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9 - 11

by Jim

September 11th began for me the day before, late in the evening, driving out of downtown Denver after the daily convention ended. I passed the brightly lit Mile High stadium where the New York Giants and Denver Broncos were duking it out. I was glad they were playing late and not letting out so I didn’t have to contend with their traffic. As it turns out,the late game not only affected my life, it would affect someone in New York who was watching the Giants playing Denver and was going to oversleep the next morning.

I stayed at a Holiday inn on the edge of town. I still do not understand the concept behind outrageously expensive meeting hotels; a $50 per night bed seems the same as a $300 one. So, I typically rent a car, spend my time with friends at the meeting and then go sleep in a roadside motel. The freedom to travel in a car to see the surrounding area adds to the pleasure. I would be able to use the car on this trip.

I arose around 5 am, early rising being in my genes and watched a beautiful clear blue New York skyline on the Weather Channel with the report that “with the excellent weather across the country, all air traffic should be on time today, unlike yesterday.” As you know that prediction ground to a halt. As everyone knows, it was a long, intense day, like no other in my memory.

I started the day leisurely walking the deserted streets of Denver, finding a coffee shop as it opened, then walking to my first meeting of the day under the crispest of blue Denver skies. One fellow at the convention center mentioned a plane crash and then Susan called me on my cell phone, from Portland, having her LA bound flight cancelled. She emphatically said “This is serious. You need to come home now, right now! Do not get on a plane!”

As conventioneers gathered at the hallway monitors, now tuned to CNN and watching the what had to be an all too real Hollywood thriller, I called and checked in with family around the country. I was amazed the cell system kept working.

I met up with friend and former roommate Dan whom I had visited on this initially routine vacation and planned out the day as well as options for staying with him if travel wasn’t possible. I couldn’t get through on the phone to Budget about my rental car, but found a downtown location and walked in asking to extend my rental to a one-way to Portland. No problem they said, though everyone else in the agency looking for a car could not get one.

Speculating that this might be a more serious issue than first glance, I went back to the convention center and asked everyone I could find if they wanted a ride back to Portland. Surprisingly, you would think a meeting filled with surgeons would be a group that could make quick decisions. No, three hours later, with only one rider and 20 “I’ll get back to you”,’s I left town with a single colleague, Doug, headed for home.

In Fort Collins, Colorado, I get a call on my cell phone from Mark who had declined the ride so he could still teach his courses - “so is that ride still available? … No one attended my lecture.” The depth of the situation was sinking in.

Doug and I turned around in Denver’s rush hour traffic and picked Mark up at his hotel. Other options for leaving town had dwindled. What was another hour, really? We would get home soon enough.

Now with a full load, heading north out of Denver and then west through Wyoming, we watched gas prices rise to $2.00 a gallon during the day and then fall again as we continued on through the night. Who knew what would happen?

As a pilot, in tune with the skies, it was strange to see neither contrails nor moving lights in the sky. Continuous news was on the radio, though after a while, an occasional musical break became welcome. The interstate through Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, while probably not noted for traffic jams was particularly quiet on this day.

In a small Idaho town, about 3 am, we stopped for gas again and I ran in for a restroom break. Mark pumped the gas while Doug stretched. I came out and stretched by the car while they went and got a little caffeine. We were getting a little goofy from the intensity of the day. Rather than stop for the night, we decided to continue driving straight through to Portland. Back on the highway, Mark asked, “How much was the gas?”

I replied, “I just went to the bathroom, I thought you used a credit card at the pump.”

“I thought you paid and they turned on the pump.” Mark suggested. A good ten miles were behind us. “Should we turn back? We could just send the money.”

No, we pulled off at the next exit and turned back. We had already backtracked once to pick Mark up in Denver, what was another little detour? Just what we needed was to be pulled over, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Idaho, during a national emergency, three guys with day old facial stubble and a large case in a car, stealing gas.

Doug had his golf clubs in the back seat - (this was a Budget mid-sized car, somewhat of a euphemism - mid sized for Barbie dolls perhaps, but for real humans with luggage - three was tight). The clubs had their own seat belt. We were imagining the state policeman peering in the windows saying, “Right guys. You are just returning this car to which airport … with that big case…?”

We pulled back into the gas station, just in time for a patrol car to pull in right behind us, filled with a rather large County Sheriff, his abdomen touching the steering wheel. It was a real cruiser, black and white, a chevy with the spotlight near the drivers rear view mirror. He pulled up at an angle behind us blocking our car in its space and shining a light on the rear license tag. Mark was already heading inside to pay as the Sheriff got out of his car.

Doug and I imagined the officer coming over to us and quizzing us about this guy with the dark curly hair inside who had tried to steal the gas. “Who was he? What was he doing?” The 22 hours of wakefulness along with the intensity of those hours was taxing some of our neurons.

Now we could really go with this situation. We imagined the Sheriff feeling that he had just found a terrorist cell in the middle of Idaho - solving the entire days events at the World Trade Center in his small town. It wouldn’t be the first time Idaho harbored some free thinkers. When he came to arrest us we could sacrifice Mark and would say to the officer with the paunch, “We have no idea who this guy is. We just picked him up by the side of the road. He asked where we were going and when we said we were returning this rental car to the airport, he said something about ‘If it be Allah’s will.’”

“And what’s in that big case guys?” he would eventually ask.

“Yes sir, that big case is his. We don’t know what is in it but we think he referred to it as the ‘divine wind’ or something like that,” we would reply. In the end we decided, this fellow wouldn’t understand our punch drunk type of humor and we didn’t want to try out some cold, little cell at the local station in a small Idaho town possibly not noted for its liberal standards. In the end, he didn’t come to the car and we didn’t stick our heads out the window and start a conversation.

The sheriff went inside and asked the clerk, “Everything ok?”

“Yes, they came back and paid,” the young teen behind the counter replied. We got back in the car and waited until the doors were closed and the sound of wind outside the car muffled our goofiness. It appears that not only is honesty the best policy, but immediate honesty has its rewards. We were safe and still on our way home to our families. We pulled into the Portland airport at 9 am on the morning after.

My day ended about 36 hours later, home with my family when I fell asleep about 5 pm. There was an F-16 at the level of my house, just outside my window, cruising back and forth over downtown Portland in this new millenium.

I fell asleep with more in common than different with fellow countrymen. My thoughts ran over a number of things now seen more clearly; humor showing up in the darkest of times and probably having some healing power; death being the price that we pay for freedom, otherwise some are willing to kill to take away that freedom; it is good to be home.