Bones Sinking Like Stones: Never to Forget 9-11

 

Penguin in the training center

For years, I couldn't talk about it. The movies and documentaries were so painful that watching them felt like I was reliving that day. And flying for work? Not at all possible. Then there was the time I was on a 767, flying from somewhere to someplace—I don't even remember where.

What I do remember is that it was night. The aircraft was dark, and I was seated at my jumpseat at the aft left door. From that vantage point, I could see almost all of economy. The engines droned—a peaceful, almost soothing sound. The load was fairly light and the darkness was illuminated by the seatback monitors.

My mind drifted to the morning of September 11.

I thought about what it must have been like for the passengers on Flight 175. One minute in flight, the next in darkness, silence, drifting through space toward a white light like a spinning diamond, bright white sparks streaking out in every direction against the pitch-black void, as I saw in my near-death experience. To be slammed into the side of a building in New York by deranged monsters so hell-bent on hate that it seemed enough to fill the deepest chasm on our beautiful planet.

I broke down in tears and rushed into the lavatory to hide. The next day, I reached out to my local EAP and was soon in therapy, where I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. Have some happy pills and take some time off work. This was several years later. It was also when I learned that trauma can take its sweet-ass time to manifest in some people.

Your friendly flight attendant

Oh, I cried enough at the time.

Today, I fly with flight attendants who weren't even born on 9-11. Others tell me they were something like five years old and have no real memory of it. For me, I remember it like it was last month.

I was in Annapolis visiting my girlfriend and was scheduled to fly back to San Francisco after a long weekend. I snuck out of the house early that morning so not to wake Tammy, to stop by the Harley dealership I had managed for five years.

The first thing I remember about that visit was hearing, "I bet you hate being a flight attendant today."

"Whaaa?..." was my reaction. "Oh, yeah," he continued. "They're flying planes into buildings in New York." I made my rounds quickly and went to the office of my bookkeeper, Maxine. She filled me in, telling me the airports were closed, so there was no point in even going to BWI airport.

I could have stayed longer, but the thirst for information about what was happening was overpowering. Back at Tammy's house on Spa Creek, I turned on the television in the living room. There, I watched the replay of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

Tammy was still in bed. I went in and sat beside her, placing my hand on her shoulder. "Wake up. Two planes have flown into the World Trade Center." As she stirred, I returned to the television. They replayed the plane hitting the tower again as she reached my side and held onto me "Looks like a 767," I said dryly. "At least they died quickly," I added.

She began to cry, which is what set me off. For several minutes—or perhaps an hour; I have no idea—she and I stood in front of the television, watching it suck the will to live right out of us. At some point, I tried calling my mom but couldn't get through. I called the rental car company to make sure I could keep the car without a problem. "No worries," I was assured. With the airport closed, so too was their facility. And when I finally got through to Mom, she broke down, "I knew you were flying home and didn't know if you were on one of the planes..."

Later that night, I was lying on the floor, still glued to the news. Having heard enough, I put on my earphones and listened to Coldplay. As I watched the towers fall time and again—from this view and that—"Don't Panic" played in my ears.

View of the towers from my flight

View from my visit to the twin towers

The song goes: 

Bones sinking like stones
All that we fought for
Homes, places we've grown
All of us are done for

And we live in a beautiful world
Yeah, we do, yeah, we do
We live in a beautiful world

And there were the towers, falling over and over on the television. 

The white external ribs of the buildings looked like bones falling, sinking like stones. The feeling, especially after the next two planes went down in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, was that we were done for.

I took this photo in September 2000,
one year before they fell

That afternoon, I stood on the shore of Spa Creek in Annapolis, beneath what was normally the flight path of planes landing in Baltimore. Not this day. It was silent except for the birds. Water lapped gently at the shore. It was a cool, clear day. Not a cloud in sight—just a brilliant blue sky.

We live in a beautiful world.

Those lyrics inspired me to write to the band. I never heard back, but months later I flew to New York to see Coldplay live in a little, smoky venue not far from where the bones fell like stones. On that same trip, I couldn't bring myself to visit Ground Zero. At a park, however, the Orb was on display—the battered and dented sculpture that had stood in the plaza between the towers. People posed in front of it for photographs, all smiles and happy.

