SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - MY REMEMBRANCE

By State Representative Don Humason, Jr.

September 8, 2006

On Monday America and the world will observe the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States.  Instead of writing a column this week, I wanted to share with you something I wrote 5 years ago, a few days after 9-11. 

At the time I was working in Boston in a skyscraper on Beacon Hill at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.  Running for Westfield's State Representative wasn't even a thought in my head yet.  But what happened on that day had a profound impact on me. 

What follows are my thoughts at that time on the terrible event.  They are unedited and unchanged.  They remain exactly as I wrote them September 2001:

September 11, 2001  

I did not live there. I am not a big-city boy.  I'm from right here in small-town Westfield. 

I didn't work there.  I work in Boston, another big city on the potential hit list of those murdering bastard terrorists.

I didn't even go to school there.  I graduated from Westfield State College.  But it was while I was at WSC in 1985 that I had my first chance to go.  To Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

I still cherish a dusty old photograph of myself, younger, thinner, with more hair. Smiling a silly, small-town tourist's smile atop one of the world's tallest buildings.  A New York Icon. The World Trade Center.

That building, and the city around it, held such special attraction to me.

Since those days I have visited The City dozens of times.  Just last month I had driven down to Manhattan and brought my mountain bike to ride through the valleys and canyons of steel and glass and marble.  I had circled the base of the towers in the World Trade Center complex before taking my bike onto the Staten Island Ferry to catch a better view of the lower tip of the island.

And it was only nine months ago, in January, on a bright, cold, clear, brilliantly sunny Saturday morning, that I stood on the outside observation deck of the south tower, basking in the winter rays and admiring the world over which I looked.  I had with me a new camera and so I took many pictures.  Now I'm glad I did.

On Tuesday morning, I stood, chilled and trembling in awe, horror, and disbelief staring at my TV screen as the fire in the first tower burned and the second plane crashed into the second tower.

So many thoughts came to me in that instant, too many to relate here: "That was no accident!"  "That was intentional!"  "Sneak attack!"  "A 21st century Pearl Harbor."  "Oh my God, the people!"

I had to struggle to pull myself away to go to work.  Already I was late.  But I didn't want to leave.  In my car, on the Mass TurnPike, I listened in rapt horror to the rapid-fire news reports.  I felt numb, dumbfounded.  A woman, calling into the radio station said, "Do you know what the date is today? It's September 11th: 9-1-1."

The terrible news was so out of place.  It didn't fit with the day.  It was sunny, clear, comfortable and bright.  I could just start to detect the leaves on the trees along the highway beginning to take on their autumn colors.  The sky was blue, cloudless.  And yet out of that sky had come terror and death.

Then, on the radio, more news.  More planes.  The Pentagon.  Pennsylvania.  Where else?

I didn't know what I would find as I approached Boston.  Were the terrorists attacking all major cities along the East Coast?  Was a plane loaded with terrified passengers and thousands of gallons of highly flammable jet fuel even then hurtling toward the Hancock Building or the Prudential Building?  What about my office, a government skyscraper perched high over Beacon Hill?  Had it been hit?

I later learned my building had been evacuated and the workers sent away for safety's sake.  But I had feared the worst when I couldn't reach anyone there by phone.

And then, back home.  People everywhere, stunned and scared.  I was glued to the news, transfixed by every lurid sight, every horrible detail.

Even with my eyes closed I could see the scene. 

But imagine the sounds: Beeping, honking, rush hour traffic on a late summer Manhattan morning.  Then the roar of a plane, low and loud.  A terrible boom and crash.  An explosion.  The tinkling sound of falling pieces of glass and steel.  The crackling of fire.  Car alarms jarred awake by the concussion.  Screams of disbelief.  Crying.

And back home, quiet.  Shock.  A day no more planes would fly.

This tragedy has touched so many.  A few, truly, sadly close to home.  The rest of us, well, we all know someone who knows someone.

America is strong.  She will survive.  WE will survive.  We will be strong and go on. 

But we will never be the same.