Tiny 9/11 stories

Everybody has 9/11 stories. With the coming of the anniversary, I have been thinking a lot about mine. They are tiny, tiny snapshots of what happened that day. Here are a few of the stories I have, and the stories I heard from others.

Riding the train across the bridge into Manhattan that morning, we could see from the window that both towers were on fire and shaking. A man seated in front of me said, "Those towers will never fall. I'm an engineer, I know."

The office secretaries at my son's school started going through the emergency contact cards for every kid, looking to see if any parents worked in the trade center. Some did. One died.

I had just recommended my dentist to a friend. His offices had picture windows looking over NY Harbor, with a clear view of the tower. As she sat in the chair, she saw a plane hit a tower and later saw one collapse. They terminated the appointment. As she rode home, she recalled, the streets were completely deserted. She rode her bike through the middle of a normally busy avenue. It reminded her of something that happened in Toronto, where she spent her childhood. The Queen Mother was due for a visit and streets had been cleared of traffic, and she and her brother rode their bikes ahead of the royal entourage, cops whistling at them to stop, but they just kept going.

An elderly neighbor was having her home renovated. The painters abruptly departed that morning, leaving drop cloths and supplies all around. She slipped, fell, broke a hip, went into a nursing home and never came back.

I asked my son, who was 8 at the time, what he remembers from that day. He said he remembers that one of the dads who came home from work early took all the kids to the park to play football.