Remembering September 11, 2001

Everyone who was old enough to understand remembers where they were on that day. I certainly remember where I was and what I was doing. I just wish more people would remember the spirit of unity that followed it. I have never before seen American flags sold out for so long. Even around Independence Day every year there’s some left over. Not after that day.

9/11 for me started out on 9/10. I was a car salesman in San Diego at the time, selling Chevys at what was then C&M Chevrolet. Personal time in the car business is something to be closely guarded. The schedule went Sat/Sun off – Mon PM – Tues “bell” (all day or bell to bell) – Wed AM – Th off – Fri PM (but be there for the morning meeting) – Sat/Sun “bell” – Mon AM – Tues off – Wed PM – Th “bell” – Fri am – start over. You’re also expected to work when you’re scheduled off and to come in from anywhere if a customer shows up. To say that it can lead to burnout and raucous, drunken parties is putting it very mildly indeed.

I did what I usually did back then when I had time off – I drove on down to Coronado when I got out of work around 9:00 PM on Monday night to spend the night on her sailboat in the Coronado Cays Yacht Club on the silver strand and have some fun on my Tuesday off. We hopped into her 1975 Stingray and went for a drive. I don’t remember all that much from that night specifically except for getting pulled over by a Coronado cop for her license plate light hanging down (she was going to fix it soon anyway). We had a couple of drinks on the boat (no, we weren’t going anywhere – she lived aboard) and crashed out sometime around 0200 after planning to go to the movies the next day.

Sometime later that morning (no idea what time) we were woken up by the phone ringing. Adrienne answered it and said that some guy had said that there was a plane crash and the borders were closed before he realized he had dialed a wrong number and hung up. We were both still so tired and it didn’t make any sense – we (at least I) figured it was something local with the world’s busiest border crossing just a few miles away between San Ysidro in the U.S. and Tijuana in Mexico. We shrugged it off and went back to sleep.

Before I go any further, I should pause the story for a bit of background. Adrienne’s sailboat, Bruja, was a 27′ fiberglass sloop which I miss very much. She didn’t have an AM/FM radio on board at the time (she was planning on replacing the one it came with soon) and the TV didn’t have an antenna or cable – she didn’t like TV that much and just watched DVDs.

Back to the story. We woke up sometime around 0900 and lazed about for a while before I called Mom from the dock to say hi and see what was new and exciting in Poway.

Her words hit me like a freight train.

She told me that there had been a terrorist attack. Both towers of the World Trade Center were down – hit by hijacked airliners. Fifty thousand people were thought lost at the time. Another plane had hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane was down in Pennsylvania. All air traffic was grounded except for military.

I stood there on the dock, just numb, in shock, and trying to make sense of what I was hearing. I was sick to my stomach and thought I was going to vomit. The last time I felt anything like this was when my head met a curb at over thirty miles an hour without a helmet back in grade school. I think Mom said she had to go and I told her I’d call her back. The numbness started to wear off and was replaced by grief and rage. The tears started to come shortly thereafter and didn’t stop for quite a while.

I told Adrienne who immediately got on her cellphone to her dad. I remember her reaction was much the same.

Everyone was worried about more attacks. Would a plane hit something on the west coast? Would they go after shopping malls? Military bases? Bridges? Los Angeles seemed like a likely target for further attacks with its tall buildings and tourist attractions – the thought of a jumbo jet going into Disney Land crossed my mind. San Diego is full of military bases.

We talked some and decided to go to Radio Shack for an antenna for the TV. That’s where we saw the video for the first time. The numbness, grief, and rage started all over again.

We listened to the radio for a while, not wanting to go back to the boat. We talked about what to do – we had planned to go to the movies, but should we still go? We decided that the terrorists wanted nothing more than to cause fear and paralysis in the population so we would do our part to deny them that and go to the movies despite recent events. I don’t remember what movie we saw, but I think it gave both of us time for events to sink in without thinking about them for a while.

We listened to the radio for more news on the way back to the boat and turned on the TV when we got there. The casualties appeared much lighter than first feared, but somehow that gave little comfort. I got a phone call from the dealership asking if I could come in – something special I should probably be part of. I was the biggest Corvette fan on the lot and it turns out that they had a Corvette sale all lined up for me – a friend of the owner. I’ve never regretted declining their invitation.

We sat out on the deck of the boat late into the evening, and while I don’t remember much of what we talked about, I do remember the strange silence. The Coronado Cays Yacht Club is on the silver strand as I’ve said before. There’s usually a lot of air traffic in the area. Lindbergh Field and NAS North Island are a short distance to the north and there’s a military heliport a ways to the south. That night we only heard a couple of jets overhead, but saw no lights. I’d never before been directly protected by U.S. military aircraft flying combat air patrol.

I went home that night and barely slept. Adrienne couldn’t sleep at all. She decided that rather than lay awake and do nothing, she’d go into work at the Red Cross blood bank at 0300 on 9/12. She said she’d never seen such a traffic jam as she found herself in that night. You see, there’s lots of military just on Coronado and the strand. There’s the Naval Amphibious base, the SEAL base, and North Island Naval Air Station. Everyone was called into work.

After making it to the Coronado Bay bridge, she found that the traffic jam was just as bad in the opposite lanes – all heading into the bases. She looked over to the 32nd Street Naval Station and saw all the ships turned bow out to the bay and taking on supplies and munitions.

I went back to Coronado a couple of days later and saw at least three Aegis cruisers off the coast providing surface to air missile coverage for San Diego. It wasn’t much later that a wave of patriotism swept over the United States like I had never seen which was followed by a call for vengeance to be taken on those who had committed this act.

That’s how I remember September 11, 2001 as I sit in Las Vegas six years later.