When I was in TV ad sales years ago, I convinced my fellow inventory coordinators (The People In Your media Neighborhood that shuffle around :30 pods of air time) that Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee was not only incorrect due to the double-negative, but that Nobody Does It Like Sara Lee made way more sense and therefore comprised the correct tagline. I felt confident in my logic, buoyed by years of eating frozen bricks of pound cake sliver by sliver through an intricate “evening out” process–never mind the fact that many of my coworkers had not liked Sara Lee longer than I had. I was wrong. It turned out Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee. But being wrong was not so hard for me as that momentary responsibility I felt to the several people I’d wrongfully convinced I was so right. Before my auto Google-reflex became available, I was a walking malapropism waving my botched baked-goods slogan proudly.
One year and a gargantuan promotion later, I breezed through the revolving doors of the historic office building at 35 East Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. Decked out with my beverage accessory in my right hand (coffee or water, depending on the outfit) and swinging my big girl purse in time with the click-clack of my Parade of Shoes, I made my way across the Lobby’s marble expanse. Working in this tower–with its granite wedding cake façade and Al Capone history–made me feel 27 years-grown up and tres young professional Chicago. I might not have liked the work itself, but I played the role of ad executive prodigy with aplomb (pauses to google aplomb). I met my coworker Keith at our elevator bank, who shared the news that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. We exchanged sobering glances, shrugged, and assumed it was probably “just” another prop jet—as a similar incident had taken place in prior months.
My 23-year-old assistant Mary greeted me in our suite with the unnerved eyes of a 6th grader about to ask the bus driver if in fact she was on the right bus, because I usually get off at the Town and Country Gas for Hebrew School and it’s getting dark and there’s no Town and Country Gas. She told me what I already knew about a plane crashing into The World Trade Center, and reported that one of the towers had already fallen.
“Fallen? Fallen down? That’s Impossible.” I didn’t just disregard her information, I explained the impossibility—“Have you seen those building? They’re enormous.” I was sure Mary somehow misunderstood. Positive.
My husband and I had recently stood on the observation deck, my grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary with a party I attended as a child at The World Trade Center’s then “Vista Hotel.” No no no, you must have it wrong, impossible. Oh, the confidence of a 27 year old with a title and too much mahogany.
Settling into my desk with the view of The Chicago River, I turned on my television. A requirement of an ad sales executive, I needed to have my TV on all day to see what brands aired their commercials and where. Only I would find myself all too often and twenty minutes later—engrossed in Rosie O’Donnell’s effusing over Tom Cruise or Bebe Neuwirth, and neglecting to notice our competitor’s ads—or any ads whatsoever.
Rosie wasn’t on that morning, and all the advertisements were blacked out. The second tower was falling—the unfathomable truth unfolding live on my monitor.
I’ve never written about September 11th. I don’t have sufficient words or a first-person connection to the attacks from which to appropriately memorialize the enormity of the losses, or from which to extrapolate my perspective of how that day changed our world, or our generation.
When I remember the terrorism of that September morning ten years ago, and the complex emotions that followed and still linger—the overwhelming fear, helplessness, rage and sadness–I also remember my naive certainty of that time in my very small world. I shudder at my ability to inspire other people’s confidence in my own limited views at that age. I felt so sure about What I Knew and freely espoused this knowledge as advice or *cough* wisdom *cough* to the people in my life: I knew what made a good marriage and which couples would definitely last and why the others wouldn’t, I knew the difference between Democrats and Republicans and what kind of people voted which way, I knew about the three daughters I’d one day have, and about the timelessness of the enormous overstuffed “chair and a half.” I felt positive about nobody doing it like Sara Lee, and about the World Trade Center standing firm.
I’m not sure I’ve felt positive about anything since.
***
On this 10th anniversary, my heart goes out to everyone traumatized either first-hand or secondarily on September 11th, 2001. To the thousands of lives lost, and the hundreds of thousands more damaged irreparably, to the survivors and their fallen—I will say Kaddish in honor of you and yours this Sunday.
As a fellow former ad chick and know-it-all, I will say kaddish with you on Sunday.
I found out I was pregnant with child #3 the day before 9/11–it was a beginning, and what felt like an end, all in one week.
Thanks, Anne, for writing this.
It was the beginning of a long road down to hell for me. It’s taken all of those 10 years to slowly begin to climb back out.
