At 520 am on 911, I was working as a courier and driving out to Dulles on a regular round trip that started at FNMA and ended at the Navy Yard. I was just going through Glen Echo and listening to Jack Diamond and Stacy Binn doing a call in around the topic “How do you know you are a Washingtonian”, things like remembering the seal autopsy at the National Zoo on a school trip around the 3rd grade or so. Or dragging a couch down to the Washington Monument to watch the Beach Boys and fire works on the 4th. Now, of course, I can say what I was doing on the morning of 911: I was listening to Jack Diamond. It was a beautiful day, cool with light humidity, the reason why people live in the area. I had had a dream the night before about the attacks, but I didn’t have any idea what it was about, except that what I wanted to do was stay in bed. I had awakened very frightened. The last image of the sequence was looking out a bathroom window and across the water from New Jersey at the New York skyline, which frightened me. What I realized after the fact, the Towers were missing. But that morning, it was just a different day, same old shit, and I was moving against the rush hour coming up on 900 am when Jack Diamond mentioned that a report had come in that a small plane had collided with one of the buildings at the World Trade Centers. The towers didn’t have numbers at that moment, but they would before they fell later that morning. Jack seemed a little mystified by the report, but I didn’t think much about it. I was waiting for the Diane Rehm show and his show when off at 1000 am, when she came on. I got in and out of the FNMA mailroom at Herndon and headed back down the Dulles Toll Road when the Pentagon was hit. And I was nearly to Georgetown, where I had a drop on M Street,when the the second plane hit the other tower. By now, of course, it was evident that this was some kind of terrorist action and Jack Diamond and his crew were into the emergency mode they assumed during snow storms and serious traffic disruptions. I punched around the dial for other news. Elliot in the Morning was a total fool and Bush and Erin were totally forgettable. Jack Diamond and his crew deserve an award for the sanity he brought to the morning. He was calm and serious and was still broadcasting when I got off the road just before noon. For some reason, my next stop was the Washington Post, which was a major customer and had a satellite dispatch office for bikers on the premises. Many times on regular round trips, I would have no back-haul (and no revenue) and I had nothing for the Navy Yard, which was also unusual, but I had made a pick-up for the Post and that was my next stop. My plan was to head back down M Street to L street to the Post and then to State, where I had a pick. The traffic on the street was about normal for that time of the morning, the hour or so after the morning rush, maybe a little light, until I go to the point on Pennsylvania Avenue between M Street and L Street and, suddenly, the street just went into grid lock. Literally, I crossed the bridge out of Georgetown and before I got to L Street, people came out of the buildings and the streets filled up with traffic. It took me 45 minutes to get from there to 15th Street, after going down alleys and back streets and all the tricks I knew to get around traffic. At the Post, the security was outside and challenged me and wouldn’t let me inside to deliver whatever I had. They signed for it, which security usually won’t do unless they are manning the desk and, even then, they will call down the addressee. You might say tension was high. Dispatch wanted me to make a pick out at a hospital in Prince Georges County for the Washington Hospital Center, probably a blood sample, but I told them I was done for the day. I was supposed to go to State for a pick, but it was cancelled and I assumed traffic would continue to be a mess for the rest of the day, but on my drive back to Adams Morgan, the streets were already beginning to empty. The parking was very tight, but I shut down operations and went back to my room to watch the 2nd building fall and decided I would walk up to St. Albans and say a prayer or two. The streets were as deserted as an hour after the bars had closed and before the papers began to be delivered. I decided to cut through the Woodly Park Sheraton, where I was ambushed by a French woman who was there for a trade show and needed comforting. But that’s another story.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 17:51:13 +0000
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