Reminiscence of 9/11

By Evelyn Manese

We had just returned to San Diego, 2 days before 9/11 from a holiday trip to Greece and were still getting over our jet lag, when the phone rang and woke us up. Our son from La Jolla was on the phone and immediately asked us to turn on our T.V.. As Will and I fumbled and stumbled, searching for the remote control, our son continued to speak at a fast and nervous pace, describing what he was witnessing on his own T.V. When we finally got the T.V. turned on, Will exclaimed “Oh my God”, in a sullen, morose voice of distress, as he watched the 2 towers crumbled down into ashes. I felt aghast and huddled closer to grasp his hands for comfort and reassurance.

New York was an old stomping ground for our family in the mid-70's to the 80's. Many memories of our young, family were rooted in the splendor and grandeur of the Big Apple. Will used to take the old, Erie Lackawanna line from New Jersey where we lived, to Hoboken. Then he catches the PATH train through the Hudson river to N.Y.C.. He then gets off at the World Trade Center and hops, up the steep, escalator to the street level of Manhattan. He continues on to Broadway until he gets to the AT&T Bldg. where he worked. It was a journey he took everyday for 12 years, until the divestiture and merger of the giant telephone company in the late 80's.

The number of times I made to the city with friends on Wednesdays to catch a Broadway matinee or fall in line at Times Square to get discount tickets for theater seats, were grand memories that I cherished. The stroll at Central Park, the Rockefeller Plaza, window shopping on 5th Ave. and the steaming, hot soup in Chinatown on a cold day. Those were worth the wait in line, enough to satisfy our Epicurean delight. In our moment of introspection, the golden memory of our numerous journeys to New York City, with our final stop at the WTC was shattered and dashed away, on that day of 9/11/2001.

Evelyn