My story

I wasn't going to blog about 9/11. Certainly not because I don't care or that I don't remember, but because I really didn't think I had much to add. Many people far smarter and far more eloquent than I have written stirring and emotional pieces about that terrifying time in all our lives. I do have something funny for today, I'll add the link at the bottom if you choose pass on the following few paragraphs.

I was in Miami at a conference taking place at the Doral Golf Resort that morning. There were about 20-30 of us in a round table discussion about business in our size facilities. It was the typical bitchfest that these conversations can turn into. "How do they expect us to do this?" or "Company A won't return our calls." Yada, yada, yada. During the meeting someone's cell phone started ringing. Then another, then another. A plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Then another. The country was under attack. Obviously the round table broke up and everyone congregated in the hotel lobby where the staff had moved a large screen TV. Hundreds of people from all across North America were crammed into a hotel lobby watching
the world as we knew it being torn asunder. We watched the towers fall, we wondered how we were going to get home, we wondered what would happen next.

All the phone circuits were busy, I couldn't get in touch with the employees back at home. I couldn't reach my family, who knew I was traveling but didn't know when or where I was going to be. I finally reached the office, where everyone had gathered upstairs to watch together. No one thought to forward the phones, so I panicked for not being able to reach them for hours. I also got an open circuit and let my family know I was ok and would let them know more as soon as I had more to tell them. I heard from people on their way home who were on airplanes or waiting for flights at the airport when the nation's skies were shut down.

A group of friends and colleagues rented cars and prepared to drive home. The conference closing reception went on without the usual fanfare. Most of us made an appearance, feeling the need to thank all those who had put so much work into making it what it could have been. But it was short lasted as we huddled together that Tuesday night in the hotel bar watching the President address the nation. Blank stares and hushed conversations were interspersed with moments of tears and fear. A massive thunderstorm roared outside the window. A violent lightning bolt crashed to the ground, knocking out power to the hotel. We sat in darkness until the lights came back on, left with nothing but our fears accentuated by the crack of thunder and thoughts of what may come next.

The caravan left Miami at 10:00am Wednesday, 9/12. There were four in our car and another four in the SUV behind us. We drove in that same thunderstorm half way up the eastern seaboard. We listened to local radio, following the news as it crackled through the static of the storms. We stopped for gas, and bathroom breaks. We reached Columbia, SC and stopped for dinner at an Outback Restaurant. We tried to talk business or sports or anything to divert our minds. We hit the road again, our attention keen to hear the best way around Washington, D.C. on the way to Philadelphia Airport. The SUV stopped there as all its occupants had originally left from that airport. Our car lost one rider as well, and the three of us ventured on. Deep in the night, we shared the duties of driving and navigating while the back seater slept. Our next concern was how to avoid New York City. We traveled north and crossed the Hudson River over the Tappan Zee Bridge at sunrise. We listened WCBS, our gaze fixed south at the smoke plume and haze from Ground Zero. Onward to Providence, I dropped off two friends and it was just me for the last two hours of the trip to Manchester, NH.

Twenty-nine hours after the trek had started, I was home. It took some friends up to a week to get home. This Saturday I leave for that same conference. We will gather again, meet old friends and companions, play golf, and tip a beverage or two. It likely won't be mentioned, but we will all remember that Tuesday we were together seven years ago. Some have gone a different way and some have left us far too soon in life, but we share a bond from that hotel lobby and dark thunderous night... all of us a long way from home.

Today's alternate post topic:
Mother Nature makes a statement on climate change