9/11/2001

Jennifer was actually flying when the world stopped turning on 9/11/2001. We were living in Houston at the time. That morning Jennifer was flying from Houston to Cody, Wyoming for work.

I remember us coming into work that morning and the first World Trade Center Tower had already been hit. Several of my co-workers , Jennifer and I were standing in the halls talking about it. At that point we thought it was just a horrible accident. We were trying to figure how this could have happened. I was having meeting with a large group of contractors that morning so I could not spend much time talking and Jennifer had to head to the airport.

We were working on the 34 floor of the Marathon Oil Tower in the galleria area of Houston and I went to the 38th floor for my meeting. Well during my meeting I get a call from Jennifer, but I just picked up and told her I couldn't talk and hung up. I did not even give her a chance to say anything (which I heard about later).

Shortly after that someone came into the meeting and told us that another plane had hit the second World Trade Center and if I remember correctly the Pentagon. They believed there were terrorist attacks potentially occurring around the country and that the Marathon tower was being closed as a precaution and we were to collect our stuff and get out of the building as soon as possible.

I called Jennifer back as I am getting out of the building. She said that she was at The Dallas-Fort Worth airport and that they were not telling them much. Her flight had been somewhere over Oklahoma and she said the pilots just said there was a National emergency and they being were told to return to the nearest airport immediately. For them that was the Dallas - Fort Worth Airport. She was trying to figure out what to do, the lines for rental cars were very long and she did not know if she should just get a hotel room. I tell her to just stay put and I would drive up and get her.

So I jumped in my truck and took of for Dallas. Of course on the way up I am listening to the news and getting a much better understanding that this was a very serious incident. Anyway, the thing I really remember about that day was that when I got to DFW it was like a ghost town. There were jets parked in every spot they could put one but it was dead silent and spooky. So I finally located Jennifer and we turned around and headed right back to Houston. We got home and we're glued to the TV as we saw the replays of the Towers collapsing the Pentagon burning and the Flight 93 crash in PA.

Every September 11th after that we would relive and discuss that day. So 22 years later, this will be the first one on my own.