Remembering 9/11
This past Thursday, the Frameless Hardware Company (FHC) team gave me a nice lunch for my birthday. Of course, someone asked how old I was, and that turned into a guessing game. Then someone brought up that my birthday was on Friday, which was 9/11. When I was a kid, I thought 9/11 was a cool date. I used to tell everyone it was “nine one one.”
During that lunch, FHC chairperson and advisor Donald E. Friese, the only person in the room older than I was, told the story about how I was stuck in Chicago during the week of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. I can’t believe that it has been 25 years since the incidents, but those of us who lived through it still remember every detail of that week.
That week, I traveled to an auto glass conference in Minneapolis, which started on Wednesday. Before the conference, I flew to Chicago to spend a day with my local salesperson, Morgan Meeker, who had just transferred from Los Angeles to Chicago. We were in the midst of a sales call when an employee of the company we were visiting interrupted us and said that we needed to go into the lunchroom, where they had a TV, because a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We were all concerned but did not jump right up.
Within five minutes, the employee came back in and said, “You need to see what is happening.” We went into the lunchroom and were rendered speechless as we watched one of the two towers smolder after the first plane impacted the building. Roughly 10 minutes later, the second plane hit, and we all stood in silence listening and watching in disbelief. After three hours, we left and went back to the service center.
I spent the next three days in Chicago watching the news. During that time, all the airports closed. I called Friese to let him know I was going to try to rent a car and drive back; he agreed to the plan. Someone had told Meeker that there were rental cars available at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport rental car lot, which they had just opened. It was an eerie ride with not a soul at the airport, just a few mounted police on horses riding the perimeter.
I was lucky to get a rental car and had planned to spend the night in Denver, but found no hotel rooms available. At one hotel, the best it had to offer was some space left in the parking lot where I could sleep in my car, along with about 20 other cars with people in them. We were all trying to get home.
It was a welcome relief to be home with my family the next day.
Over the years, when I have had to give someone my license or date of birth, especially around this time, people would always mention how unlucky I was to have a 9/11 birthday. Though over time, it has happened less frequently. Last week at my doctor, dentist and local drug store, when I mentioned my birthdate, they all just said happy birthday. It’s up to the people who remember that day to keep telling our story to the next generation, so we don’t forget what we all felt.
On a positive note, I hope you will stop by the FHC booth 3152 next week at GlassBuild America 2026 in Las Vegas and say hello. I will be there.