A day late... I meant to post yesterday, but in hind sight it is fitting, I was very busy doing what I think everyone should do on 9/11 working my a*s off hoping to make the US economy (which is part of what those cowards were striking at 18 years ago) just a tiny bit better. I hope I did so yesterday.
On 9/11/01 it was my one month anniversary of being married. And being the hopeless romantic I was (and still am) I was on the road doing my normal business travels.
I was driving to one of my customers in rural GA, which ironically enough is built on land that used to be part of the old Camp Toccoa where the US Army Airborne were born and trained to drop into Europe in WWII. My parents called me from SD to tell me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it was a small plane and probably was some kind of accident. But as we talked on the phone the second plane hit right as I was driving into my customers parking lot. I hurried in the lobby and asked the receptionist if there was a TV anywhere and there was not, but when I explained what had happened they scrambled to find a TV used for presentations and tried to get it to pull in over the air. I talked with my customer who I had the appointment with. Her sister worked in World Trade Plaza and she was frantically trying to reach her on the phone, so I politely excused myself from our business meeting as that no longer mattered. As I left I stopped at the memorial on the edge of the property as I often do to say a prayer and thank the thousands of brave soldiers who went through Camp Toccoa before dropping into the hell of WWII Europe, and I said a prayer not only for everyone affected that day, but also those who I knew were to come, because I knew at that moment our country was at war.
I was now early for a fairly important (at least 1 hr earlier it seemed important) meeting I had to meet a very high level person at one of my customers for the first time. But being early I stopped at the first hotel I came across [size=78%](a small holiday inn in rural GA)[/size][/size][size=78%] [/size][/size][size=78%] and settled into a lobby chair to watch the coverage. I remember sitting there bewildered with the owner of this hotel (an older gentleman of Middle-eastern Decent) who was quite somber, and when the towers collapsed he was moved to tears, and just kept saying "this is not good!!" over and over. He then said he knew that "unfortunately people who look like me and talk like me are obviously the perpetrators of this!" And he knew that it was going to be difficult for him. I thanked him for his hospitality and eventually left in order to get to my next appointment.[/size]
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[/size][size=78%]When I got to the appointment the [/size]Plant Manager who was fairly new and I was meeting for the first time had run home that morning and brought his personal TV back to his office and sat it on his desk. We talked very little work, and mostly talked about what was happening and watched.[size=78%]
[/size]I then went to see the regular guy I normally call on at this plant, and he said "what are you doing tonight, and where are you staying?" I told him I did not know for sure. That I was planning to head to AL for some appointments the next couple days but I did not know if any customer was going to want to see me or not at this point. He said "well on a night like this no one should be alone, so you are staying at my house with my family, and if the world is coming to an end I figure we might as well be on the golf course when it happens. So lets go!" We left mid afternoon and went to a local course to golf on a beautiful GA day and commented about how odd it was to see no airplanes at all in the skies near Atlanta. The round was uneventful but was the perfect stage to clear your mind a little bit from what was swirling around everyone in the US at that point.[size=78%]
[/size]I got to know his wife and kids that night, and what was a terrible day turned out to have a positive ending for me personally. It helped turn a business relationship into a friendship that continues to this day.[size=78%]
[/size]I return to that golf course periodically for that customers charity golf tournament, and every time roll onto the property I remember that day. I think of 9/11 every time I pull into that morning customer where I was when it happened. I even stopped by the Holiday Inn one time when I realized I was driving past it to check in on the gentleman who owned it. But I learned that he had sold the hotel a few years later. I hope where ever he is, he is doing well.[size=78%]