Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I remember a morning.


I remember where I was.

It was about 6:20am and I was about four miles into my bike ride to work. It was dark with the sun just starting to color the horizon a deep blue. I was listening to the radio, country station, KNIX. I would like to call him a friend, but to be a friend we would have to hang out together or at least borrow tools from each other and our lives didn't allow that much time together so I will simply call him a close acquaintance. We went to church together and he was one of two morning DJ's on the show that morning.



Its funny, what you remember, during those times when things go terribly sideways. The images of a bad movie that seems to stick in your brain and burned itself so deeply. When Kennedy died I was at the Turkey Farm with my kindergarten class. I can still see a turkey from that day.



First, it was a terrible accident; a plane hitting one of the tallest buildings in New York. It could happen; it had happened before. Stuff was always flying into buildings in that city, especially on a foggy day. But then the pictures were of a brilliant blue sky. The two on the radio-you could tell one was broadcasting while the other worked the TV and computer, relayed what they were seeing. There was confusion. It was unclear what was happening.

The ride seemed to grow dark again. I remember the head light to my bike, it was on.

I tried to increase my speed. I wanted to get to my room and turn on the television. What a terrible accident. I had three miles to go.

Then there was a second plane.

Being a former pilot, I knew enough to know something was terribly wrong. I had never heard the name Al Qaida before-never. By the time I got to my room and flipped on the TV, it was on every station. Fire trucks were like huge red salmon swimming up stream to the smoke. Cops were trying to remove thousands of people from a city that had no real plan for removing people quickly from a nightmare like this. This WAS the plan. It worked. Two buildings holding 75,000 were evacuated except for those who were above the impact sight.

I remember standing there watching and my mouth was open. But we all know it got worse.

Yeah, I remember a morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment