This week, even in the face of dual threat hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the nation has paused to recall what happened on 9\/11\/2001.\u00a0 I was in the living room of our house in Bellevue, carrying suitcases toward the car in anticipation of our annual trek to Ashland, Oregon, when Bill called after me to let me know that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.\u00a0 I imagined a Piper Cherokee sitting with it\u2019s nose inside a window, but of course, it wasn\u2019t a little plane, and it wasn\u2019t just one, either.<\/p>\n
Bill and I stopped packing right then. We sat down and remained glued to the television set in our family room for hours on end, watching that terrible national tragedy unfold.\u00a0 Much later in the day we decided that if we didn\u2019t make our trip to Ashland to see the plays at the Shakespearian Festival, that would mean that the terrorists had actually won another round.<\/p>\n
We finished packing with heavy hearts and drove down, arriving much later than we had originally intended.\u00a0 And of all the years we spent going to the plays in Ashland, that year was an especially low point.\u00a0 The comedies weren\u2019t funny, and the tragedies weren\u2019t nearly tragic enough.<\/p>\n
But what this blog is really about isn\u2019t that day, the day when the world changed.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the day before and how I almost WASN\u2019T home in Bellevue when everything went to hell in a hand basket.<\/p>\n
Our usual travel pattern was to leave for Ashland on Monday and stay the remainder of the week, departing the following Sunday.\u00a0 That year, however, one of the major national book suppliers, Hudson News, asked me to do a book signing at a convention in Montreal on Monday, September 10.<\/p>\n
You may not have realized this at the time.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe it was ever mentioned in any of the media reports I saw, but the convention in question was one that had airport managers from all over the world in Montreal, leaving their second or third in commands in charge or their various airports.\u00a0 A coincidence perhaps?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so!<\/p>\n
This was 2001.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure which of my books I was expected to sign at the event.\u00a0 It was either Outlaw Mountain or Breach of Duty, since those would have been in paperback in 2001.\u00a0 Whichever paperback it was, Hudson News had brought along four hundred copies for me to sign and give away.\u00a0 At high noon on September 10, they sat me down at a table, handed me a pen, and started having me sign books.\u00a0 I signed all four hundred copies, and then they threw me in car and off we went to the airport.<\/p>\n
I was booked to fly home via Chicago.\u00a0 The problem is, once I got to the airport, I discovered that due to weather on the East Coast, complicated by a kitchen fire at Laguardia Airport, my flight was delayed.\u00a0 For a long time.<\/p>\n
Once we finally got underway, our flight landed in Chicago with bare minutes for the three Seattle bound passengers to make their connecting flight.\u00a0 The flight attendants let us disembark firs,t and we set off at a dead run.\u00a0 O\u2019Hare airport is huge under the best of circumstances, and that night it was particularly daunting.\u00a0 We were racing along when a black guy driving one of those handicapped golf cars showed up and asked us where we headed.\u00a0 When we told him, he looked at his watch, shook his head, and said, \u201cYou\u2019ll never make it walking.\u00a0 Get in.\u201d<\/p>\n
So we did.\u00a0 The three of us piled into his golf cart, and off we went!\u00a0 We zipped down back corridors and through tunnels, dodging through bits of the subterranean airport the public never sees.\u00a0 We arrived at the departure gate after all the other Seattle bound passengers had boarded the plane, but the door was still open.\u00a0 We made it on to the flight, but just barely.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember if we tipped the driver or even thanked him.\u00a0 I hope so, because that flight was the very LAST one out of Chicago and into Seattle before the towers came down.\u00a0 Had I been stranded in Chicago when all hell broke loose, no telling how long it would have taken me to get home.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what this blog is really about\u2014saying thank you to a man whose name I never knew and probably will never know, but for those three travelers, he was indeed a Good Samaritan.<\/p>\n
Whenever my mother couldn\u2019t sort out which of her kids\u2019 mostly J-word names was applicable to the current situation, she would sputter, \u201cJan, Jean, Jud, Jane,” meaning of course Janice, Jeannie, Judy, or Janie.\u00a0 Finally, giving up she would say, \u201cWhoever you are you know who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I hope that guy\u2014the one driving the golf cart\u2014somehow sees this and knows how grateful I was to be safely home on that dreadful morning.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure\u00a0 the other couple traveling that night feel the same way.<\/p>\n
All I can say is thank you, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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