Where were you on 9/12?

 

It was a clear September fall day, very similar to today. The ride downtown was normal. The shower and change of clothing was the same as it always has been since we moved into the newly constructed building. I don’t remember if the basement elevator used the scan card or I took the steps?

It was deafening quiet in the office. A gray array of low cubicles opened to ‘neighborhoods’ to five or six designers sitting watching their computer screens.

My usual pattern would be to go to my cubicle, read the overnight e-mail, check the ‘problem rack’ left from the night before, then go to each ‘neighborhood’ to hand out work and check on the ‘associates’.

Today was different.

When I got to my office, a ‘Happy Homemaker’ came up and pinned a red, white and blue ribbon to my shirt. She had made one for everyone in the office. We didn’t say a word and she went back to her seat.

I can’t remember if the schedule had changed from the usual follow up deadlines for classifieds to get them to the Hanover printing plant on time. Then clean up for the night crew and leave a report of any items to be passed on.

 

It was not like the day before, which should have been the same routine, but something happened. The first I remember was an e-mail that said something is going on in New York. Then the manager behind me started calling people over to watch her log onto the Internet to stream the news. People started getting on phones and work stopped. 

Next was a meeting in the middle of the newsroom announcing they producing a special edition that would be printed with the classifieds and people volunteered to deliver them to the local convenience store with whatever information they had at the time. The normal newspaper delivery  gig workers only came around midnight.

My job, as Operation Manager, was to make sure the ‘imagers’ processed every photo AP was providing and the ‘paginators’ prepped the pages to send to the presses. Some of the photos that I saw I knew could not be printed.

Everything worked like a well-oiled machine, all done in a quiet hush.

I hadn’t been watching the streaming video as everyone else was trying to do throughout the building. I was trying to keep people doing their jobs as a distraction.

Not until I got home that night did I see the entire story on the television screen. My wife had been watching it all day long, over and over and over again, just like the Challenger explosion. Shortly thereafter, she had a heart attack.

 

On Wednesday, September 12, 2001 no one knew what was going to happen next. Were we going to be attacked again? Would there be soldiers in the streets? Will my bank close?

One thing I immediately noticed was the silence. Everyone had to figure out what he or she had seen and how to cope with it in their own way. Also the order came to get ALL of the planes to land. You don’t think about the noise of planes flying overhead until they are not there. The only noises in the sky were the birds and an occasional fighter jet.

The American Flag (the old glory, red, white and blue, stars and strips) started to appear everywhere. Every house put out a flag on the front porch. Every car and truck had a metal magnetic flag on it. The fire trucks started carrying flags. The football teams came out of the tunnel carrying flags. There were flag lapel pins. There were flag decals in every store window. Everyone was showing patriotism.

Then people started getting angry and posting offensive statements (like they do today in memes). Since my department was diverse, I took down some pictures and told everyone to keep their feelings to themselves.

 

The New York Times posted a full page of the faces of the NYFD who died. A local firefighter asked if we could get copies for the fire departments here. I suggested it to my boss but she thought it was frivolous and a waste of materials. I thought it would be great public relations for the newspaper, but she did not agree.

So I contacted the NYT and got an e-mail of the page. I printed out the copies requested (during downtimes) and gave the fireman his request. He gave me an NYFD cap sent to him from New York.

 

Then the news shifted from cleaning up the rubble to attacking another country and bombing mountains. The magnetic flags slide off the cars and flags started coming down from porches. Our patriotic fever changed to Christmas consumption and twin lights over the skyline. There were still gigantic flags on the football field and flyovers, but every year we stop for an anniversary of clear day in September.

We have to go through metal detectors now. We can’t carry bottles and must take off our shoes. We have surveillance from hidden cameras and are told, “If you see something, say something”.

 

So where were you on 9/12?