Where were you when ... ?

 I'd finished a day teaching. Long since (formally) retired I was a locum at the local Roman Catholic secondary school. Locum in this case making me a 'supply teacher', the lowest of the low in the pedagogic pecking order.

It wan't by any means a 'bad' billet. My TCD degree gave certain credibilities (I'd mentioned that I wasn't RC; but that didn't seem to matter). I could, though, cope with the stuff others shied away from — A-level Milton kept me in fodder for several years. Above all, it more than paid the bills: what with a secure pension, and this daily screw I was better paid in retirement than I ever had been before. I was once, discreetly, told that and the 'on-costs' made me the third most expensive item on the school pay-roll, after the Head and the Caretaker.

So, sweat of a day behind me, I cruised home on the Yamaha, over Alexandra Park (ignoring as did everyone else, speed restrictions). I dropped down the run-in towards the garage. Removed my crash-helmet, reached for the garage key...

The kitchen door was open, and the Lady in my Life called out: "She's all right!"

Huh?

We had a small Sharp tv on a ledge in the kitchen, and it was tuned to the news-channels. The full horror was being revealed moment-by-moment.

The time difference meant that London around tea-time was coming up to noon in New York.

It took some while for everything to become clear.

Number 1 Daughter ...

... lived in suburban Noo Joisey, convenient to the 'Midtown Direct' trains into Penn Station. We'd been over a few weeks earlier, and trogged around Manhattan in steamy heat to exhaustion. Even to the point where we'd looked up and considered the tourist lift up the Twin Towers,  only to say, "No: they'll be there another time. Let's go, get a drink".

Number 1 Daughter was then working on an consulting assignment in the World Trade Center. Her husband was down in Texas on some job. So Number 1 Daughter, with au-pair, was caring for First-born, due into day care.

That was the morning First-born, in short order, filled and re-filled his nappy, so Number 1 Daughter missed two trains in succession.

Not-quite-alternate trains on that Morris & Essex line run into Hoboken, there the PATH or ferry runs to the World Trade Center. When Number 1 Daughter arrived at Hoboken there were, of course, no PATH no ferries — but all could see the smoke from the Twin Towers. The instruction was to go home — except, by then, the entire transport network was in total chaos, cell-phones were no longer working, and confusion was thrice confused.

It took hours for Number 1 Daughter to make it home. By that stage some sense of events had percolated through: Number 1 Daughter knew some of her team were down to DC that morning, and jumped to the conclusion they could have been on American flight 11. There was another shocker when she made it back to pick up First-born, by which time it was already approaching shutting-up-shop time. Only to find several other uncollected children, and an air of despairing panic setting in.

Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Texas ...

... a select cadre of business-types could hear and see what was happening in NYC, but couldn't communicate with home. Number 1 Daughter's husband managed a line of communication: he could 'phone his sister in California, who could 'phone us in London, who could 'phone Number 1 daughter once she was on the Noo Joisey network.

Without airlines, four business-types hired a car and drove non-stop the seven hundred miles to New York.

Yes, I remember 9/11.

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