It made me sick. The weight of what that sculpture had been through—and there they were, smiling. My friend Gloria asked if I wanted my picture taken with it. Even if it might have let others know that the moment should be taken more seriously than a smiling photo opportunity, I wasn't interested. We all deal with grief in our own way.

So much changed after 9/11. The attitude of the country. The sense of national pride. No—the world came together for America's grief. The night before, on September 10, I had visited with my dear friend Mary, who read my astrology chart after dinner. The stars told her that there was going to be a change in my job. I took it to mean that I would get a new job.

When I got my job a year prior, I didn't want to be a flight attendant. I thought I'd use it as a stepping stone into management. But I quickly fell in love with flying around the world, so that aspiration was laid to rest.

"You must be wrong," I told her. She stood fast by her words. "Your job will soon be changing." Yes, in many ways, Mary was right about my job.

After 9/11, I was furloughed. The airline soon filed for bankruptcy. Airport security bore down hard not only on the flying public, but on flight crew. Our flying changed from one leg a day with 19-plus-hour layovers to several flights a day with 13-hour layovers.

The new World Trade Center

So here we are, at the point where those tragic events are 25 years behind us. Some of my flying partners learned about how that day affected our careers in training as if security was always like it is. The safety protocols that were new to us in 2001 are now taken for granted.

Do they understand that the see-through first-class curtain wasn't always see-through? Do they know that the reason it is mesh is so we can see through the cabin and make sure nothing untoward is happening to our fellow flight attendants in the other cabin?

One of my mixed media art pieces 

Flight attendants were among the first victims of 9/11. We are aviation's first responders. There is a gratitude most Americans feel for the firefighters who died in the Twin Towers. In the months after the four planes went down, we heard a lot of love from our passengers. And for those of us who had already started our careers—whether you were with American, United, or any other carrier—we will never forget.

We will never forget the tragedy of that day. 9-11 was like a black hole—the tragedy so dense, the gravity of what happened on that day is difficult to grasp.

We will never forget the crews who perished, the passengers, the innocent victims in the towers and at the Pentagon, and the pain carried by their loved ones and shared around the world.

This year, I leave for my final trip of the season to Anchorage. I've held this trip all season—from May through September. It's my favorite. It has taken years before I could fly on this date. This isn't the first time I've worked on 9-11, but this year is special. Not simply because of the milestone of 25 years, but because I've finally reached a point where I can talk about where I was with my flying partners. I can watch videos of the towers being pierced by our planes and of them falling. I can watch the animated play-by-play explaining the mechanics of why the towers couldn't withstand the impacts.

I'm finally ready to visit Ground Zero to pay my respects. I'm not in a rush to do so, and I'm fully aware that when I do, the floodgate of tears will open. But I'm ready.

Never forget those who left for work and never came home. 

These were the first victims of that day:

American Airlines Flight 11 — Boeing 767
Struck the North Tower

• Capt. John Ogonowski — Pilot

• First Officer Thomas McGuinness

• Barbara Arestegui — Flight Attendant

• Jeffrey Collman — Flight Attendant

• Sara Low — Flight Attendant

• Karen Martin — Flight Attendant

• Kathleen Nicosia — Flight Attendant

• Betty Ann Ong — Flight Attendant

• Jean Roger — Flight Attendant

• Dianne Snyder — Flight Attendant

• Madeline Amy Sweeney — Flight Attendant

United Airlines Flight 175 — Boeing 767 
Struck the South Tower

• Capt. Victor J. Saracini — Pilot

• First Officer Michael R. Horrocks

• Robert John Fangman — Flight Attendant

• Amy N. Jarret — Flight Attendant

• Amy R. King — Flight Attendant

• Kathryn L. LaBorie — Flight Attendant

• Alfred Gilles Padre Joseph Marchand — Flight Attendant

• Michael C. Tarrou — Flight Attendant

• Alicia Nicole Titus — Flight Attendant

I painted this on a cruise

American Airlines Flight 77 — Boeing 757 
Struck the Pentagon

• Capt. Charles F. Burlingame III — Pilot

• First Officer David M. Charlebois

• Michele M. Heidenberger — Flight Attendant

• Jennifer Lewis — Flight Attendant

• Kenneth E. Lewis — Flight Attendant

• Renee A. May — Flight Attendant

United Airlines Flight 93 — Boeing 757
Crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania

