09/11/01
The world changed drastically that day -9/11/01 happened!!! A beautiful early fall Tuesday had dawned that morning. I had taken my car down to Johnny Russso at his garage in Waterbury to get my brakes fixed and had taken the bus to Swift Junior High in Oakville where my daughter, Bridget, was teaching, to pick up her car so I could do some errands. Shortly after nine, walking down the hall with Bridge, we met another teacher, Joanie DeRosa, who told us about the first crash. At first, I thought she might be mistaken. I immediately took Bridget's car, turned the radio on but not much was known at that time. I arrived home and then sat glued to the TV all day as the events unfolded. I watched the second plane smash into the second tower. The voice on the TV was agitated as he described the crash. The jet smashed through the building sending smoke and fire immediately from the site. Later, I could not believe that there were not some explosive charges planted in the buildings to cause them to implode so neatly-almost as if they were an early-morning-staged building demolition. The slow motion melting of the tower reminded me of that phenomenon. It seemed unreal with the smoke rising and the building collapsing on itself. When the second building repeated the collapse, all I could think of was that beside the airplanes, someone must have planted dynamite in those buildings. Surely, even a large airplane could not cause that much damage to such a tremendous skyscraper. The immensity of the horror did not really register but the scenes of destruction, the all-enveloping cloud of debris, the panicked running of people, and the subsequent search for the perpetrators had me in front of the TV until well into the night. It is hard to believe that anyone could do this in the name of God/Allah.
My airplane and all others were grounded because of this and there were many more restrictions to come, I guessed. Two days later, Frank and I had to get special permission to fly out of Bridgeport, where I had delivered my Cherokee for an AD on the oil pump, to go the fifteen nautical miles to Oxford. I doubted if we would ever be allowed to fly down the Corridor over the Hudson River between the City and the Palisades to the Statue of Liberty any more. More than the freedom of flight had changed in America that fateful day.
RJG
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