My September 11, 2001.
While I realize in the grand scheme of things, my day was nothing in comparison, my point in writing this is that I remember it as though it happened yesterday, not 5 years ago. For the 3,000 people who perished and to the families who are less one or more members, my heart aches for you. Always.
As with most of the country, Tuesday September 11, 2001 started as a typical day for me. I was working at the restaurant, my normal shift of 7 am – 5 pm. The supply order had come in overnight and I, along with another person moved the cases of food and paper goods around to be able to work more efficiently. After finishing, I began preparing my plans for the remainder of the day, who is working each station, when to send them on break, playing all the “what if?” scenarios in my head for the possibility of being short staffed, as usual. Little did I know? As I concluded my daily planning ritual, I took a few phone calls from co-workers and my supervisor as to my previous day’s sales, what my forecast for today looked like and so on. As I prepared the daily bank deposit and set up my money for the day, my then-girlfriend called me on my cell, screaming, “A plane hit the World Trade Center!” My sarcastic response with that small amount of information was, “That’s pretty cool. I wonder who got the worst of that one?” In my head, I imagined some small Cessna bouncing off the monstrosities of lower Manhattan. She hung up, but I wasn’t terribly concerned because I had no idea of the magnitude of the situation.
25 minutes later, I was walking to my car to head to the bank and she called again. “A second plane just hit the other tower!” I now knew without anyone telling me that the first one was no accident. She said the first one had this thick cloud of black smoke rising from it and when the second one hit, it burst into a fireball that rocketed skywards. I was a little frozen for just a moment. Thoughts were speeding through my head as to how to handle this situation. For myself, I wanted so badly to get to a television, but had no way to do so. We didn’t have internet at the restaurant, so I couldn’t keep up with it at work either. I called her back telling her to run over to my apartment, turn on NBC and hit record on the VCR. I wanted as much live coverage as possible to watch when I got home. She was a very good girlfriend at the time and did as I asked. Thank you.
As for my other thoughts, how could I possibly work knowing this was happening? I knew now that for as much planning as I had done, I was going to be very shorthanded now. I called my supervisor and told him I already had a bunch of call offs, I’ve made calls, but no one is answering and could you blame them? I needed help; he had to come help me. I wrestled with the notion of whether to tell the people who were already there what has happened. Would they want to leave? Would they be willing to stay, knowing it was going to be one of those days? My boss called me back saying he was on his way, with help too. He also mentioned that we wouldn’t be busy because people would go to places so they could watch the coverage, not to my place. Never was he more wrong, but more on that later.
While at the bank, they had set up a TV and I saw for the first time the devastation that had already occurred, yet both towers were still standing at this point. We stood and watched in disbelief for what seemed like an eternity. The day was only beginning.
Just after the first tower fell, my friend who lives in Cleveland called to tell me and described it as looking like a “war zone”. He also told me about the Pentagon, since I hadn’t heard about it and the missing plane (United 93) that was last known to be over Cleveland. He told me he’d called me later to update and I thanked him for calling.
The day became a blur for the next 5 hours. 11 am to 4 pm was absolutely crazy! Short-staffed and frustrated, we barely survived until the night manager came in to what he must have thought was a war zone. Nothing was organized, nothing was clean, dishes piled high with no one around to wash them, customers steadily flowing in and out and employees not calling or showing up. It was small compared to what was happening just in D.C., just two hours from where we were and in NYC, but I felt the pressure of having to serve the people who put their trust in us to get them in and out quickly so they could get back to watching the days’ events unfold. Personally, I was agonizing over when I would get home and be able to catch up with what was going on. My cell hadn’t stopped ringing since 230, but I hadn’t answered. The only call I answered was from my mother. September 11th is also my brother’s birthday. Should we still go to dinner? I told her it should be up to him, being all of 14 now; he should be able to make a rational decision.
By 630 pm, I had reasonably cleaned up the days’ mess and finished my bank deposits’. My sales reports completed and brief summary of the days events were written in the log as well, although I knew we would never need to look at it again, 9/11 would forever be ingrained in our memories.
At 645, I was home on my couch with the girlfriend watching my VCR tape that had run out around 330 pm. We fast-forwarded though large portions so we could get to what was happening at the moment. By 8, we left for dinner with my family, Red Lobster, the brothers choice. We talked about what we had seen and heard. We talked about a family member who we knew worked very near, or possibly, in the WTC, we weren’t sure. He was fine. He did work in the north tower, but was not there at the time. I talked about how I tried to call Brian, because I didn’t know where he worked in NYC. I needed to know he was ok. He called me 2 days later, much to my relief. Dinner was solemn, but we still, quietly, celebrated my brothers 14 years.
After dinner, the girlfriend and I returned to the comfort of my apartment. Lying in bed, I held her as Tom Brokaw narrated our evening. We sat quietly as we watched and listened and drifted off to sleep.
Click the title of this post to read the lyrics of Matt Ryczek’s 9/11 tribute song “Goodbye”
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