Daryn Guarino's Blog: Just what we need, another blog - Posts Tagged "9-11"

Many people ask "Where were you when it happened?" I remember specifically because, as a writer, I wrote it all down just about as fast as I could think it. I keep meaning to edit it and correct the spelling and grammar errors, but I think leaving it like this is too authentic to adjust. 9/11 as I experienced it:

By Daryn Robert Guarino in the days following September 11, 2001

Me – Daryn Robert Guarino
Gib – Gibson Omer Bickel, VP and Operations Manager at Ogre, my best friend since 1984
Connor – Connor Daryn Guarino born July 20, 1998 (he was 3 years old)
Morgan - Morgan Bal Guarino born May 30, 2001 (he was 3 months old)
Ogre – The Laughing Ogre (a comic book shoppe) owned by Daryn, Gib, and Rod
Unedited so please forgive the spelling and grammar.

September 11, 2001 began abruptly with the phones ringing off the hook. I woke after the phone rang and then managed to determine that the phone woke me up. It was Gib calling from the Ogre. “It’s gone”, he said. “What is?” I said. I thought that maybe we had been robbed or something terrible had happened to the Ogre. “One of the twin towers”, he said, “turn on the TV, it’s gone, I gotta go.” He hung up.
I turned on CNN to see them filming a burning tower. It had a terrible outline of an airplane smashed into it with fire and thick smoke. They were saying that a plane had crashed into one of the towers. Suddenly the camera angle changed and we flicked to an approaching airplane. People were screaming as the plane passed behind the building. Black smoke and flame suddenly billowed. The plane had not passed behind the building, it had hit it. The plane had hit the second tower. I sat, jaw agape, unable to move. Could this be real? Can this happen? Are they allowed to do that? Rubble crashed to the street and I sat watching in silent horror as the flashing lights on top of police cars and fire trucks, responding to the first crash, were snuffed by billowing smoke and debris. People were leaping from the burning buildings and their flailing arms displayed raw terror as they knowingly fell to their death in street below. The scene was beyond terrible. Two huge towers, smoke and flame billowing from the huge holes in their hulls. Wordless horror and shock
I remember thinking that the towers have got to have like fifty thousand people in them. Holy shit, this can’t be real. Hey, you’re not allowed to do that! So many people, the horror turned to shock and I tried to shamble around the house. Connor came in the room and asked me what was wrong and I told him that bad men had crashed airplanes into good people’s buildings.
“We got to go get them bad men.”, he said.
“We will, my son, you can count on that.”, I said (I feel very angry at someone unspecified).
We saw the crushed remains of a fire truck in the debris field.
“Did firefighters (yes, he said firefighters) get hurt and get killed?”
“Yes, Connor, they did, a lot of them did, more than ten” and I wept for a moment.
More than ten was the highest number in the world to Connor at this point.
“Those bad guys killed my Pakka and killed firefighters and we will destroy them” said Connor and then he began wheeling about throwing kicks and karate chops while shouting the appropriate sound effect. He knew something bad had happened, but didn’t seem to understand death. He ran down the hall to his room to destory the bad guys and sporadic laser fire was heard as he got to his room and then they all started chanting about food or something and it got too silly even for the daddy to follwo\\
Pakka was his maternal grandfather, a great old guy and former fire chief of Cincinnati. He had died back in May 2001 about four months ago. He was respected by damn near everyone and, at age 86, knew damn near everyone. Connor couldn’t quite pronounce Gramma and Grampa, so it got baby-talked into Grunga and Pakka. Connor was still calling him Pakka when he died. At the funeral, Connor did not really recognize Pakka embalmed and in his firechief uniform, so an understanding of death was still a bit beyond him. He knew Pakka was gone and that he would never see him again and that caused him to cry. Pakka was always really fun for Connor. He couldn’t move all that well, but Connor loved playing with/on him. Pakka was fading at this time, so he and Connor were almost on the same level. Bert may have been slightly addled, but he was happy and he knew he was surrounded by people who loved him. I only knew him a little while but I loved him too.
At this time, Connor is three. He loves the Power Rangers and playing with me. We have a mighty morphin power rangers video tape (VCR) that features a burning tower and the rangers then rescue the people inside. Watching the same building be destroyed over and over again was something that we did quite often. For Connor to see the burning towers on tv and then see them fall over and over again as the news people replayed it over and over, I’m betting that it being a real event was absolutely lost on him. My other son Morgan was about four months old at this point and his fat, smiley face and happy, wiggly demeanor were unchanged.
We watched the smoke from several channels and then the news people started interviewing one another and that meant that it was time to watch something else. I made breakfast and listened to Howard Stern on the radio. Say what you want about Howard, he provided the most comprehensive and level-headed coverage of the whole horrible thing. He stayed on the air, commercial free, until his satellite time simply ran out (hours later). Reports of a third plane hitting the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashing in PA came in. How many more were coming? Then I started thinking about the reality of the situation. My sister Dayna takes her daughter Elizabeth on auditions in New York and she has mentioned visiting the mall in the towers at times. I called home and she answered. Whew. Everyone was safe and sound, even our New York friends. I called Jay Hosler, my business partner, because he lives in PA. The plane that crashed in PA fell a hundred miles or so away from him. That’s close enough for him to hug his wife and kid extra hard. Okay, I had lost no one, good, but many had. The towers collapsed as rescue workers did their best and so many brave men and women were lost. Their line of work is heroic and death in the line of duty is as honorable as it gets in my book. I am sad for the families that have lost a loved one, but I am proud of those that had the courage to do what needed to be done to help their fellow man no matter what. It wasn’t a paycheck that drove those heroes into that smoking abbatoir that day, it was duty and honor and responsibility. Heroes all!

News reports came in and were denyed later so often that only news that was at last three days old could be considered credible. The main phony stories that I remember:
A man on the 82nd floor survived the collapse by riding the collapse.
A policeman on the 82nd floor survived the collapse.
Some firefighters were found alive in the basement of the towers.
Some firefighters that had been buried by the collapsing building had been found alive in the SUV.
The PA men had overpowered the terrorists, but crashed the plane when they tried to land it.

The PA plane men summoned their courage and made a stand. They fought the hijackers and the plane crashed in the scuffle, yes they died, but how many were saved? Where was the plane headed? More heroes have emerged.

I had a dream of being in one of the towers when it happened. In my dream, it was me with Connor and Morgan and a baby carriage. Something had happened upstairs and smoke was filling the area. Everyone fled into the stairwell. I could see that we weren’t going to be able to move the stroller, so I grabbed my boys up in my arms and shoved my way into the stairwell. It was desperate and other people with kids were slowly moving through the gloom. A horrible squeal of tearing metal and the staircase dropped away beneath us. There was no way out from here. I woke up at that moment. I hugged my sleeping family close to me and wept quietly in the dark. We were all safe, but it occurred to me then that:
There might have been a father with two kids and a stroller somewhere in one of those buildings.
Someone was probably having a great second interview.
Someone was probably working at the towers for the very first day.
Someone might have had their kid at work with them.
Someone might have been standing at the window, helplessly watching the plane approach them.
Someone might have been hit by the actual plane itself.
I hugged my family again and then got up to do some work. I didn’t shake the nightmare’s gloom for many days.


To all the first responders, then and now, here and everywhere: Thank you.