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| Looking toward lower Manhattan from Liberty Island in August, 2004. |
Some days, it seems as if it happened yesterday ... my recollection of that day can be way too clear at times. It was a beautiful, sunny, Tuesday morning walk down Leavitt to the 'el station at 35th & Archer. I walked on the right side of the street. At that point, it seemed like a typical work-day morning on the train. I was happy because I was actually going to be early getting to the office. Since the back door to our office was broken, I had to enter through the side front and cut-thru the file room, somehow finding myself passing our main conference room with all of the attorneys circling around a fuzzy TV picture. I asked what was going on and someone said something about "some type of air plane crash ... some type of possible terrorist action." I rushed back to my desk where the lady next to me had one of those mini-TV's on. I saw the smoke rising from the Twin Towers ... ABC News was on and I picked up the phone and called my mom right away. "Mom, something terrible has happened in NY ... call Aunt Mickey." (We have family that lives in NY -- Long Island). It was impossible to get on the Internet. Everything was jammed and it's impossible to pick up AM radio stations downtown. We heard rumors that there were missing planes ... that a plane was headed towards the Sears Tower ... then a plane crashed into the Pentagon ... next, all the planes were ordered down to land at nearby airports. It was so surreal -- everyone was trying to pickup whatever info we could from whatever sources were available. There were lots of phone calls to family, friends, coworkers we knew in other places.
To say that we were in shock as we watched the first tower fall was, well, an understatement. I mean, I just couldn't believe it. It was a horrific site --- just knowing that there were people trapped and then to see them killed in that manner. I cried ... a lot of us cried. Our building was ordered to evacuate. The entire Loop was shut down. We were on the top floor at LaSalle and Washington (43rd floor), which was kitty corner from City Hall and 3 1/2 blks. from the Sears Tower. You could look down from the windows and see a mass of people fleeing downtown heading towards the Metra and 'el stations. We heard more rumors: that all public transportation was shut down. Calls were made to find out that this info was not true. I would say, by 10:00 a.m. our firm was officially closed.
I had to call family ... call the girls' school to find out what was happening there. Mrs. Murphy, the school secretary, said that they were keeping school in session because it would be better to keep the kids there locked down and secure because no one really knew what was going on yet. The principal went to each classroom and in an age-appropriate way, briefed the kids on what was happening. The older kids were able to see a little bit of the images from TV. I called my mom and made sure that she was getting out of downtown. My dad's steel plant was shutting down and they arranged to meet each other. I left the office sometime after 11:00 a.m. It was a ghost town down here. I ran into an old co-worker on the 'el platform and we cried. Lots of tears on the train. We were scared to be down here, too. Got off the train and it was so incredibly quiet. I have never heard it that quiet in the city before.
So, that same walk down Leavitt to my in-laws' house was different. My father-in-law was waiting on the porch for me ... cried again.
I picked up my car and went to Jewel to pick up a few things just in case there were curfews and/or food delivery problems. Everyone was talking to everyone, yet it was quiet. Lots of courtesy and sadness. Left the store and finally went home. Opened the door and found Darrin somberly sitting on the couch watching the coverage on TV. Hugged and cried. Watched TV and cried. I called Uncle Bill to make sure that my cousins in NY were okay. He told me that when my cousin Mark first heard, he jumped in a boat and headed down Long Island Sound over to the East River and tried to make it down to help. He was blocked by the Port Authority police from getting any further ... he saw the last tower fall as he watched from his boat.
I was walking from one room to another in our apartment when I heard a loud booming noise in the sky. I rushed to the window in the sitting room to see a fighter yet flying above our McKinley Park neighborhood. I knew at that point that the world had changed forever. We decided to head over to Archview (a local neighborhood restaurant) to just get away from the TV and wait to pick up the girls from school. The skies were again eerily quiet being that we live fairly-close to Midway Airport ... and yet they were clear and bluer than any blue sky I've ever seen before.
I've never seen that many parents, all at once, picking up their children at school. Alex was in kindergarten and Caitlyn was in 4th. Miss Ehlert, Alex's teacher, asked us if it was really true. I think all of the parents tried their hardest to keep it together in front of their kids without breaking down. It was hard to sleep that night ... lots of bad dreams and the only noise I heard was the scary rumble of the sonic booms coming from the fighter jets patrolling the skies above.
What do you remember when you look back? Never forget.
