story8430.xml

story8430.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-10-13

I hate to say it, but I can't remember anything about September the 10th. What I did, or how I felt; or, what my goals for the day were, or countless other days and weeks before then. I can't recall what I felt like the morning of Sept. 11. or even what I had for breakfast; wether it was a sunny day or not. I think that, in itself, and in hindsite, makes me a bit sad. To think that my days (and other peoples days) have to be that eventful to be remembered...

I assume that I hated to get out of bed like many days and stopped at that little store on mountain road on the way to work --like i usually did most mornings for coffee. There wasn't anything unusual about that day and thats pretty much the life in Vermont. People move here from there and everywhere to live in that mundane uneventful security... But that was to end suddenly. That voice. It came over the radio as if it were an interupting message from the gods and everything from that moment on would be incapsulated into the annals of time. Time would stand still in my memory as a vivid and tramatic playback that still seems to be drifting in a series of pictures and stunning events that have revolved in my mind everyday sinse Sept. 11th. There isn't a day that goes by that in some way I don't think about the events of that day or the consequences of that day.


I assume that I was driving along merrily in my Volkswagen Bus; up to work at Stowe Vermont at a resort that I worked for--and for once, I actually enjoyed the job. The people that ran the resort came from NYC and we would get along pretty well because it was something that we had in common. I wasn't born there but I spent most of my school years in and around the area and then college in the city --I've always been a new yorker at heart.


That voice came over the radio and I can still hear it as clear as you could get it without being considered unstable. It went something like this: "There seems to have been some type of accident in NYC; it seems that some type of plane has hit one of the World Trade Towers." " No real report as to what type of damage or casualties may have occured but we'll keep you posted as to the events going on down in NY." That was it. Nothing terribly allarming. Just something that I found a little sad that perhaps a small plane had vered off its course and must have hit the building.


I was only a few moments from work and being the news junkie that I am, was glued to the radio trying scoop up anything new that might develop. I had just pulled into the parking facility and was trying to get that latest piece of news before I lept from the Bus and started my day. I got it! There was a break for the news just as I was ready to leave. "The news out of NYC is that a large airliner has struck the World Trade Center and that the news coming out of New York is bad and that there is abviously something very big going on down in NYC right now." That was something to the effect of what he said and it stuck. I can hear that today. The thought of those words and that broadcast conjers up enough memory to give me the goose flesh.


Now my news junkie was peaked and I needed more info. My boss lived there on the grounds and he came out onto his balcony and greeted me like he usually did and gave me some simple instrutions and odd things that needed to be taken care of--funny to think of the way we go to work unlike people in NYC. --they would never dream of such a work invironment. When he finished, I asked him if he was watching the news and he replied, "No why?" I said, "There is something going on in NY." "In the City" he stated. "yea" "They said that a plane hit the World Trade Center or something like that." "Really!?" he said in puzzelment. "I'll turn on CNN." I was really bated by what was going on when he turned into the condo to turn on the TV. I thought that we had the unspoken understanding that he would fill me in on the events as they were unfolding. I was still standing in the middle of the parking lot looking up at the condo when I heard it. It wasn't Dan--my boss. It was the voice of his wife Donna. Which took me a bit by surprise because I haden't noticed her up in the condo that morning. The only thing I heard was her say in a very loud, unrelenting and alarming tone was: "Oh my god!" "Oh my god!" the third time she said it it seemed as one word "ohmygod!" It wasn't at all what I wanted to hear. I was still standing in the middle of that parking lot waiting for Dan to come out with some type of news as to the situation. I think that I may have made some feeble and sheepish attempt at hailing him to the porch "but she just kept saying "Oh my god!" rythmically over and over that simply kept overwhelming me and my attempt from this uninformed position to hail him.

I just wanted her to stop saying that, was all i could think. Everytime she said it, my angst would compound geometrically and now I was getting really worried about friends I had in the area. You have to understand: for a New Yorker--such as her, to hear her be that rattled meant that this was no small dealings, something very bad was going on and to a fellow New Yorker I was rattled too. I had to get to a TV!


Well, so many things have been said about that day and the general concensous is that most people are really at loss as to dramatic and presice words that will every fully capture the feelings of that type of devestation.

When I walked into the lobby and front desk they already had on CNN to my surprise. When I caught the first glimpse of that tower in smoke and on fire I was --stunned, i guess. Void to the point of stupid. "Whoa!" was all that came out of me. The girl working there was a simple country girl from the northeast part of Vermont and she seemed to be at a distance to all the goings on as if it were another rented movie for her. I can't tell anyone that has never lived in NYC (not just visited) lived in the city, for a length of time what those buildings came to mean to each person in the city. The type of security they gave to the mind to always see that symbol of strength there everyday. They built up a tough-comfort like psychological package that became quit reassuring after a while

I was there in '93 when the first attack happened and I watched it from the my building there. What I saw that morning was bad and terribly unsetteling. I could see that tower was starting to look a little 'sick' in the way it was leaning and that it would need some work after that fire was out. Living in NYC after '93 one always wondered about what devestation would be heaped if one of those things ever had the misfortune of falling over--and I was thinking about that again Sept. 11th... I was also thinking about my best friend Erika Rier--Where was she? I now that she works down close to there and it was commuting time for her.


I went out to do some of my work for the day with the intention that I would go i from time to time and keep myself posted on the events. I wasn't prepaired at all. I went back in and another plane had hit. I said in wonder "Is the fire jumping?" " "Is it spreading!?" "The other tower is on fire" The look on my face must have been rather ammusing for her but she dryly stated " No, another plane hit it" Now was the time that the frantic set in that would last for about a week without much in the way of rest! Now was the time to get to a phone!.. I told people my situation and I had an agreeable full range of calls anywhere. Nothing was going into NYC from Vermont in the way of phone calls for days. I tried to call others in Conn. but they had jammed that up too. I got a frantic call out to A very signifcant person for support that had already tried to contact me. Elzabeth Vidal lived in Ohio and was in imeasurable source of support for me on that day.


Nothing was giving in the way of calls so I tried again to go back to work and pull myself away from that wretched seen. I do remember everything now. I was trying to go through the motions of my work and trying not to be visibly scared and upheaved about things down in NYC, when all I wanted to do was go back to the TV. --and so i did.


I'll never forget this as long as I live: I walked in and looked at the TV once more and said in some type of confusion, " There's so much smoke I can't even see the buildings." And here it came from the young girl from Vermont: "There gone!" "I just watched them fall down!" she stated. As indifferently as an anamatron. I was stunned! I could never in my wildest dreams think that I would see the day that the towers fell to the earth...


The rest of the day would be spent in the usual frantic pace that everyone was gripped into on that day: parked in front of the tv''s with the stunned paralysis of sheep-to-the-slaughter --with intermitent fits of indirect and usless rage. This would be the highlite and futility of weeks to come as well.


No I don't remember anything about September the 10th. But everything about Sept. the 11th is sharpe and ever present. I can remember the sun, what was said to one another, what I did, what the air felt like outdoors and the crispness of it while it tried to work in vain. I wish these days would come to me wrapped in joy to be remembered so vividly. But that is a lesson to be learned. From that day on I have had a new outlook on life and what it really means to be alive when all those people lives had been cut so terribly short. I strive now to find good intense things everyday that I can remember as vividly as September the 11th.

And that's what I did on Septemeber the 11th. 2001