It was a shockwave like the big bang of all catastrophic moments.
All events of that day played out in slow motion it seemed and remain ingrained in my mind.
I watched the dusty T.V. screen as if a horror movie was playing, but it was real.
I stood with my mouth wide open and reached for the telephone receiver.
“No incoming calls can be received ,” “All circuits are currently busy ,” I couldn”t get through to my father. He didn”t own a cell phone.
I looked at the time, and frantically scanned my memory banks for the exact time his train passed under the Trade Centers, a trip he had made Monday through Friday for more than a quarter of a century.
I called the university, the phone rang endlessly.
I drove my children to school and myself to work.
Occasionally someone would walk in and ask, “Have you heard anything yet?”
I just shook my head from side to side, numb.
I dialed the number to my dad”s work and his home alternately until about 3 p.m. when his receptionist answered the phone, her voice was shaking, she transferred me to him.
When I asked if he was OK, he said “No, I just watched thousands of people die.”
That is how I remember Sept.11, 2001.
That year I would find out that my daughter”s elementary school principal was a neighbor of Captain Jason Dahl, one of the pilots of Flight 93.
I wrote her story the next year on Sept.11 as a remembrance of the day.
We crumbled together in her office, both hurrying, tears streaming down our cheeks, closing the blinds so children playing in the courtyard outside her office would not see our pain.
Just the thought of that moment brought the emotion, the devastation and the agony back home.
Brian Sumpter, Record-Bee sports editor, pulled up the footage on CNN today.
He brought this man”s name to my attention — Rick Rescorla. Rescorla was one of the more than 3,000 Americans killed Sept. 11, 2001. He was vice-president of security for Morgan-Stanley/Dean-Witter, a major tenant of World Trade Center.
Rescorla was killed after saving the lives of so many others. He saved 2,700 people in the end.
His story is on television, radio, in newspapers, magazines and in the book Heart Of A Soldier, by Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart.
His image is on the book cover of, We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, by General Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway.
Rescorla was a retired Army colonel, veteran of combat in three wars and a survivor of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centers, where he saved the lives of hundreds of Morgan Stanley employees, according to www.rickrescorla.com.
Friends, family and grateful citizens commissioned a bronze statue of Rescorla, based on a picture of him in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965. The statue is placed on permanent display at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia.
His life ended as a hero in the worst attack to take place on American soil.
A lump the size of a soccer ball in my throat, I remembered the way people were a little kinder overall after that day, not just in the city but everywhere.
It felt like Armageddon, like the end of days.
The agony of that day brought out the best in a lot of people.
It was a time that some neighbors spoke to each other for the first time.
Strangers hugged, cried and grieved, fully emotionally exposed, and helped one another.
As I read the archived papers of the Lake County Record-Bee, I see that the Lake County Fire Protection District raised tens of thousands for the victims.
Joan Ryan columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle responded to the attacks by supplying commentary on the way “tragedy reveals our nation”s character.”
Lake County surgeon Arthur Bikangaga was coincidentally in the area of the attacks at a conference, and signed on to help.
Cynthia Parkhill wrote an article about some amazing youth, Kelseyville students who raised more than $2,000 for people they will probably never meet; now that”s integrity.
If any good can be derived and extracted from the tremendous tragedy of Sept.11, it was seen when humanitarians surfaced and stood up to hold up their neighbors.
On the anniversary of that day, I will mourn and remember by doing something kind for my neighbors, strangers, friends, family, even for some folks that I don”t particularly care for, in the spirit of Captain Jason Dahl, Colonel Rick Rescorla and the many others who suffered, sacrificed and saved.
Mandy Feder is assistant managing editor/night desk for the Record-Bee. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 ext. 32
