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 Capella 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 to other countries around the world since WWII, displacing governments that did not benefit us, and on 9/11/2001 here/now they've come to claim their due ... Then we learn of the Pentagon -- and later Shanksville.
I called the toy factory where I worked and told them I wouldn't be there 'today,' not knowing what was happening around the country. I thought it callous, that despite such an event, they would keep production going as usual and not let their employees attend their families whose lives were a swirl at the same time. I said that my family in Bemidji may need me. I left Roseau, grabbed a few things for a extended stay at home and left for Bemidji 2 hours away.
Traffic was normal, but gas stations were full of vehicles fueling up, perhaps in preparation of the unknown. 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, as I drove into the parking lot in my old pickup truck that with its loud exhaust elicited a turn of heads. But it was just Bonny's dad; he drives an old truck,' not much different from much of Bemidji's 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 truck stop 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 weren'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. There was a genuine buzz in the air about them uncommon to just any other day even Fishing season opener. Something was definitely afoot in their comings and goings. I didn't imagine it.
My daughter was aware that planes had struck the buildings of the Trade Center, but there was little mention of it by school officials as little was known at the time of the who, what, why of the situation -- then it was off to general studies. I had my own idea of the evil machinations that undertook this mass destruction, but didn't promote them. I didn't want to create worry or fear of what may happen in the near future: This wasn't just a one-time event; some lucky break four individuals hatched over a weekend idea session to create terror. The unknowing was decidedly worse in my mind; our utter helplessness present.
I took her back to her high school. I reiterated I loved her, and she me, thanking me for being concerned about her. We hugged and I drove away hoping like hell I was indeed exaggerating my concerns about what was in the air -- as was the absence of all air traffic beyond my awareness at the time-- for it seemed just another beautifully blue wispy-clouded Minnesota day.
September13, 2001
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| Flights across American skies were resumed on September 13, 2001. This was the first vapor trail I saw. |
This WTC and Pentagon attack has troubled me. Nothing is quite the same anymore. I can't see or hear things the same. Everything has taken on an almost past-tense ring to it. I'm still envisioning' people in offices in the World Trade Center (especially after watching a BBC & National Geographic special on September 11, 2026 that told the stories of two groups of survivors in both towers.) I don't know any of them personally, and maybe that's just it, I see them as 'EveryPerson' and this is what brings the tragedy home onto our laps. It wasn't the Brazillian soccer team that crashed going home from some match in New York or some elite political think-tank lobbyist group; these were merely working class Americans like me, innocents of all ages, races, religions, and persuasions.
I was probably more sensitive to opinions opposite mine, not yet meeting anyone who didn't think the attacks of September 11th worth talking about, but that was about to change.
"Is there any news in that paper? What paper is that?" he asked me.
" The Grand Forks Herald," I answered. "You wanna read this section? I'm done with it."
"The Herald? It's probably all that trade center stuff. After the flood of ninety-seven, that's all you read in the Herald. They dragged it on for months and they'll probably do the same to this. Any local news?
"This is the biggest news there is!' I said with a bit of incredible in my voice. "We should never forget it. What news could be more important right now?
"I don't see how it affects me,' he replied. "I didn't know any of these people. Why'd they close down the Mall of America? And the Dome on Fargo? This is beyond belief ..."
"What? You don't grasp the gravity of this situation? This wasn't a subway collapse in the Bronx. This wasn't an Amtrak disaster. This was an attack by a terrorist group on the United States of America in which thousands may have been killed. I know it seems unbelievable. That it's just a premier of a blockbuster action movie opening at theaters across the country on September 11th. Unbelievable graphics (before the days of AI) But it wasn't.
"We've become so desensitized to graphic violence we don't believe it when it actually occurs. Who would've ever thought two airliners would almost simultaneously crash into the World Trade Center, another crash into the Pentagon, and the takeover of a plane by passengers that was en route to the White House to kill thousands of people??
"But,' the man said."It happened in New York and Washington, DC ..."
"It happened to the United States! New York and the District of Columbia are part of the United States! We're all Americans! It happened as much to us as it did to them, can't you see that?
"But Fargo?"
"Terrorism creates chaos, that's the game. They hit New York City, Washington, DC, and even the hinterlands of rural Pennsylvania. They'll target, Los Angeles, Denver, Minneapolis -- the Mall of America, anytime, anywhere where there are thousands of souls each day. Football stadiums, baseball games, hockey arenas. Nobody's safe anymore. It's over. We're under attack as we speak...
And as I republish this in September 2026, I fear our country is being attacked before our eyes again. Some see it. Some don't. As was September 11th, 2001, there are things happening that make our hearts break. Things, that on September 11, twenty-five years ago we could not have never imagined would ever occur in the United States, and are maybe yet to come.
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