Remembering 9/11

“Where were you when the world stopped turning?”

That’s what Alan Jack­son asked us in song shortly after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.

Each year, the anniver­sary brings back the mem­o­ries, images, and sense of being unable to awaken from a hor­ri­fy­ing nightmare.

For us Baby Boomers, there have been a lot of moments dur­ing our lives which cause us to peri­od­i­cally query each other about our mem­o­ries and per­cep­tions of world-altering events. Where were you when …

• John F. Kennedy was assassinated?
• Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?
• Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated?
• Neil Arm­strong walked on the moon?
• Nixon resigned?
• John Lennon was murdered?
• Ronald Rea­gan was shot?
• the space shut­tle exploded?
• the 1989 quake hit?

In 2001, we added a new sen­tence to our vocab­u­lary: “Where were you when the first plane hit?”

Note that no one ever asks quizzi­cally, “What plane?”

On that morn­ing, I was in a room on the 28th floor of the Bonaven­ture Hotel in down­town Los Angeles.

I hate high-rise build­ings. I espe­cially hate the Bonaven­ture because, in order to get to the upper lev­els, you have to ride in ele­va­tors that hang on the out­side of the build­ing. Tourists love to ride them up to the 35th floor to the rotat­ing bar where you can look out over the city.

Not me.

I’m the one per­son fac­ing the doors, my back to the win­dows, hold­ing my breath, and pray­ing for the ele­va­tor to get to my floor quickly so that I can get the hell out of it.

I wasn’t sup­posed to be in Los Ange­les that day. I was sup­posed to fly down the day before, argue a motion in fed­eral court, and come back home that evening. But it was the boss’s last day on the job and she had a speak­ing engage­ment sched­uled in down­town Los Ange­les at 8:30 a.m. When she heard that I was also going to L.A., she asked if I would mind stay­ing over to han­dle the speak­ing engage­ment, return­ing home on Tues­day morn­ing, Sep­tem­ber 11.

The only thing I was unhappy about was the fact that my hotel of choice had no rooms avail­able so I was forced to stay at the Bonaven­ture — which had no rooms avail­able on a lower floor.

I dis­tinctly remem­ber wak­ing up and turn­ing on the Today Show, as is my cus­tom, as I was boot­ing up the lap­top to read e-mails and news­pa­pers online. That’s when Matt Lauer announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Cen­ter. I looked up to see footage of the first plane hit­ting the tower.

Dur­ing my first three trips to New York City, I stood out­side the World Trade Cen­ter. I remem­ber look­ing up … and up … and up … and think­ing that I could not imag­ine being on the top floor. I recall being aston­ished that folks actu­ally ran down all 105 floors fol­low­ing the 1993 bombing.

As I stared at the tele­vi­sion screen that morn­ning, my mind could not grasp what I was see­ing. Those moments were for me, like the rest of the world, surreal.

When it was reported that the high­jacked planes had been des­tined for Los Ange­les, I deter­mined to get out of that hotel as quickly as possible.

Like Dorothy Gale, all I wanted to do was get home because, of course, “there’s no place like home.”

By the time I got out of the shower, all air­craft had been grounded.

And as I waited in the garage lobby for the valet to bring my car around, I watched scenes from the Pentagon.

I won­dered whether to fol­low through with the speak­ing engage­ment. But given that no one had called to say it was can­celed, I decided I had bet­ter go to the venue. We were all in a state of shock, walk­ing around in a daze. Peo­ple could talk about noth­ing but the morning’s events, but were valiantly try­ing to carry on with the day’s busi­ness, unsure of the extent of the cat­a­stro­phe unfold­ing on the East Coast or how it would impact those of us 3,000 miles removed from it.

I was the first speaker on the agenda, so I forged ahead with my pre­sen­ta­tion, wrap­ping up quickly. Then I apol­o­gized to the audi­ence, telling them, “I would love to stay and par­tic­i­pate in the rest of the pro­gram, but I need to fig­ure out how I am going to get back to Lodi.” They would dis­perse in just a few moments, any­way: As I exited the build­ing, I was met by mem­bers of the S.W.A.T. team who were evac­u­at­ing all of down­town Los Angeles.

Back in my rental car, I learned that all modes of pub­lic trans­porta­tion were shut down. That left only one choice if I wanted to get home that day: Drive the rental car that I had picked up at the Bur­bank air­port the pre­vi­ous day all the way back to Lodi. But the rental com­pany rep­re­sen­ta­tive was under a great deal of stress and did not think that was a great idea. He yelled at me, “You can­not take that car to Sacra­mento! You must return it to the Bur­bank air­port today!” I was already head­ing north in Inter­state 5 when I assured him that I would not be sur­ren­der­ing the vehicle.

“Look, this is a national emer­gency. I need this car to get home to my kids. And I’m tak­ing it whether you like it or not.”

