Tuesday, September 13, 2011


I will never forget September 11: NYC, Pennsylvania & Washington DC

....And I Will Never Forgot my Home, Oklahoma City April 19, 1995

     I find it odd that now, looking back, I can see that I was being taken care of. I was being looked out for and I didn't even realize it at the time.

   In 2001, around August, I was dating a Marine Corps Captain and he was being transferred from Hawai'i to Okinawa, Japan. He called me and asked me if I would like to visit him in Japan. Of Course!! Once I had given him the okay, he purchased my ticket to fly out and visit him in Japan. The date for my flight from my hometown to Los Angeles to connect to Japan? September 11, 2001  - I was to leave at 9:30 in the morning. About two weeks before I was to leave, in the middle of the night, I received a call from the Captain and he told me that he couldn't tell me where or why but that he and his company were being sent from Okinawa to Bahrain. He was vague and cryptic and I thought that he was kind of playing up the whole "I can't tell you" part of the conversation - but, I played along and told him I understood. Since he was being sent away from Japan, my trip there would have to be cancelled - but at the very least, changed.

     Fast forward to September 11, 2001. I was driving in to work - I worked at a radio station at the time - and I was listening to my station. The jocks on air mentioned that they thought a small plane, possibly a Cessna had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.

Nobody had any clue at that time.

Once I got into work, I went into our kitchen area to see if the television stations in our town were covering this "plane crash". When I walked around the corner, I will never ever forget the looks on the faces of my co-workers.

Horrified.
Teary-eyed.

I sat down at a table with one of my co-workers, Tracy and I will never ever forget the two of us watching the second plane crash, live, into the second tower. When I turned to look at her, in slow motion, her mouth dropped open and tears immediately started flowing. We were confused and didn't understand what was going on.

     The rest of that day was spent in what I call, "Go Mode". We made plans - who needed the most immediate help? The answer - Red Cross. How could we help? The answer - Cash. Now. So, we did what we did best - we raised funds for the Red Cross. Doing our part that next day made things feel a little better. We had hope.