As I listened on the radio this morning to the names being read at the annual ceremony for the 9/11 terrorism victims while bells tolled, I saw a Facebook post by horse show judge and trainer Jimmy Lee about this day in 2001. He and other show officials were called to fill in for those who couldn’t get there after the attack.
“Twenty-two years ago this morning,” Jimmy wrote, “I got a call and got in my car and drove from Cape Cod to Springfield, Massachusetts, to judge the Eastern States Horse Show for Jim Lahood. In one of the first classes, several of the horses had American flag stickers on their hindquarters. I sure as hell will never ever forget!”
I was sleeping after flying in the night before from a busy week covering the Spruce Meadows horse show in Canada when the phone rang. It was my husband, telling me to turn on the TV.
“What station?” I asked. “Any station,” he replied.
A side note here. Kevin Babington, who was also at Spruce Meadows, did not leave Canada Sept. 10 and when all flights were suspended after 9/11, he wound up having to take a bus across the country in order to get home to the East Coast.
Jimmy’s post initiated a flood of memories from so many people about a day they can never forget. You always remember where you were when something that momentous happens, like Pearl Harbor, or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I thought it would be instructive for my readers to see what others remembered about the day.
Sterling D.B. Graburn commented, “I was at the NEDA dressage/sport horse breeders show. We had similar issues with judges having to drive in to replace judges too far away, and it did delay the show. Funny how that day changed how we think, travel, and live our lives. Brought the reality of the economic risk a terrorist attack can put the world under, never mind the horrible loss of life.”
Kim Hewitt Bonstein recalled, ” We lived 20 miles from Ground Zero in Fanwood next to Westfield, NJ, and the fighter jets flew so low over our houses on the way to the city that it felt like they could hit the tree tops.
“Within hours of the (Twin) Towers falling, every house on our street had American flags flying and they stayed up for a very long time. On September 11 we were all stunned, yet proud, Americans no matter our political views or differing backgrounds. We were one country and one people.”
Heather Hunter wrote that she had driven to a store to pick up something “when a woman came running out of the store, screaming her husband was in there. Confused, I went into the store and saw on the TV screen what was happening. I went numb and went back to the church where T2 was and just sat in the parking lot, praying they would not bomb the church. I still get teary and feel the fear I had that morning – the helplessness. I cannot imagine what that woman felt. I will never forget the fear, her tears or her screams.”
Judy Siracusa was picking up lighting fixtures that morning. She watched what was happening on TV “with the big guys who loaded the boxes. I was embarrassed crying until I saw every one of these guys weeping buckets. We’re all still Americans.”