• Capt. Jason M. Dahl — Pilot

• First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr. — First Officer

• Lorraine G. Bay — Flight Attendant

• Sandra Waugh Bradshaw — Flight Attendant

• Wanda Anita Green — Flight Attendant

• CeeCee Ross Lyles — Flight Attendant

• Deborah Jacobs Welsh — Flight Attendant

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Pool Boy: Down Here We All Float

 

My stepfather was afraid of water, so in 1980 he installed a swimming pool at our West Houston home that was only five feet deep. Great for an eleven-year-old and yet shallow enough for the dolt to stand up in so he wouldn’t drown—that is if smart enough to do so.

Before this, my home-pool experience had been limited to my father’s pool in the backyard of his Albuquerque home. If you had a pool as a child, I’m sure you can commiserate with being the official pool slave. It was our lot in life, as members of the pool elite, to be the ones who checked the chemical balance of the water. I achieved admiral-like status by mastering the art of dunking the plastic testing kit and adding colored drops to ensure that the chlorine and pH levels were sufficient to prevent what would surely have been a horrific death caused by frolicking in unsafe water. Do laboratory scientists hold ranks other than “Mad”? I might qualify.

Houston 1968

In 2013, I began contemplating a move from California back to Houston, my home since 1968. I never thought I’d return to Houston after leaving in 1995 to make Annapolis, Maryland, my home. As much as I loved Houston and the Lone Star State, I had always abhorred the heat and humidity.

I realized I no longer wanted to live from one paycheck to the next—and that I was willing to give up the rich social life I enjoyed in the Bay Area—I began looking at Houston homes with pools. Four-bedroom houses, to be exact. My family would whine, “Why do you need four bedrooms?”

Well, one of the driving forces behind my relocation was to set myself up for when I retire and perhaps in a home that is paid for. There was also the smallest chance that I might marry. In that case, I needed a home with an office for me, a guest room for my friends to visit (ten years in, and none of my Bay Area friends have come to stay), and an extra room for my dearly beloved—either an office or simply additional space, you know, the kind that makes for a healthy marriage. (I wouldn’t know; I’ve only heard tales.)

Also, the thought of coming home from work and trips around the world—where I typically cleared customs in a uniform damp with perspiration, as if smuggling penguins or something worse—the thought of stripping naked and jumping into a pool was capital. This prompted further bleating from the fam: “Why do you need a pool? They’re so costly.” Dammit, this is my life, and I’ll do as I please. I don’t see them buying my house.

As much as I wanted a home with a pool, the market was becoming that of a seller’s, and homes with pools were moving beyond my financial reach. Ultimately, I found the home of my dreams: four bedrooms, an attached garage, and an established neighborhood with large trees—but no pool.

My 2025 pool

Last summer, I realized that adding a pool was within reach, even if it had to be a small one. To test the feasibility of the idea, I bought an inflatable pool that fit on my back patio. It was twelve feet in diameter and three feet deep. I quickly discovered that floating in a pool while listening to music, watching the eight stars visible in Houston at night, and tracking satellites and airplanes crossing the sky was a superior experience.

Summer ended, so I drained the pool. When summer returned, I attempted to resurrect it, but because I had failed to store it properly—yes, it sat in my yard all winter, with the dead grass to show for its seasonal retirement—it leaked water.

I was not at all happy about going through the summer without my proclivity for floating the night away, so I ordered another pool, but the next size up. I also ordered new and improved floating devices more in keeping with the status I wished to maintain while buoyant. Oh, to watch celestial events in the skies overhead like an emperor penguin.

My oopsie was ordering a pool that was actually two sizes larger. Things looked promising as the water level increased, but I soon discovered that the pool was encroaching on my deck on one side and on my plants on the other.

My 2026 pool

“To hell with it,” I thought, and kept filling it up. I could buy new plants, but I needed to float. I needed the excuse of preferring to float whenever I was invited to join friends at bars on the weekends and simply didn’t feel like getting prettied up and driving downtown.

Thank the gods that work finally secured a new contract with better pay, along with a rather substantial retroactive payment. Thank you, AFA. I am now shopping for a real pool. I grew up living in apartments with swimming pools but was never employed as their official water tester. It’s been eons since I was the water slave, but it’s coming back to me. I’m ready to upgrade.

