The White Board

Misty with memories.....

9-11

A day and a series of events that is forever burned into my memory and into the collective consciousness of millions of people worldwide.

It seems forever ago now...seven years....and then again, it seems like yesterday. I grew up in the shadows of the World Trade Center. I ate at the restaurant at the Top of The World. When I think of NYC, I see the skyline in my mind and today it still includes the towers. Seeing the NYC skyline today, it seems empty. And, to this day...it sounds loud...echoing sounds overlapping and in the middle of those mind images is one of a five year old girl with long pigtails flying wearing a pink coat. A photograph of my daughter spinning around on the street, looking up and up and up at the towers that she once said seemed to go all the way to heaven.

Where were you when the world stopped turning...that September day?

I was in Maine, watching it all play out on television. I remember thinking that I was glad I was in Maine. I felt safe. Until I realized that the terrorists had stayed in a hotel the night before that was less than ten miles from my house....until I realized that the photo of one of the terrorists responsible was someone I'd seen. I recognized the photo because he'd been a cabdriver on the Alewife run outside of Boston, and I'd been in his cab many times. I'd sat in the backseat of his cab looking at his picture. There was no doubt in my mind and I picked up the phone and called the police.

I remember my mother calling from Illinois, frantic because she couldn't reach my brother and she didn't want him to go to work that day at the the Prudential Building in Boston where he worked at the Top of the Hub restaurant on the top floors. He couldn't have though, as by then, they had closed Boston down.

I remember reaching him and waking him up. I told him to turn on the TV. He asked me what channel and I told him it didn't matter. On the phone together, we watched as the first tower fell.

I remember how quiet the skies were. And I remember how terrified I was the first time I heard a plane after that. We were only a few miles from Kennibunk, Maine and fighter jets were in the skies above it.

I worked for an advertising agency. One of our accounts was Cantor Fitzgerald. I had a deadline of September 11th for rewritten copy for a new brochure we'd been working on for them. I'd emailed it the night before.

Where were you when the world stopped turning...that September day?

I will never forget.