8 comments

  1. I didn’t see the planes hit, but saw the first tower fall in person from across the East River (I worked in downtown Brooklyn at the time). Didn’t stay around to see the second fall, but heard about it afterward. I was IN the basement of the World Trade Center maybe a half-hour before the first plane hit, my commute took me thru there, and I’d intended to stop at Borders that morning but forgot and got on the subway instead. Had I stopped, or had I missed my train from home, I’d have been there.

    God protects drunks and fools, so I figure I’ve got double coverage.

    Actually, Kim, I have a somewhat long essay I wrote on the 5th anniversary, which I publish most years on Facebook. With your permission I’ll post it here in comments.

    Mark D

  2. The melancholy of this day is so powerful for me. At the time I worked just 2 blocks from the WTC. I was on my way that morning when the wife couldn’t drop the kids off at school. So I did. That saved me. I would have been under the WTC in the subway station otherwise. An accident or fate.

    Folks outside of this area don’t understand transportation here. Car commuting to Manhattan is so atrocious that enormous numbers of ppl take the various railroads. Like a spiderweb they cover the surrounding 80 to 100 miles from Manhattan. I lived just outside the boros of NYC. The day after the attack 20 good souls would never return to just my town. Firemen, office workers, rich and poor. I lost customers, the kids lost parents of classmates. Gone. When later in the afternoon I picked up the kids, I drove to a shopping center nearby and we watched from a high vantage point on the garage roof the smoke rise from the burning buildings in lower Manhattan. 18 years ago. I turned to my young daughters and told them that this was the start of a war.

    God Bless America.

  3. I’ve seen many headlines today that say only “Never Forget.”

    Thank you for remembering the way it should be.

  5. When the 1st plane hit I figured a pilot fucked up.
    When the 2nd plane hit I figured we were under some kind of attack.
    With a wife and two pre-schoolers at home I excused myself from work, filled the gas tank on my car, drove home (lived close), filled the wife’s gas tank, and took a few thousand out of savings for cash on hand.
    We lived in the landing pattern of a small, municipal airport and it was eery how quiet it was for the next few days.

  6. Thousands!! He said thousands!! That’s the best laugh I’ve had on this grimmest of anniversary dates. Muchas gracias!

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