No more late-night inflating of the ring that keeps my pool a pool. No, to my deck’s relief, I will soon be further in debt—not only financially, but also in terms of my free time—as I pay for the additional electricity required to run a pool, along with the chemicals and the kit used to test them and time keeping it clean and tidy. And fancy solar lights, and new floaty things for my wine goblets and wet ass.

But I’ll be able to float, watch the eight stars visible in the Houston skies, and spy back at the satellites spying on a naked penguin with a glass of bubbly while listening to Stevie Nicks, Steely Dan, Björk, and others at 2 a.m. And, truth be told, if you really look on a clear night while floating in a pool, you can actually see more than eight stars over Houston. 

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What really bugs me: Deep in the Heart of Fear

I almost die every time I see a roach

My neighbor stopped by one evening while I was working in the yard. He marveled at my dancing as he saw it from his window, asking what I was so happy about. I looked at him quizzically and ask dancing? He said it looked like I was really getting down. Oh that I said, realizing what he had seen. That wasn’t dancing. That was me trying to stomp on a roach. A very fast one. Going round in circles. Quite spry this one. He chuckled saying he understood, adding that he’ll go out of his way to unalive those disgusting things. It’s like I have a twin. 

Basically

what I see any time one flies at me

Should you desire to hear an otherworldly screech, be in my living room late at night when one comes flying at me. How I must look through the window, arms flailing in the air, ducking and running as some invisible oddity will surely send me to the center of a black hole. And the thoughts going through the micro brain of the beast as it’s flying through my living room towards my hair must be of interest. Do you think they know the fear they cause people like me? What does maniacal roach laughter sound like? I bet more humorous than terrifying. 

Howdy from the rodeo, ya'll

I’m from Texas—born and raised. Seventh generation. I know all about roaches and how they will be here long after humans have expired. This doesn’t endear them to me in the least. They are everywhere in Texas. I laugh when reading a restaurant review and the horror of seeing a roach while dining. That’s just as normal as pee in a public pool. It’s disgusting and simply something you have to put up with. Just be glad they’re not the ones I had in my college dorm room. I’d wake up at night to catch them trying steal away with my mini fridge. Those beasts.

Shortly after providing my looky-loo neighbor some free dance entertainment, I was speaking to a woman at work who mentioned the horror that shakes her to the core at the sight of a large scampering scoundrel. “Is there anything more disgusting than walking into the room first thing in the morning and finding a dead roach on its back,” she asked. Well, um, yeah. Finding one drop from the ceiling and making me target practice. “Touche,” she admitted. 

The only image of a roach I can stomach is Milquetoast
from Bloom County Comics

It is troublesome how they always die on their backs looking up at me like they are judging me for having ended their life. I try to remember that all life is precious, but I’m so thankful that my insecticide works as well as it does and that I find them dead more often than alive. In a god’s name, I often exclaim, and then fetch the dust pan to toss it in the trash where it truly belongs. 

My co worker said she actually looked into why they die on their backs. I let her continue for some odd reason, realizing as she didn’t get too far into the story that I was beginning to shudder just thinking about them. Like bats (and I love me some bats) they can’t just pick up and fly- they have to drop. So when they are in their death throes, they flutter their wings and end up on their back where they can’t right themselves again. Well the poor things. Good riddance. 

Then there was the time I came into my bedroom and found one belly down. Turns out I can emit nearly the same sound when finding them unexpectedly, just sitting on the floor before they begin to scurry, even though they're not flying towards my head. I backed away cautiously to fetch the bug kill spray and returned to find that it hadn’t moved an inch. Odd, I thought. I gave it a big dose of liquid bug death and it didn’t respond; it was dead already. I don’t know if the cats played with it or what. So off for the dustpan I went unsure which is better: having them look up at me from the other side of the veil and knowing it’s dead, or thinking I’ve found a live one and giving my heart a boost. In the end, I guess I’ll take a dead roach any ole way. 
 

