I awoke on the morning of 9-11, groggily listening to Bill Handel on KFI. They were saying the World Trade Center had been bombed. “Great job guys.” I said, and rolled over. “You’re replaying a show from 1993.” But no. The next few minutes, the story changed, and it became clear that this was not a “best of” show at all. I turned the television on to just see the second plane hit the tower.
I watched without moving until both towers had fallen, then got ready for work. When I arrived at “The Pond”, everyone was sitting in their cars in the parking lot. Several officers were there. The planes had all been headed for Los Angeles and where The Mighty Ducks played was considered one of the easiest targets in southern California to see from the sky because of its size. We all went home. Later, I found out that two of the members of the Los Angeles Kings, men I had met and ate with, had been on one of the planes. I will never forget.
I awoke on the morning of 9-11, groggily listening to Bill Handel on KFI. They were saying the World Trade Center had been bombed. “Great job guys.” I said, and rolled over. “You’re replaying a show from 1993.”
That’s funny, it was the mirror image for me. I got in the car to take my son to school and was groggily listening to KPFK (we didn’t have Air America here yet.) And I thought they were either repeating something from 93, or, as I heard more details, doing some kind of experimental “War of the Worlds” type thing. By the time I got home I realized it was real, and told my girlfriend who was still in bed. She thought I was joking at first. I was offended a little – are my jokes that bad? I went off to my job accompanying dancers at Chapman University, but nobody felt like dancing, instead the teacher had everyone take turns talking about their feelings. All I could think of saying was that I was really worried what our current government would use these attacks as an excuse for.
And sure enough, it seemed to be good for anything. Within weeks, trade rep Zoellick was telling Congress that if they didn’t pass FAST TRACK negotiating authority for Bush’s trade deals, “the terrorists will have won.” The 1000+ page Patriot Act magically appeared within days and had to be immediately approved. But I digress.
Oh yeah. Aside from my friends in Manhattan I later found out an old highschool friend of mine who works in the Pentagon just missed getting hit by the plane. They all thought it was a huge earthquake.