I woke up and made coffee as per my usual routine; it was a nice morning. My wife and daughter were living in Bemidji in those days. Alone in the house, I called some friends at a coffee shop in Roseau, just to see who was around, when Jill answered the phone, her attention somewhere else; about which I jokingly commented something I don't recall and she said, quite impatiently:
"DON'T YOU KNOW?? TWO AIRPLANES HAVE CRASHED INTO THE WORLD TRADES CENTER!! THOUSANDS HAVE BEEN KILLED!! TURN ON YOUR RADIO!!"
Then she hung up.
Radio programming was intermittent; I couldn't make sense of it as I hurriedly dressed for the drive to Roseau, 20 miles away. The car radio was the same way; describing the unbelievable unfolding scene in New York City. I swung into the Riverfront gas station in Wannaska to fill on gasoline; they had a TV... The woman affirmed the worse; two airliners full of people had slammed into the two World Trade Center towers ... She turned the volume up ...
Neither of us could believe what we were seeing; and I wasn't completely sure it was in reality; " ... maybe it's a preview of some gigantic blockbuster movie coming to theaters across the country??"
Reaching Roseau in record time well above the speed limit, I rushed to the coffee shop to find several emotional friends watching the television there; one embraced me uncharacteristically. Everybody talking and wiping their eyes; and standing looking out the windows in disbelief that this was truly happening in the United States of America.
The chaotic scenes of clouds of dust, smoke, and debris of damaged buildings immediately reminded me of the modern city-scape of Sarajevo during the Bosnia War, a beautiful city that had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics seventeen years earlier, and was laid to ruin during it. Why I was brought back to its images on TV, witnessing 9/11's real-time destruction, I don't know except I felt this could happen again in the United States; that we were no longer invulnerable to such attacks, and times had changed.
We/the United States had visited such utter destruction and violent death to other countries around the world since WWII, displacing governments that did not benefit us, and here/now they've come to claim their due ... Then we learn of the Pentagon -- and later Shanksville.
I called the toy factory and told them I wouldn't be there 'today,' not knowing what was happening around the country; and that my family in Bemidji may need me. I left Roseau, grabbed a few things for a extended stay and left for Bemidji 2 hours away.
Traffic was light; gas stations were full of vehicles fueling up. People were outdoors, talking. I figured bars were doing a bang up business. I called my wife and told her I was coming to talk to Bonny to see if she was okay; maybe she needed me just to talk about what was happening. She said she'd call her, but nothing was happening in Bemidji -- everything was normal. She didn't think I should make a big deal of what happened in New York ...
It was lunch break at the high school, and as I drove into the parking lot in my old pickup truck with its loud exhaust I elicited a turn of heads and laughter. But Bonny wasn't noticeably embarrassed by my appearance, 'it was just her dad; he drives an old truck,' and not much different from much of Bemidji local traffic in a logging town.
You couldn't tell anything had drastically happened 'anywhere,'. I guess I was the only one that thought four airliners crashing out east was a big deal, so far from where we were. My wife looked at me sympathetically, as though I had exaggerated again (as is the way of a writer to 'blow things out of proportion and all that.') She urged me to take Bonny for lunch so we could talk; deferring to another appointment she needed to attend.
I took my 14 year old daughter to a nearby restaurant adjoining a truckstop off highway US 2. The banter at the cash registers and people met in passing was noteworthy, as such a writer alone may contrive in hope they aren't indeed breathing life into something so unimportant so far away; "Hey, it's New York ..."
But the TVs were on in the restaurant and convenience stations and the
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