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Well Hi There, How Are Ya?: My encounter with Dolly Parton

 

Texans have a difficult time overcoming the stereotypes that are associated with the Lone Star State. I grew up in Houston and went to high school in Dallas. When I went on youth leadership trips around the country in high school, because of the HUGE hit on television, "Dallas," other kids would ask if I had an oil well, horses in my back yard, or knew J.R. Ewing. It was often assumed that I also listened to country music. But I never listened to Country Western in the mid 1980s and nearly felt like something was wrong with me the way kids went on about it.

My youth leadership days circa 1985

My country music phase came in the late seventies, sandwiched between disco and the musical explosion of the 80s. When I was 9, growing up in a place also known as Space City, I was turned on by the sounds of disco. They reminded me of spaceships- whooping, beeping, and futuristic.

Houston isn't just Space City, but also home to the world's largest rodeo, an annual weeks long event Mom and I attended. It was here that I was introduced to the 3rd love of my life behind my mother and Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman—Olivia Newton John. We also saw other bands on the tiny white rotating stage in the center of the Astrodome; of note, Conway Twitty, Glen Campbell, and Roy Rogers. And this one time...Dolly Parton. Oh, my stepfather loved her. Not her music so much as her figure.

One way I made money while in college was working concert security at various venues around Houston. In fact, we worked nearly every venue except the much-revered Houston Summit. (Ask anyone in Houston prior to 1998 when Compaq paid $5 million to change the name, and even then it was still revered for its concerts and sporting events. And an occasional Disney on Ice.)

Then came 1989, when the NASA Johnson Space Center created an event for 15,000 or so employees and guests to honor the 20th anniversary of man's landing on the moon. The show was also taped and broadcast on NBC, winning an Emmy for sound mixing. It was called "Kenny, Dolly and Willie: Something Inside so Strong." Yes, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson.

Look at Penguin in charge

My role as the security company Sergeant meant I was on site at NASA, just south of Houston, while they set up the stage next to an authentic Saturn V, the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever flown. I was in charge of the overnight security team. I took a nap on the very stage where in only 24 hours would be the first full concert by these iconic singers. The night before the show, I entered Willie Nelson's dressing room, where several of his guitars were already set up. Of course I picked one up and strummed it.

That same night as I got off shift and was headed to my car, guess who was coming from the parking lot. Miss Dolly Parton herself. She wore a pink outfit, no wig, and a huge smile. I was the only person in front of her and as we passed I said, "Good morning Miss Dolly." Her reply, in that country twang she's so well known for, and still circling in my head all these years later as if just heard, was, "Well, hi there. How are ya?" It's a story I've told hundreds of times.

The first thing I saw on my phone when I awoke on the 25th of August was a text from my friend Jason. It read simply, "Sad day." Below that was a wonderful photo of a smiling Dolly from People Magazine. She's wearing a white lace top, a simple charm on a necklace, and that famous smile of hers.

It wasn't but a few weeks ago I was telling someone that my brother and his wife gave me a book about Dolly one Yule a few years back. I don't know why. I like her but nothing how I like Stevie Nicks. Perhaps because I mentioned that I had bought her Rockstar album. Yes, I still love Dolly, but more because she sings with Stevie Nicks and other favorites, like Ann and Nancy Wilson, Sting, Debby Harry, Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, Simon Le Bon, Pat Benatar, and Michael McDonald. But mainly Stevie.

9 to 5

At the time the gift seemed odd. I have it displayed in my formal room but now that our dear Dolly has crossed over, I'll give it another look. She was such an icon, but more than that, a caring and magical woman.

She gave $1 million to help fund research that contributed to the development of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Through her Imagination Library, she helped put hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children around the world. She starred in one of my all-time favorite movies, 9 to 5—a movie that inspired the screenplay I've written and hope to film one day before I die.

It's not easy to put into words the loss I feel at her passing. Dolly Parton has always held a special place in my heart. When people scratch their heads and wonder how this Texas boy doesn't like country, I correct them. I don't like the overly twangy country about losing dogs, women, and pickup trucks. But I enjoy the classics. Willie Nelson. Patsy Cline. And of course, the unforgettable music from Miss Dolly Parton.

Maybe I never became much of a country music fan. But somewhere along the way, Dolly became something more personal than that. She was the woman I passed in a parking lot at NASA all those years ago. The woman who smiled at me and said: "Well, hi there. How are ya?" And somehow, all these years later, I can still hear her fresh as a country morning.

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