Jhalkias
<font color=darkgreen>DIS Geek<br><font color=indi
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2001
My 9/11 story . . .
When I originally went on the school board, I was appointed (a previous board member had died in an accident). I was a very reluctant politician, and had I not been appointed at first, I probably would never have run for office.
Anyway, 2001 was the first year that I had to run for my seat on the board. I did my first campaign like I did Disney when we first went - comando style control freak. I had a wonderful campaign committee of friends, and we were meeting every Tuesday morning at my office for a campaign commitee meeting. We were meeting that Tuesday as usual, and while meeting my MIL (who was home with Sophia, our 19 month old) called me on my cell phone to tell me a plane had hit the world trade center. Like others, I told the folks I was with, and we all thought it was a small plane, and an accident.
My friends left, and the rest of the day unfolded to all our horror. MIL kept calling me with updates - tried to get internet updates, and CNN was flooded and you got verrry sloooow updates. I will never forget I was running for office at the time, and that I was in that meeting. The owner of our company was out of town too, and I had to make some business and community decisions for us. That day I called the Red Cross, and told them that we would be taking special collections at our stores for the Red Cross to help victims of the tragedy.
I was also school board president that year, and had to make decisions with our Superintendent on how to handle the kids at school. We let parents who wanted to pick up their kids. We allowed kids to call home and use their cell phones. We allowed kids who were mature enough at the High School to turn on the news as the day unfolded. And we made our counselors and best teachers available for kids who wanted to talk about what was happening.
Our VP of operations was in Las Vegas for a Bakery show, and was actually IN a plane, at the gate when they grounded all the planes. After three days in Vegas, he and the two guys with him rented a car and drove all the way back to Ohio. Three guys in a rented Dodge Neon. On their way home, they stopped at a McDonalds, and he forgot his palm pilot in a McD's in Kansas. They called us because they opened it and found his address, and they mailed it back. It was that kind of time, that NO ONE thought of doing wrong, and keeping something like that.
My most prevelant memory though was the silence in the skies. We had a dog then too, and we live very near our regional airport. There is almost never a time that I am outside that a plane is not taking off, landing, or flying in the short distance. When I would take the dog out, the silence in the skies those nights was eerie. I felt like we had been sent back to an earlier time. When planes did happen to go by infrequently, they were always military, and it was almost a scarey sound, instead of the familiar one that let you know everything was OK.
I do miss something about that time. I know many have said it, but we were truly together as a nation then. We all looked at each other differently, and you got a brotherly feeling from each and every other one of our countymen. We all flew our flags more proudly - and I have flown one at my house consistently since that day. We developed a great respect at that time for those who serve us in our fire departments (Amy's dad is a retired firefighter), police, and others who serve us in our communities. We have become so crazily divided since that time that it is sad to me - and there is not one person, party, or group to blame for that - we are all to blame.
I often hope and pray we can come together like that again without the need for a tragedy like 9/11. Our politicians will have to grow up a lot if that is going to happen. I often worry that we brought another child into the world shortly before the tragedy, a world that has become so changed from the much more innocent time we knew before, and a way of life she may never really know or understand in her lifetime.
John1
When I originally went on the school board, I was appointed (a previous board member had died in an accident). I was a very reluctant politician, and had I not been appointed at first, I probably would never have run for office.
Anyway, 2001 was the first year that I had to run for my seat on the board. I did my first campaign like I did Disney when we first went - comando style control freak. I had a wonderful campaign committee of friends, and we were meeting every Tuesday morning at my office for a campaign commitee meeting. We were meeting that Tuesday as usual, and while meeting my MIL (who was home with Sophia, our 19 month old) called me on my cell phone to tell me a plane had hit the world trade center. Like others, I told the folks I was with, and we all thought it was a small plane, and an accident.
My friends left, and the rest of the day unfolded to all our horror. MIL kept calling me with updates - tried to get internet updates, and CNN was flooded and you got verrry sloooow updates. I will never forget I was running for office at the time, and that I was in that meeting. The owner of our company was out of town too, and I had to make some business and community decisions for us. That day I called the Red Cross, and told them that we would be taking special collections at our stores for the Red Cross to help victims of the tragedy.
I was also school board president that year, and had to make decisions with our Superintendent on how to handle the kids at school. We let parents who wanted to pick up their kids. We allowed kids to call home and use their cell phones. We allowed kids who were mature enough at the High School to turn on the news as the day unfolded. And we made our counselors and best teachers available for kids who wanted to talk about what was happening.
Our VP of operations was in Las Vegas for a Bakery show, and was actually IN a plane, at the gate when they grounded all the planes. After three days in Vegas, he and the two guys with him rented a car and drove all the way back to Ohio. Three guys in a rented Dodge Neon. On their way home, they stopped at a McDonalds, and he forgot his palm pilot in a McD's in Kansas. They called us because they opened it and found his address, and they mailed it back. It was that kind of time, that NO ONE thought of doing wrong, and keeping something like that.
My most prevelant memory though was the silence in the skies. We had a dog then too, and we live very near our regional airport. There is almost never a time that I am outside that a plane is not taking off, landing, or flying in the short distance. When I would take the dog out, the silence in the skies those nights was eerie. I felt like we had been sent back to an earlier time. When planes did happen to go by infrequently, they were always military, and it was almost a scarey sound, instead of the familiar one that let you know everything was OK.
I do miss something about that time. I know many have said it, but we were truly together as a nation then. We all looked at each other differently, and you got a brotherly feeling from each and every other one of our countymen. We all flew our flags more proudly - and I have flown one at my house consistently since that day. We developed a great respect at that time for those who serve us in our fire departments (Amy's dad is a retired firefighter), police, and others who serve us in our communities. We have become so crazily divided since that time that it is sad to me - and there is not one person, party, or group to blame for that - we are all to blame.
I often hope and pray we can come together like that again without the need for a tragedy like 9/11. Our politicians will have to grow up a lot if that is going to happen. I often worry that we brought another child into the world shortly before the tragedy, a world that has become so changed from the much more innocent time we knew before, and a way of life she may never really know or understand in her lifetime.
John1
At least a few of those rebels. 
(JK)
