'd often have impromptu outdoor meetings up there.) There was a beautiful view of the Woolworth Building and the towers behind them. It looked as if the Woolworth was right between the two towers. I remarked that the next time I came into the city to work I'd bring my camera so that I could get a photo of the tree buildings. I never imagined, of course, that that would be my last view of the World Trade Center. In retrospect I'm glad I took that brief moment to appreciate them one last time.

TheOldMole Sep 11 2006 02:32 PM

I Saw You Walking I saw you walking through Newark Penn Station in your shoes of white ash. At the corner of my nervous glance your dazed passage first forced me away, tracing the crescent berth you'd give a drunk, a lurcher, nuzzling all corners with ill will and his stench, but not this one, not today; one shirt arm's sheared clean from the shoulder, the whole bare limb wet with muscle and shining dimly pink, the other full-sheathed in cotton, Brooks Bros. type, the cuff yet buttoned at the wrist, a parody of careful dress, preparedness -- so you had not rolled up your sleeves yet this morning when your suit jacket (here are the pants, dark gray, with subtle stripe, as worn by men like you on ordinary days) and briefcase (you've none, reverse commuter come from the pit with nothing to carry but your life) were torn from you, as your life was not. Your face itself seemed to be walking, leading your body north, though the age of the face, blank and ashen, passing forth and away from me, was unclear, the sandy crown of hair powdered white like your feet, but underneath not yet gray -- forty-seven? forty-eight? The age of someone's father -- and I trembled for your luck, for your broad, dusted back, half shirted, walking away; I should have dropped to my knees to thank God you were alive, o my God, in whom I don't believe. --Deborah Garrison

Willets Point Sep 11 2006 02:36 PM

Good poem, Mole. I heard this one this morning For the Falling Man I see you again and again tumbling out of the sky, in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt. At first I thought you were debris from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall or fuselage but then I realized that people were leaping. I know who you are, I know there's more to you than just this image on the news, this ragdoll plummeting— I know you were someone's lover, husband, daddy. Last night you read stories to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep next to your wife. Perhaps there was small sleepy talk of the future. Then, before your morning coffee had cooled you'd come to this; a choice between fire or falling. How feeble these words, billowing in this aftermath, how ineffectual this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths —but we can't help ourselves—how I wish we could trade them for something that could really have caught you. - Annie Farnsworth

Centerfield Sep 11 2006 02:55 PM

I was supposed to be in court...Southern District Bankruptcy at Bowling Green. The day before, I noticed that the calendar was at an unusual time, 11:15 a.m. instead of the regular 9:30. After confirming with chambers, I decided I would come into the office and do some work and leave around 9:45 for Court (I worked in Long Island at the time). It was a big day for me because it was going to be the first time I argued a motion with the head partner of my firm in the courtroom. I remember lamenting the 11:15 hearing time and wishing I could have just gotten it over first thing in the morning. When the planes hit, I heard about it all while sitting at my desk. I was told it was a single-engine plane. And figured it must be some idiot who didn't know what he was doing. I didn't get the true story until the second plane hit. The most frightening part of that morning was calling everyone i knew in Manhattan and confirming they weren't downtown. I also remember being afraid that more planes were on their way. Everyone was ok, and actually they were concerned about me, because they figured I'd be downtown already. I also remember that head partner coming into my office and telling me to confirm with the Court that the hearing would not go forward and me telling him I'd make the call as soon as I accounted for my friends and family. I could tell he immediately felt bad about bringing up work at a time like that. I don't blame him though. He was a good guy and he just didn't know how to handle himself in that situation. It took me forever to get back home from Long Island that day because the expressways were closed. I managed to find my way back to Sunnyside via local roads for the first time. My wife had walked home over the Queensborough Bridge. I always thought that day would be burned into my memory forever, but admittedly, it gets fuzzier and fuzzier as time goes by. In the aftermath, I found myself wondering why the judge had set the hearing for 11:15 instead of 9:30. I guessed that it was probably something as simple as a dentist appointment or the like. I know it was the first day of school, I wonder if the judge was dropping off a child. In any case, I never figured out a good way of asking, and as time went by it seemed less and less appropriate a question. I just know that whatever the reason, that unusual scheduling saved me from walking home in smoke.