Today is the 18th anniversary of the attacks in New York. Anniversary doesn’t seem to be the right term to attach to this day of remembrance. I do believe we still need to talk about that day because so many people were affected that day. I have three stories that were close to me on September 11th 2001.
I was working for Outback Steakhouse at the time near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Atlantic City sits about 130 miles away from New York City. I had a court appearance that morning and was due in at 9:30 am. I was up and showered by 9:00 am, turned on the T. V. Flight 11 had already hit the North Tower and it was burning. Watching live I witnessed flight 175 hit the South Tower. Thinking, is this real, you start flipping channels. Coverage on every channel, including MTV, VH1, Food Network just to name a few. I have my day in court, it lasts roughly 10 minutes. A few other cases come before the judge and then he dismisses court for the rest of the day based on what is happening in New York. I fill out some paperwork and go home. In the end someone in the court office must have been deeply affected by what was going on. My paperwork was never filed, no fines or associated things with my case ever came to fruition. My life went on as if my day in court never happened
My second story still involves Outback Steakhouse. My friend John was at Outback headquarters in Tampa Bay with other managers from around the country for a rah, rah go Outback meeting. He was supposed to fly home that day and all domestic flights were grounded at that point. Planes were directed to land at the nearest airport and everything was shut down. Chris Sullivan, Bob Basham and Tim Gannon, the founders of Outback Steakhouse, must have had some high level connections. They own two private jets, the Bloomin Onion one and two. There are two jets because of insurance reasons they all can’t be on the same plane at the same time. Somehow some way they managed, in all of the chaos, to get John on one of the private jets with supplies from the local area to go to ground zero. I suppose John landed somewhere in North Jersey, a 1000 mile trip, and had two F-16’s as an escort the whole trip.
In keeping with the theme my third story has Outback Steakhouse in it as well. Outback has a catering arm of the company in basically every region. I became the first one to head that arm in our region of eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware. The day after 9/11 all of the roughly 25 stores in our region were contacted by the district manager. We are cooking at ground zero across the river in Jersey City for the first responders. Any and all product you can spare for this operation, please do. The two catering trucks were already on their way to us. Steaks, burgers, buns, bread, onions, potatoes, etc all went up to New York. We were up there for three or four weeks helping out as best we could.
Here is my take, my stories by no means even relate to 2,977 people that lost their lives that day. Today as I write this all of those names are being read aloud at the site of the Freedom Tower. The further we get away from 2001, it is possible that the feelings and loss of that day will diminish. Millions of us were affected personally that day. If we share those stories to our family and friends maybe as time continues to pass, it will hopefully lead those closest to us to search out the real heroes and remember the victims. In doing so maybe we can keep September 11, 2001 from becoming just another day in history.