As I remember it, I was driving north on I-287 in New Jersey, going to work, and it was a spectacular day … similar to a couple of the days we had this week … just perfect weather.
I was listening to the radio. Howard Stern of all people. Everyone thought it was a commuter plane at first. I switched around for a news station … and then quickly called Dad. A number of years had passed since I worked for Dad at the Council on Tall Buildings … but this was a connection we had. And the tragic event that was about to unfold would become something that touched the very heart of who he was. We talked a couple of times that morning until cell service in the NY/NJ area went down.
I was working with a person (who now thankfully is an ex-business parter) who demanded we work through the day and finish editing a video, even though the client who hired us said we should go home. He believed our clients would find this “devotion” to the project admirable. I disagreed. We were editing a sales video for God’s sake. It the grand scheme of things, it was nothing. I lost the argument, and returned to our project: a video for sales reps about some now-forgotten pharmaceutical that had a list of side-effects so long it took ten minutes for the narrator to read them out loud.
In the early afternoon, Barry, a friend of mine with whom my brother and I used to work all the time, miraculously got through to me on my cell. He was in the building right next the the WTC when the first plane hit. Miraculously, again, the NY emergency crews evacuated tens of thousands of people from lower Manhattan that day, and he was one of them. By the afternoon a series of ferries, vans, and busses had transported him to South Brunswick, New Jersey, fifty miles from Ground Zero.
I told my (soon to be ex-) partner, that’s it, I’ve got to go, and left to find Barry. When I finally got to him almost two hours later, he was still shaking. It was scary.
Three random thoughts about 9/11:
I was a lucky man to have had the opportunity to see my father at work—day in and day out, doing what he loved—and to observe him being a confident, quiet genius at what he did.
I am now better in trusting my instinct that in almost 100% of the cases, an everyday job is not as important as the major life event competing for your attention.
Whenever we have a perfect weather day, I think of September 11th.
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