Today is September 11th 2015. It has been 14 years since that terrible day. As I drove to get my coffee today, my thoughts went back to that day and like many folks I am thinking about the many people who not only lost their life that day but may have sacrificed their life in the years after. This years anniversary is significant because the only people who remember that day in our community are faculty and staff. Last years class of 2015 was the last class to have members who were here on that day. It's amazing to think how fast that time has gone by.
Reposting this from a couple years ago. These are my strongest memories from the saddest day of my career.
Today is the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. That morning I was out my door before 6 AM for a run. I ran over to Lloyd Beach in Winnetka to run hill repeats. I was training for the Chicago Marathon. When I got to the bottom of the hill by the lake I looked south towards the city. Although it is only about 15 miles along the lakefront to downtown Chicago, it is rare to be able to see the skyscrapers through the morning haze, but that morning I could. That's how most of us remember that day. It was a beautifully clear morning.
My first knowledge of the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was shortly after 8 AM. I was in the Mac Gym office on the phone trying to lock in a football opponent for the Fall of 2002. In those days, I had to find two non-conference football games and we used to look far and wide for a good opponent. I believe I was on hold waiting to speak to the Athletic Director of Oshkosh Christian School when I heard the first report. Instead of hold music, they had the morning news on and a radio announcer was explaining a plane had hit the World Trade Center North Tower in New York. It was a very short matter of fact announcement which made me think that some sort of single engine plane had crashed into the skyscraper by accident.
Shortly after getting off the telephone, I learned how wrong I was. The rest of the day was a blur. Given how vivid my memories are up until I heard the initial news, it surprises me how confused the rest of my memories of that day are.
In the months after 9/11, I would often read the stories of the lives of the victims. I feel fortunate, given my connections to the northeast and New York city in particular, that no one in my immediate or extended family or group or friends were in any of the buildings or planes that day. But I did have links to victims and it both saddened and inspired me to read about their stories.
There was Tom Glasser who ran for Haverford College when I was in college. I remember him as a great 800m runner. But the image that stays in my mind is what a friend of his wrote about how he would see his friend Tom driving to the train station in the morning with his wife and how hard they would be laughing in the car. Tom was a great comic. I did not know Tom, but I know lots of people who did. He left a wife and two young sons.
There was Denis McHugh. Spelling Denis with one "n" is rare. McHugh is also not an especially common name. The only other Denis (with one "n") McHugh I know of in the world is my brother who also worked in the finance business. There were actually two McHugh's who died in the World Trade Center. The other was named Dennis (with two "n's") McHugh. He was a New York City firefighter. The Dennis with two "n's" left three children behind.
But the story that sticks with me the most is the story of Rodney Dickens. Rodney was 11 and grew up in Washington DC -- the town I was born in. He had always been a stellar student despite being from a very tough neighborhood in DC. He along with Bernard Curtis, and Asia Cottom were three middle school students who had earned an educational adventure to the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary off the coast of California. They were traveling with their teachers. I believe it was Rodney and Bernards first time in an airplane. They were on American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon.
Out of 2,819 people who died in the 9/11 attacks, there were eight children. It is Rodney and his classmates whose memory I think of most today. They were all then in 6th grade. They were all excited and probably a bit apprehensive to leave their families that morning. As a teacher and coach, you work for moments for your students like Rodney's teachers were hoping they would have on their trip to California. I had no direct connection to these kids, but those thoughts just amplify the tragedy of the day for me.
Sorry for the sad post today.
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