My 911 Story

My 911 Story
(Written September 13, 2001)

I woke up early, before dawn, this morning because I was subbing for “Brother John” at WMPG radio. I went where I always do first thing every morning, to the coffee maker (it was Café du Monde coffee for me today).

The night before I had prepared all the music I would need and placed it in a canvas tote bag. So, once my coffee was finished I left early for the studio. I parked my truck out front of the station and sipped my coffee while the sun rose over Portland, Maine. In the dawn light seagulls were soaring above the city and the scene was more beautiful than any view of Portland I ever had. It must have been about 6am and at that time I now know that terrorists were on their way to Logan airport. At that time, though, all I saw and felt were beauty and inner peace (hey seagulls and coffee – try it before knocking it).

I grabbed my music and went inside the station. First, I set about locating the music I wanted to play but didn’t own. I remember it took me a long time to find “Will the circle be unbroken” by the Neville Brothers (on the Yellow Moon LP). That song has the lyrics “Undertaker, won’t you please drive real slow…that’s my mother, that’s my mother, and I sure hate to see her go”. I remember vividly that I played this song after Queen Ida’s “Papa played the fiddle” and Iris Dementh’s “Mama’s Opry” so that people in Portland could start their day with a good cry. I guess I was feeling introspective because of the magnificent morning I’d had. Looking back on it, though, I feel like a heel. Soon enough people would be miserable enough without me.

Generally, though, I’d have to say I played beautiful, happy music – at least I remember finishing the show in a wonderful mood. My favorite thing, which is to have a listener call and get album information (presumably so they can go out and buy it for themselves) happened several times, plus there is nothing like watching a city wake up on a beautiful day.

I remember that as I was wrapping up the show I botched the transition to the next one by failing to let the next DJ know how much time was left. She had to scramble to get started, but graciously didn’t get on my case.

I was on the air from 6:30am to 9am on WMPG & W281AC Gorham/Portland FM 90.9 and FM 104.1, and being simulcast on the web of course. I’m sure the terrorists that passed through Portland wouldn’t have been listening, since they were on their way to Boston already. However, it creeps me out to know that they were in my city, sleeping in it’s hotels, and passing themselves off as normal. I imagine there were seagulls in New York City that morning. I imagine there were public radio DJs like myself, going about their lives. I want to say I’m sorry to all the people of New York, to the husbands and fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, to the urine-soaked bums, to the stone-faced cops, to the cabbies, to the hustlers, and the “suits” that make New York special. We didn’t know, or even suspect, that such an act would begin in our midst. How could we? The sun was rising on a beautiful day, and the Neville Brothers were singing “Will the circle be Unbroken.”

I left the station a few minutes after 9 (I had to file records and CDs, and I talked a bit to the other DJs). On my way home, I stopped at a bakery. A lady there distractedly sold me an éclair and a cinnamon bun (with raisins). Her coworkers were all saying things like “Oh my God” and staring at what I presumed was a TV, but I couldn’t see or hear it. Although I assumed it was entertainment television they were watching and someone like Mariah Carey “suffered” another “catastrophe”, curiosity got the best of me and I asked what was going on. When I was told a second plane had just struck the World Trade Center in New York, all I could manage to say was, “what?” They understood and said, “come look” and invited me over to watch television with them. On the television were the World Trade Center towers, but they were billowing smoke as if they were factories or paper mills. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thanked the ladies and left; I went home and turned on my own television. I was hoping something was wrong with their televisions. I remember hoping the images on my TV would be normal. I know that’s stupid and I can’t explain it, but I felt it anyway. Of course, their television wasn’t broken and the World Trade Centers were burning on my television too.

I decided to call the station and let them know what I knew, which wasn’t much, but was enough to let them know they needed to shift their focus. I was the first to reach with the news and was asked to go live, on the spot, with what I knew. I remember I wanted to be cautious, measured, professional, and compassionate. I fear I was none of those things but, perhaps, the latter. How does one put into words a scene such as that? That two pillars of America have been bombed, that people, a great number of people (estimates as high as 50,000 at the time), were undoubtedly suffering. I tried to describe what I saw. I tried to give references (i.e. MSNBC reported…) whenever I could. At that point I wasn’t yet sure if one, or both, towers had been hit (the reporting was still quite frenzied).

I made the report brief and was asked to call back when I knew more. I watched TV rabidly, trying to confirm what had been hit and when. I watched footage of a commercial airliner slamming into tower 2. I called the station back with this information and by then they had received more calls. I remember that as I was reporting that both towers were indeed struck, and by commercial jetliners, that someone else reported that the Pentagon had been struck.

I don’t remember feeling unsafe, at-risk, or endangered. Let’s face it, I was in Portland, ME. However, I remember feeling pissed off at the military-industrial machine in this country; with their billion dollar budgets, their suits, their charts, their talk of “troops” and “theaters” not “Americans” and “battlefields”; their bravado and arrogance and for what? So that the very center of their operations can nearly be destroyed by people that can’t afford a decent bomb? This is akin to Barney Fife shooting himself in the foot. Andy always took away his bullets and I thought that was wise.

It was about that time I noticed I was absently stuffing an éclair in my mouth, while first reaching for my coffee, then the remote. I surprised myself because I should have been horrified. Where was my humanity?

It arrived when building two collapsed. Either NBC or ABC (I forget which) had just talked with firemen that were streaming into the building, knowing full well it was unsafe; to do everything they could for the people inside. When asked about it most people lied and said, “It’s my job, it’s what we do.” They didn’t say, “We love our neighbors and want to help them because they need us”, or “I don’t know why I’m willing to go in there, but I can’t help myself.”

Shortly after that segment, anyway, building two collapsed. I assumed that most, and I presumed all, of those men were now dead. I guess I learned what directors have known for decades, which is that people don’t react until suffering is personal. Someone I never met, but admired for their well-placed bravery, just died. They died not as victims, someone unlucky enough to be inside the World Trade Center that day, but as heroes; and finally tears came. Finally my anger gave way to grief as I became aware there were tens of thousands of lives ended today. Some of them were of the highest caliber.

I believe the US was attacked not because we are “good” and the attackers are “bad” as many in power are saying to their children. We were attacked because we engage in terrorism against other countries (i.e. Iran-Contra), we trained people like Osama Bin Laden, and because our politicians are not looking out for our best interests but their own.

It always bugs me that terrorists don’t attack the source of their frustrations. Do bonds traders and secretaries at the World Trade Center make intelligence decisions? Were the people leaping to their deaths the ones enforcing embargos?

No. In the end terrorists are frustrated and impotent, striking at targets they can reach because they cannot really effect change. Lot’s of people will be afraid now, but it won’t be the men in back rooms – the old-fashioned fascists – it will be the plumbers and secretaries and nurses and steel workers.

Sigh.


God Bless America


That’s my 911 story. There are approximately 250 million of them across the country. On Monday I’ll be discussing Michael Moore’s 911 story “Fahrenheit 911”.