911 AND THE DIVIDING OF TIME  

Few things in my life have had the effect of what I call “the dividing of time.” What I mean is few events have divided my life into sense of “before and after” as much as the fall of the World Trade Center. My parents death, marriage, the birth of my first child all did this to some extent. The fall of the World Trade Center has perhaps had a more profound effect than any of those things in that it taught me the horror of evil really exists. Before this time horrible events had taken place in history. World wars were fought, natural catastrophes existed. None of these things took place on a personal level in my lifetime. The World Trade Center destruction managed to affect me on all sorts of levels personally even though my wife and I visited there only once.

For one, a few years after my wife and I visited there we were watching a special about the first world trade center bombing that had taken place. As the show began to end the narrator of the TV special was talking about the chance of another bombing like that one taking place. As I listened I and watched her speak with the World Trade Center in the background, I saw a jet flying past the buildings and in the shadow it appeared to disolve into the building. I told my wife, “look at that!” “See those planes?” “They will probably try to fly one into the buildings with what hijackers are capable of and with the security so tight they could never get another bomb in the building!” Little did I know such a thing would happen and I now regret saying such a thing.

The day it happened I was scared. Never had such a thing happened in my lifetime. When the second plane hit I was in a customer's living room watching it on a 50” projection TV. I called my wife told her what had happened but was never able to reach her again that day, or the company I worked for. I rushed from job to job on my route trying to finish as soon as I could and get home, not knowing what was happening, only what clients told me as I went from house to house. Finally, I made a decision to go home. Someone told me we had gone into a state of emergency in my state which meant all non-essential vehicles were needed off of the highways. It still took me an hour to reach home because I was working out-of-state.

When my wife and I visited the World Trade Center in 1987 we were told by our host and guide there were over 20 bomb threats a day. Knowing that, and being at the top of the building made me uneasy. I could already sense the sway of the building. Being on the very top and outside where you could easily see the North tower made me realize how small the building really was. Looking across the whole top and over at the other building made the two seem very close together and it didn't look to be very far to the other side of the building we were standing on. 

They had just opened the roof observation deck that had been closed because of high winds. It was still quite windy up there and my sunglasses blew off my face and hit the grating below, just barely missing the edge and falling several feet, down to the roof where I would not be allowed to get them. I felt quite vulnerable in spite of how massive the buildings were height wise.

When we first arrived we spent some time looking at the main floor of the building. There was a space photo exibit going on. Then we went to find an elevator.

I had never seen so many elevators before. I don't remember much about how we chose the right one, but I remember we had to change elevators to reach the top. The elevator itself was quite an adventure as it swayed back and forth reminding me of times standing in a small boat when a teenager when fishing and trying to get the feel of balance. I believe it took ten minutes to reach the top. Before we were allowed on the roof observation deck we spent some time in front of the huge glass windows looking over at the other tower.

At times it is hard to imagine the towers not being there. I have not been to New York since the towers fell. I am not sure what my emotions will be.