"If you look to the right, you can see the World Trade Center burning."
It's safe to say that had I not heard those words, I wouldn't be a Kossack. In fact, a lot about who I am, what I am, and even where I am have changed as a result of that day.
I was on New Jersey Transit train when the conductor made that announcement. I had missed my usual train, so was coming in a little late. I looked up from my newspaper and saw smoke billowing from one tower. Someone on the train said they had heard a small plane had crashed into the building. I thought that the pilot must have been pretty darn stupid to not see the Twin Towers on a day like this. The weather was gorgeous.
After the train stopped at Penn Station, I took my usual walk to work - a walk that took me past the fire station where so many first responders were already on the scene and where makeshift memorials would already be in evidence by the time I made my way back home. I had almost made it to Broadway when a man came rushing toward me in the opposite direction. He looked horror-stricken.
"I just saw a plane crash into the World Trade Center," he said. I couldn't process that information; I thought he was talking about the first plane and wondered why he was so upset about it now.
By the time I made it to my office, both pedestrian and vehicular traffic had come to a stop. At 5th Ave and 23rd St., everyone was staring downtown. Both towers were burning.
My office was on the 42nd floor of a big black glass-and-steel building. Corner office. Yeah, I was a "big shot," in a minor-league kind of way. President of a small business unit of a major communications conglomerate. My office faced away from the towers. I could see east and north, not south, where the towers were still burning.
I turned on the radio - WQXR - a classical commercial station run by the New York Times. They never interrupted programming that day. Kept playing classical music. The "emergency broadcast system" was never used that day. If this wasn't an emergency, I thought, what was?
I was trying to keep a semblance of a normal day; doing paperwork, checking e-mail. I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law checking to see if I was OK. I told her not to worry. I could see the Empire State Building from my desk. I wondered if it might be a target.
A couple of my staff had gone to a colleague's corner office on the 40th floor. That office faced south and west. In other words, it had a clear view straight downtown. I got a call from one of them. "One of the towers collapsed." I went to my colleague's office, where a small group had gathered, and watched as the second tower burned and burned, and finally fell apart, opening up like an evil flower. The sound was like a giant cement mixer; even this far uptown, you could smell the dust. Someone took pictures. Another kept screaming "Oh my God!"
A client of one of my colleagues was on the phone DEMANDING that an agenda for a meeting 2 weeks hence be sent to her RIGHT AWAY. This client was in an office building upstate New York. She knew what had happened and just. didn't. care.
It was probably at that moment that I knew I would eventually leave that company. I took a job in Jersey, safe from large jetliners. But I would go into the city twice a week with a friend. Every time we went through the Holland Tunnel, we would remark about how completely ineffectual the security was there. Disinterested cops in safety vests making sure panel trucks didn't go into the tunnel, but sending through the overloaded Explorers and Humvees without a second glance. You could pack a lot of explosives into those babies.
Even though I was never in any real danger that day and no one I knew personally was killed, my attitude towards life evolved. Prior to that time, I had been a "go-getter." One of my friends always called me a "captain of industry", although I would correct him by saying that I was a mere lieutenant. My closet is still full of Brooks Brothers shirts.
But I become less and less interested in material things. Very much less interested in moving up the corporate ladder. More interested in living a peaceful, mindful, more "present" existence. Nobody's guaranteed tomorrow, so you better not defer your life until it's more convenient for your bosses.
My Jersey job came to an end when I refused to forego my fourth scheduled vacation in a row for a fourth "corporate emergency" in a row. I think I wasn't considered loyal enough because I would remind the junior staffers that they needed to have a life as well as a career. I felt a great weight lifted from me when I pulled away from that office building.
I'm extremely lucky. I earn a good living in the same industry as I was in back then, but now I work for myself from a home office. I was able to sell my Jersey home and find a much less expensive place in North Carolina, close to family. Family has become extremely important to me. This year, for the first time in decades, I actually had a birthday party. I wasn't quite sure how to act.
And I found Kos. Like-minded folks who believe that the current group in power have completely mishandled the response to that terrible day. If there's any anger in my life, it's directed at those people. I am convinced that we have learned the wrong lessons and are fighting the wrong war in the wrong way. Like many of you, I opposed from the very beginning the folly that is Iraq. I am slowly learning about environmental issues, alternative power resources, healthcare and other issues important to this community. This never would have happened in my "go-getter" days.
Yes, 9/11 changed everything. And the ultimate irony is that I'm grateful. That day altered my path. What a better path it is.