Remembering 9-11...

...as I am sure many will think about where they were that day.  Me?  I was on a sales call at the old Wal-Mart in Sparta, TN and conducting a meeting at the West Sparta congregation in the evening. 

While in Wal-Mart, I was talking with the manager when the office clerk opened the door and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  I ceased discussions with the manager and returned to my hotel room just down the street and saw the second plane hit.  After a few moments I said out loud, "That thing is gonna fall" and I no sooner said it, that it did.

Then the second building went down.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later...at that time I was working for Russell Stover Candies.  Being a national company, we would have annual sales meetings and sales reps from all over the country would assemble at one locale.  The company would have “smaller” meetings mixing regions together so we could learn various sales techniques.  The south region blended with the northeast region—of course, two different cultures so to speak.
 

Yet, from those meetings, I met a native New Yorker named John.  We really hit it off well and of course, we both accused one another of having an accent.  He loved to hear about Tennessee and honestly, I was fascinated by New York life.

A couple of weeks after 9-11, I called John and we visited.  I was sitting on the front porch of our house admiring the beauty of the fall night telling John what I was seeing.  He told me he would love to be sitting there with me.  He attended his third funeral that week as seven members of his church had died on 9-11.  He broke down crying like a baby and in that distinctive voice said, “Jeff, nothing you see on television touches what we are seeing and what we are going through.”

I have thought of my friend, John...wonder if I could find his number?  Might just give him a call...from the Wildwood.