Extra hugs to all here who knew people who perished in the 9-11 Atrocity.....
Among my circles
we were incredibly lucky:
one person either was late to work, or stepped into a coffee shop (instead of Towers); one who had fairly often been in the Towers visiting clients was
not there that day; and the most amazing of all was a person who worked on around
the ? 102nd floor (and who probably have not made it down the stairs in time)
was fired about 2-3 weeks
before 9-11.
Longish story b/c it
was in a
way- UNUSUAL in how i found out :
I
don't usually watch TV in the morning
unless I know about
something incredibly amazing or horrific has happened
before I went to sleep (such stories that big would continue on when I woke up), so I had NO DEA this
was happening upon awaking at 10AM.
The UNUSUAL thing for
me, however was
NOT turning on my Walkman in the morning which
I have on as I get ready to leave the apartment building, catch news, Local Public Radio programs, and Rock& Roll stations.
SO I left the building, heading down my street which
is perpendicular to a
Major Brooklyn Avenue that in looking northwestward would
sightline towards Lower Manhattan as it leads towards the Manhattan Bridge. I see
how beautiful the day is... the type of Non-Rainy Puffy Happy Summer Clouds showing up between the trees, low apartemnt buildings, and brownstones of the area signaling LOW HUMIDITY Summer Weather here and there in the sky.
As I get near my corner, and FINALLY turn ON MY WAlkman I CLUELESSLY hear several newscasters talking in mid-stream (which
at that point DOSN'T ID
where/what building(s) ..."fireman cover in ashes...." ... I know this sounds trite but it looks like a movie...." then they
all go silent for what feels like least 15 - 30 seconds < which in radio parlance means too much "dead air" time> as I am almost ready then cross the next corner to go down the street leading towards that Major Brooklyn Avenue.
I'm imagining (a
certain prevalent type of) some poor big red-brick building a block long around 12 stories high found in the Borough of Queens... and thinking... 'how awful!...', WHEN one On-Air person
returns to say in a flattened voice...
"The Towers are gone" ....
I spun 90 degrees in shock to face the street across from me, and stopped short in my tracks-
staring at my walkman
as if it's turned into a small squawking monster !!
IN NYC "The Towers" then meant
only one place, but perhaps I (like
millions of others) didn't believe this
because HOW
COULD THAT BE !?!!!
I begin to swiftly but only semi-consciously
reel in all the things I learned . Something
BIG on fire/ incredible surreal/ Towers gone/ I am facing towards Lower Manhattan now....... WAIT A SECOND ... that Happy Summer Cloud
in front of me?? I
hadn't ACTUALLY turned around from side- to-side looking about the sky above my street/ block because I was focused ahead
in a hurry to get to the Subway ...
were there any
other clouds around... did that mean mean something?
Some part of me must of caught on before the rest of me because I then then sort of shot up straight, spun back around, and then stared straight ahead at what
I thought up to that second (consciously, anyway) had been a Happy Summer Cloud sticking up above the lower, but
way closer local buildings that blocked a farther view.
Almost like a zoom lens my sight focused in--
it wasn't the bright-white with blued-gray shadows that a cloud of
that type and
in that time of day/season would look like[ /B]....... no, instead I began to see the lightish but distinctive grayed-beige yellow color it really was.
And didn't it look more somehow more gritty-ish, > well, wait... didn't that meant it wasn't just a cloud "cloud", then?
And I am looking towards Lower Manhattan. Then.... that must mean, that must be the cloud of destruction, I'd glimpsed already as I left home- and was now facing.