My 9/11 story

Ten years ago we were living in upstate New York. V was pregnant with M and T was in daycare. We had one car. We were running late that morning and were low on gas. We had public radio playing in the car and often listed to NPR on the radio in the mornings. I wanted to stop and get gas on the way to town but V was going to be late for work so we went straight to drop her off first. My mind was busy thinking about things I needed to do for work. I went to drop T off at daycare after dropping V off. When I pulled back out on the road from daycare the car lost power in the turn. I knew I was in trouble and turned off the radio to think quickly about what direction the nearest gas station was in. That was just after 8:30 in the morning. I drove for about a quarter mile and then the car died completely; I coasted it off to the side of the road and parked it. Then I was on foot to the gas station. I had several miles to walk by farmland.

At one point some blue jays flew over the road making their soft "tulu" call, which is very different from the harsh "jay!" call they usually make. When many people hear it they often don't recognize it as a jay call. I noticed how clear and blue the sky was. Also, one thing you see when walking along the side of the road is how many animal remains there are from getting hit by cars, which I also reflected on. It is something you hardly notice when driving. (You may wonder how I can remember these details; the chain of events was so unusual that day I wrote down every thing I could remember of what happened soon after; however, even if I hadn't I don't think I would forget.) After a couple miles the gas station was coming into sight. Before getting there I saw someone else cross the road ahead and go into the station. I went in, found a gas can, and went to the cash register to buy it. The man I saw before was standing off to the side holding a paper, but not really reading it. The attendant said that I can't bring gas into the store. (He apparently didn't see me take it off the shelf.) I told him it was empty; I ran out of gas and needed to buy it to fill it up to take back to the car. The man with the paper said if I buy the paper for him he would give me a ride back to my car. Then he handed the cashier a bill for both the paper and the can; the cashier rang it up before I had agreed to anything. He then asked me for the money for the gas can. I didn't like this but I had spent a long time walking and didn't want to turn down a chance to ride back and not carry the can full of gas, so I went along with it. I didn't have exact change so he came out a dime ahead, but it was worth getting a ride back to the car. (However, in the back of my mind I was thinking that I saw him cross the road and had not yet seen him with a car... ) I filled up the canister, paid for that, then followed the guy across the road to a driveway between a house and a storage garage. Both buildings looked very neglected and were falling apart. The guy was acting odd and making strange little comments so I was thinking he is a little bit nuts. He said that this is not really his house, that he normally lives in a much bigger house in Canada. Then he asks me what direction it is to town. This is very strange, even if he didn't really live here, how can you come out here and not know which direction you came from? I declined to go inside with with him and said I would wait there; I stood in full view of the road and gas station. He goes in and comes out with a box full of keys and talks to me while rummaging through it. He said that "she" is not really his wife that she is just staying there (I never saw any woman and don't know who he is referring to). Then apparently he finds the key he is looking for while telling me he runs a business that makes him millions of dollars and that he is just spending some time here. He takes the box back inside. I am debating just walking off because this guy is obviously nuts, but I am also curious as to how this might unfold and I am thinking that I might get a good story out of this. He starts to come out then stops and turns and talks through the dark doorway, he sounds surprised and disappears again. Then comes back and tells me not to worry about getting to work on time that he just saw the news on TV. This didn't really mean anything to me at the moment. We get into his car and start out. Before we pull out he asks me which way it is to town again. Then while driving on the road he is going very, very slow. He is also swerving into the other lane, as if he can't really see the road. Cars are lining up behind us and occasionally passing while yelling out the window at him. All this time he is talking to me about his son, he loaned him $800,000 to start a business, but he made sure he paid it back "every nickle." Then he tells me again not to worry about work, that a plane had flown into the buildings in New York and into the Pentagon and that they were on fire. Then asks me what I do, and asks if I know "how to reverse engineer vitamins." Before I can answer he asks if I know what reverse engineering is. I say yes, and he says that we should work together and that we can make $200,000. "Anyone would be interested in that." It goes on and on. I am thinking that this guy is crazy, and that he is the worst con-artist ever. I am also trying to remember what he is saying so I can repeat it later to tell people. Then he gives me a card out of this pocket and said I should contact him to come work for him. The card looks very used and I wonder where he got it from. Then he said he shouldn't have "swallowed" that dime when paying for the paper and that we should stick together. Finally we make it back to the car. As I pour the gas into the tank he stands there both criticizing me for holding the can wrong or pouring it in wrong and telling me that we should help each other out. He tries to get me to promise to contact him from the card. I just thank him for the ride and then he asks me which direction it is back to his house. I point him in the right direction and he gets in his car and watches me until I start up and pull off. I give him a wave as I go and he starts driving in the right direction.