When he con­tin­ued bad­ger­ing me, I lost my cool: “I’m tak­ing the car. Got that? If you want to send the police to find me, go ahead. I’ll even give you a clue to pass on to them: I’m head­ing north on I5 and I’m en route to Lodi.” Click.  (As it turned out, I kept the rental car for sev­eral days after return­ing home because my car was in the air­port park­ing lot, unre­triev­able until the air­port reopened.)

I didn’t care about any­thing except being in my own lit­tle house in my own lit­tle town with my arms around my kids.

A cou­ple of friends had been sent home from work so they called to offer me shel­ter at their homes until the air­ports reopened. “I appre­ci­ate the offer, but I just want to be in Lodi where noth­ing ever hap­pens.” Iron­i­cally, Lodi would later make head­lines when a cou­ple of res­i­dents were accused of being asso­ci­ated with or train­ing to be terrorists.

I wasn’t sup­posed to drive that far. I was in the midst of treat­ment for a detached left retina. The first surgery had failed, caus­ing me to undergo a sec­ond oper­a­tion dur­ing which my eye was filled with sil­i­cone oil. I slept exclu­sively on my left side for nearly a year to cause the oil to rise and put pres­sure on the retina so that it would adhere and not slip off again. Look­ing at the world through the oil, rather than the eye’s nat­ural vit­re­ous humor, made every­thing appear dis­torted. Dri­ving short dis­tances was fine, but focus­ing on the road for more than six hours strained both of my eyes.

The whole way, I lis­tened to descrip­tions of the day’s events on the radio as friends, cowork­ers, et. al. checked in peri­od­i­cally via tele­phone. Big­Bob tried to con­vince me to pull over and rest my eyes. But I pre­ferred to forge on.

By the time I reached Lodi, I was exhausted and my eyes were throb­bing. But I did just what I wanted to do: I went into my own lit­tle house in my own lit­tle town and the Siess gang had a big “group hug.” Like the rest of Amer­ica, we spent the evening focus­ing on all the folks who did not make it home at the end of that day to hug their families.

We are not the same nation we were before that morn­ing. We are not as naively secure. We have been for­ever robbed of the sense of safety we used to take for granted. We are more vig­i­lant, guarded.

In New York City, secu­rity is for­ever height­ened in all build­ings, ter­mi­nals, and on the streets. Police and secu­rity guards are every­where, all the time, pre­vent­ing you from sit­ting down to relax and “people-watch.” You must always keep moving.

When I vis­ited Ground Zero in March 2007, I was stunned to see how small the par­cel of land upon which the World Trade Cen­ter stood is. The streets in Man­hat­tan are nar­row, the build­ings close together, unlike here in Cal­i­for­nia. It was a bustling con­struc­tion site when I snapped this photo on March 26, 2007. This expan­sive list of names was mounted above the fence that sur­rounded the property.

 

Flow­ers, pic­tures, stuffed ani­mals, and other memen­tos stuff in the chain-link fence reminded vis­i­tors that the site is the only final rest­ing place to which many fam­i­lies can go to honor loved ones whose remains were never recovered.

 

All that remained of the orig­i­nal com­plex is the sculp­ture which stood in the plaza.

 

When we vis­ited, it stood in the park a cou­ple of blocks away in silent trib­ute until con­struc­tion on the memo­r­ial was completed.

You can­not drive by a fire­house in New York City with­out see­ing a plaque on the front of the build­ing bear­ing the names and like­nesses of those lost by that house.
 

On Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, all of our lives and the des­tinies of future gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans were for­ever changed.  That is why, on this and every Sep­tem­ber 11, we must remem­ber and reflect upon our own expe­ri­ences in addi­tion to all who were lost in New York, the Pen­ta­gon, and on Flight 93 and those who mourn them.  By remem­ber­ing our own reac­tions and feel­ings, and shar­ing our expe­ri­ences with our chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, we are able to help them under­stand the mag­ni­tude of the tragedy.  

As a child, I used to tire of hear­ing my par­ents talk about the Depres­sion and World War II.  I remem­ber think­ing that I wished they would quit dron­ing on about the events and cir­cum­stances they sur­vived.  But like all kids, as I matured, I came to appre­ci­ate, lit­tle by lit­tle, how pro­foundly their expe­ri­ences shaped and informed their per­son­al­i­ties, view­points, beliefs, reac­tions, and the man­ner in which they func­tioned.  Many of the 9/11 sur­vivors are suf­fer­ing from mys­te­ri­ous res­pi­ra­tory ail­ments, while still more strug­gle to live with the mem­o­ries of the sights and sounds to which they were exposed that day, their psy­ches and spir­its per­ma­nently scarred.

I don’t have any pro­found thoughts or words to add to the dia­log about the events of that day. Like you, all I can do is share my expe­ri­ences and pho­tos, and my own belief that irre­spec­tive of where you were or how you expe­ri­enced 9/11, as Amer­i­cans, we must stand united by our mem­o­ries, our prayers, and our resolve to remem­ber and pay trib­ute on this and every sub­se­quent anniver­sary. Unity is our best defense.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Life in Lodi, Sep­tem­ber 11

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