POSTING #89

Memories of 9/11

It is a commonplace that the first news we hear of a history-making event gets imprinted in our brains, along with the sights, sounds and even smells that were occurring then.

For example, the shooting of President Kennedy.

All of us of a certain age remember what we were doing when we first heard the news.

For my part, I was sitting with Pat in our living room in Harrogate, Yorkshire in November 1963 watching the early evening BBC television news. In the midst of a story about some mundane event, the news reader suddenly stopped. He looked down at a note that had been slipped to him and then looked at the camera. The calm, emotionless facade that BBC news readers always adopted had slipped. His expression was a mix of shock, and incredulity.

"I have just been told that President Kennedy has been shot. We have no further information. When we have more news we will bring it to you."

The BBC announcer carried on with the news but he never recovered that calm news-reader look. His eyes kept darting off-camera, watching for more information.

 Like people around the world, we spent the next few hours watching the horrible events unfold.

The anniversary of 9/11 a few weeks ago brought back memories of what we were doing when we first heard of the attacks.

I had spent the first half of 2001 working in Amman, Jordan helping create employment programs under a CIDA contract. After a summer at home I was booked to fly back to Amman on September 21.

Pat and I decided to take a holiday before I left. We would go to Larchmont, just north of New York City, for a visit with our friends Tammy and Peter Greeman, and on Tuesday,  September 11th, we would leave for a few days at a peaceful resort in Manchester, Vermont.

On the morning of the 11th, we had a leisurely breakfast with our friends and then said goodbye to Peter who was off to play golf. Tammy was waiting for a home alarm technician who was due to come at 9 AM to fix a problem, and then she was going out to do some errands.

Pat and I had just finished loading suitcases into our car, and had  gone back into the house to say goodbye to Tammy when we heard the phone ring. Tammy answered it,  listened for a time, asked a question, and then hung up.

She said that the technician had told her that he wouldn't be coming, that he had been called into the city to deal with the plane crash. When she had asked , 'what crash?', he had told her to turn on the TV, and had hung up.

We went into the Greeman's den, switched on the television and watched replays of the 8.46 AM crash into the World Trade Center's North Tower and the 9.03 AM crash into the South Tower. For nearly two hours the three of sat close together in the den---saying hardly anything---as we  watched the horrifying collapse of the towers, and  the reports of the crashes into the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

In the midst of this, Peter called to say that someone had come onto the course and given them the news. He and his golf mates were in the clubhouse watching television. He and Tammy chatted worriedly about people they knew who worked in the World Trade Center.

Around 11 AM, Pat and I decided we had to get on the road for the long drive to Vermont. We hugged Tammy and set off.

The normal route to Vermont meant crossing to the west side of the Hudson on the Tappan Zee Bridge. As we got closer to the bridge, we could see that the roads going north out of New York were jammed, while the only vehicles going into the city were fire trucks, ambulances and police cars.

Radio reports were confused and frightening. There were rumours that more attacks could be coming.

We had just finished agreeing that the bridge was going to be a parking lot, when a horrible thought struck. What if the terrorists had arranged to blow up the bridge when it was loaded with fleeing people?

We decided to exit the road to the Tappan Zee and to go north along the east side of the Hudson, using secondary roads until we found another crossing.

The traffic was light and we made good time. Getting hungry, we pulled over for lunch at a small diner.

The owner, who looked Middle Eastern, perhaps from Lebanon, was watching a small television up high in the corner of the diner. He kept repeating, "Crazy people, crazy people.'

After serving us some sandwiches and coffee,  he went back to his chair and resumed his muttering about 'those crazy people'.

Looking back, I think that while he was of course angry at the horrific acts, he was also angry at the profoundly negative impact the attacks were going to have on the relationship between people from the Middle East and other Americans.

Life was going to be much more difficult for people like himself.

We finally crossed the Hudson near West Point and arrived late but safely in Manchester.

I spent the next few days talking with colleagues in Ottawa trying to learn when I would  be returning to Amman. The ban imposed on all air travel was complicating everything.

One day, I was told that my travel would be delayed by a few days.

Then by a few weeks.

Later on, it was decided that work on the project would be suspended until the Government was sure that it was safe for Canadians to return to the Middle East.

It wasn't until 2004 that I resumed work on the project.

When I hear the term '9/11', I think of those hours in front of the television in the Greeman's den, and of the anger of the diner owner.

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When I did return to Amman, I was shocked to hear some well-educated people say that the 9/11 attacks had not been carried out by Arabs.

One of them told me, "You know us. We Arabs couldn't plan and carry out  anything as complicated as 9/11."

According to them, the 'real' perpetrators were (take your pick) the Israelis, the CIA, the Catholic church, or even the mafia.

At first, I tried to reason with them by asking what motive a particular group would have had to carry out the attacks. What would they gain?

The reasons were so transparently silly that I stopped responding to all the conspiracy talk.

I think many people in the Middle East have now accepted that the attacks were indeed planned and carried out by people from their region, but I suppose Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran,  speaks for those who still haven't accepted that.

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See you on October 10th for Posting #90 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.