I haven't had breakfast yet and am a bit exhausted from the walking and mentally from dealing with the paper guy. He was non-stop fast talking and asking weird questions. I decide I am already late and it won't hurt to take a break and get something to eat. I buy a paper and get some breakfast. The story I read in the paper is about a suicide bomber in Israel that is an Israeli Arab citizen. I then go on to work and tell TB when I get in that "I have had quite the morning." She asks if I have heard the news. I ask what news and then she says almost the same words the paper guy had said. That planes had flown into a buildings in New York and into the Pentagon. This was a very disorienting, unnerving point. I had discounted that information from the paper guy as crazy along with everything else he said. But now the people I worked with were saying the same thing. I felt like everyone was going crazy. I had to take a look around and ask myself what was going on. I got onto the computer and tried to pull up CNN, but the page wouldn't load. I tried another news site but even after several minutes it wouldn't come up either. This was unusual. Then our boss came in and said that the world trade buildings had collapsed, he had went back home for a while and saw it on TV.

It was clear that I was not going to get much work done that day, so I took care of the necessary things that had to get done and then walked down to a store nearby where I remembered that they had a news channel playing on a big screen TV inside. A lot of people were there and the store had made room and put down rows of chairs in front of the TV. That's when I finally saw the footage. I sat down and watched for while until it started repeating and then headed back to work. Then V called me and asked if I had seen what was going on. I remember saying that this must be Al Qaida. The world trade center had been attacked before in 1993 (which apparently everyone had forgotten about) and Osama bin Laden's network attacked the USS Cole in 2000, so it made sense. Especially at that time I kept up with a lot of details in international news. Later I was talking with other people at work about bin Laden and Al-Qaida, it seemed that no one had ever heard of them.

We didn't have working TV reception at home. I remember getting home that night and turning on the radio to hear Bush's announcement that no distinction will be made between terrorist organizations and the countries that harbor them.

In the weeks and months that followed, one of our coworkers was also involved in emergency response and was called to assist at the disaster site in NYC. Our boss was very unhappy about this because he also had a job to do there in the upstate. I volunteered to do his job until he was finished in the city.

I remember how slack security was at airports before 9/11. I saw people go around security and get on planes. I told airport personnel and they just "handled" me and didn't seem concerned. You also used to be able to walk with people to boarding, after checking in, which means anyone could get onto the planes if you traded places. And so on. That is one thing that really changed after 9/11.

The threat from terrorists was always there, Al-Qaida had been attacking the US for years before 9/11; it's just that most Americans didn't seem to notice or didn't connect the dots. The idea of using planes as weapons had also been around (e.g. Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor in 1994). What changed was peoples perception of the threats.

Another thing changed at home for us. I had a US flag flying in front of our house for years before 9/11. The only house in our neighborhood. Then after 9/11 everyone put one up. We however soon after took ours down, out of disgust and protest at the passing of the "patriot" act and other developments from politicians. (Don't get me wrong; I was all for going after Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Iraq was a different story.) We, as a country, played right into bin Laden's hands. How many freedoms and moral standards should we give up to fight terrorism? Not a one.