9/11, eight years later

I was a junior in college. I remember I was walking to 8 a.m. class, looked down at my watch to see if I was late and it said 7:46 a.m. (CST) I find out later that the first plane had hit its mark at that exact moment.

One thing I'll never forget at this very large college was walking through campus and seeing EVERYBODY on their cell phone, trying to get information and talk to loved ones.

I hadn't met my wife yet, but she was at the same college as me. She had family in Los Angeles, family in Chicago, family in Houston and a sister attending NYU at the time. Her family was panicking hard and her sister's cell phone wasn't working but she had an away message on AOL IM that said "I am OK" before she evacuated.

One thing I will never forget is when we finally got a TV in our class, already knowing both towers had been hit. The first images we saw on TV were the Pentagon in flames. I remember wondering if the terrorists had taken two dozen planes and we were only seeing the beginning of it. It was haunting.

 

YGBFKM

 

There was a running inside joke between some of us at school about Human Meat. Just a weird phrase we used, more or less our one friend Derek who came up with a year before 9/11. Anyway, after the MNF game, him and a few others went on campus and chalked 'Human Meat' everywhere. I mean, everywhere.

A strange coincidence if you will.

I didn't even go to class. I was woken up by my roommate's dad who simply said, 'Madhavok, turn on the TV'. So we did and sat with our jaws open at the news. Even tho I went to school in Buffalo, I met and become friends who were from NYC. UB had a strong NYC presence to say the least. School seemed to shut down for a week. I'm not sure I even ate breakfast or lunch that day.

Eight years. Wow.

 

I was in the Cantor office, North tower, in August 2001 for a morning meeting.

I worked on 104 of the South tower 1998-2000. I knew instantly that morning, first views of the smoke, that all my friends at Cantor were in deep trouble.

I wonder often, if I had still been working way up in the South tower, would I have left the building and not listened to orders to return to work but instead remained outside.

And by the way, when you worked on 104, we always wondered over drinks would they try again. It was hard not to think about it.

 

I was less than two weeks into my first job out of college. Driving to work, listening to some goofy local sports talk, when somebody called in saying planes had hit the towers.

I got to work, and by then, both towers had been hit. What I'll remember most is the archaic wire system the paper had. Every time something on the wire was marked urgent, every computer in the newsroom beeped. Every one.

So the day was spent watching TV, and listening to the computers beep a few seconds later.

That night was weird. I remember going to sleep with the radio on, listening to updates.

 

I do not kid.

 

My friend's uncle had a corner office on one of the upper floors of the first tower that was hit.

They never found a trace of him.

 

Then you are clueless.

 

And classless.

 

Someone--I think it was Buckweaver--got or had retained a copy of all the bulletins AP sent out that morning and posted them here last year (I think). Chilling, horrifying stuff to see it unfold along the wire,

 

A lot of pictures in the mind from that day, but only one headline still sticks in mind: The San Francisco Examiner.

 

Eight years ago, I lived 70 miles NW of DC, and rarely woke up before 11 a.m. But that was the day I had a meeting with our writing coach at the office. I did my daily routine that morning, woke up, stumbled into the living room, cranked on cnn, escaped the doorjam into the bathroom and got myself ready. As I got into the shower i heard the words "world trade center" but thought nothing of it.

by the time I got out of the shower, CNN was just revving into panic mode. Is it a charter? is it a private plane? what the hell? I took off for the 4-minute drive to work and the radio was full of it. by the time I got to the office, there was bad mamma jamma at the pentagon. I worked with a women whose husband was there. I remember her scream as she ran out of the conference room. Our writing coach looked at me and said, "we can wait on this." I said, "I can't watch this any more, let's go."

It made me a better writer, editor and manager. And when we got out an hour later, the world had changed. for better or worse. I went to adoration chapel, said prayers for about 45 more minutes. Then I called my best friend who worked at 7 WTC. Obviously, zero cell phone service. Awful. Was he dead, was he alive, was he on some boat somewhere? I cried. I cursed out people I worked with. I pumped out an early sports section, read proofs for the A section extras, then went to my favorite bar.

We lived within 20 minutes of Camp David, the surveillance jets buzzed us multiple times. We drank. Heavily. I had as many tequila shots as I've had in 20 years. The owner said, "don't worry about it," I tipped my bartender $20, and called me a cab home.

The next day was awful. Had the final flight gone another 5-6 minutes, it would have crashed right in my town. We were, again, just unsure of how to proceed. My friend called the next night. He walked 15 miles up to Brooklyn, then took a series of buses back to jersey. there was more crying. the story was ridiculous. I went and visited a couple months later. and punched him in the chest as hard as I could for vanishing. We hugged and cried some more.

So, in Cliffs Notes, I can remember everything about that day. And, despite the tequila at the end, I'm thankful I can remember it all. it still makes this day more significant to me than any other. Thank God for that.

And to chet the jet: I can't even imagine.