Like so many other people, I remember the particulars of 9/11 very clearly. I remember hearing on the radio – I was streaming the BBC at work – about a commuter plane crashing. I remember an old boss talking about how we had to find experts (it was my first PR job) to go on TV, but I didn’t think it was that big deal. Then I remember hearing the real news and everything changing.
I remember :
… the look on the face of a law school professor who knew people working in the towers. Our office had the only TV and became a hub of activity.
… the hasty e-mail from another professor whom I had met only a few days before telling me he had a TV interview set up since he worked in terrorism under President Clinton.
… spending a bunch of time cancelling a press conference on 9/12 because we just knew it wasn’t right to go on.
… spending even more time getting info about the press conference topic to reporters who knew they would need something non-terrorism related at some point in the week.
… frantically trying to get a hold of my wife after hearing a plane went down in rural PA. They didn’t specify where in PA and we live within half an hour of Site R and Camp David so I was losing my mind. She had just taken our 1-year-old out to the playground to avoid all the bad news.
… the eerie feeling on the streets of Baltimore as I headed to catch the Metro to my car. I walked by the federal courthouse while dropping off documents related to the press conference and saw nothing bu heavily armed guards. I felt safe and terrified at the same instant.
Of course, there are many more memories, but one that happened gradually over the next few days was that I needed to get out of my funk. The attacks made all of us look at life a little differently. I didn’t like parts of my job that much. Being a parent was taxing. My commute was a pain. And my Mom had started to have some health problems. So I needed a way to kind of get things off my chest.
That’s how Regular Guy came to be. In October, we were at a cookout at a friend’s house. She still worked at the paper in Hanover as an editor. I said, very simply, “I think I want to write a column.” She agreed it would be a good idea and told me to start sending her something each week. She’d fit me in the Sunday paper.
Almost eight years later, now I have a site where I blog, I had done podcasts, I have written for other web sites, I am two jobs removed from that other job, and I’m still cranking out 500-ish words each week about everything and nothing whether you like it or not.
Thanks, everyone. Little by little since that day, I have realized we all just need to try and make ourselves a little bit better people each day. Sometimes that involves writing something funny on the Internet. Sometimes it involves calling someone a douchebag because they wear Ed Hardy.
Great post, and I’m glad you’re writing.
Awesome post, Brian. Thanks for sharing.
That’s…why…he’s….here!