We were in Yellowstone, in the middle of a carefree, months long road trip.
I just now wrote and deleted a lot more than what belongs in your comment box.
It’s a lot to process, even now.
“Nobody Doesn’t like Sara Lee” was the beginning of the long descent into grammar hell that the US ad agencies dragged us down to. Is it ok that I ended that sentence with a preposition? Or should it have been a proposition.
My 9/11 goes up on Sunday. I was at LAX when it happened.
beautifully written.
I was pregnant with son #2 and very naive myself.
This is a beautiful post, Ann.
Sending huge hugs.
XO
Anna
This was beautiful, Ann.
I was three weeks away from having my first baby and years removed from my ad buying career. I still don’t think it’s sunk in.
Beautiful words, Ann.
I am not imitating Sari Judge: but, I, also, found out that morning that I was pregnant with baby #3.
I had come running down the stairs at 9:10, excitedly waving the stick with the two positive lines on it, only to have my eyes met by my husbands horrified look back.
“Did you see what’s going on????” he looked at me, I was too scared to look for myself.
Of all the terrible things I could think of in ten seconds flat, NONE compared to what I saw on the screen when I turned the corner and saw for myself.
I fell to my knees and burst into tears.
I’ve never written, either, of that morning.
Here are other’s accounts, on “Where were you on 9/11”
http://wherewereyou911.net/
Wonderful post, Ann.
Beautiful post.
Ironically, I was on the 9:11am train heading into Manhattan, when I saw smoke….
The rest is history.
I was freelancing as a computer consultant – the Company I’d worked for for 9 years had gone into Receivership just two months before – and I woke one morning after a late night with a failed server only to find that planes had crashed into the WTC – then they were showing replays of the second strike – and then the towers just disappeared. Over the next few days, when all the aircraft in the country were grounded, I was struck by how quiet it was, outside, and the whole country seemed to coil up and ready itself for … something.
It seems, at times, like the terrorists have won. Everything changed, after that. And isn’t that what they wanted? To make us afraid in our day to day existence? To give us the DHS – as close to the “Secret Police” as I EVER want to get? Haven’t they won, really?
@ LceeL
I don’t really think in terms of winning and losing, but let me just say:
I guess, as a Jew, I was aware on a personal level of the human potential for evil against other humans from a young age. The Nazi’s “won” by exterminating 6 million, but they “lost” the war and they especially “lost” due to my thriving existence and that of my children as we live and celebrate our Jewish identity with pride in a free society.
I feel the same way about the 9/11 terrorist regime. They “won” in bringing this evil to our shores, against our own people, injuring and murdering thousands and scaring us forever. But they lost as we continue to thrive and create meaningful lives despite the evil we know has always existed and will always exist.
We will remember, and we will go on and for that I say we win.
Love love this post, Ann.
Steph
Incredible post, Ann. Really. I have no more words.
Beautiful powerful post Ann!
I was crossing my legs trying so hard not to let child #3 be born that day. It was her due date and I didn’t want that to be the world she was born into.
Your gorgeous words. My heart. I hardly ever “tell my where was I” 9/11 story because I feel like I have nothing to say. I was so far away, half way around the world on a tiny island. And still, I read these comments with tears streaming down my face because we were all somewhere. A friend called us because it was the middle of the night on Saipan and we sat in front of the TV and sobbed. There’s a strange kinship in such overarching tragedy.
I’m an ostrich burying my head in the sand, not wanting to remember what happened almost 10 years ago. Because if I think about it too much I begin to wonder how it’s possible for my two young daughters to survive such a dangerous, precarious world. My heart goes out to all souls suffering such grave losses. Selfishly I pray never to be one of them.
I know that building at 35 East Wacker as I used to hit it periodically to make sales pitches. Back in those days I stayed at the Hyatt.
Anyhoo, I have more memories of 9-11 than I want for a whole host of reasons. Normally I write about it, but I am not sure if I am going to this year.
Sort of have to let it marinade, it feels heavier this time around.
I just finished writing my own post about this (to publish later), but the thing that struck me the most is something you touched on. A naive disbelief that something like this could really happen to us. I mean it can’t, right? We are so certain in our lives and our worlds and when the towers fell to the ground I think the earth shook for everyone. All of our misconceptions of the neat perfect world we lived in. All of that apathy we had.
On Sunday, even non praying people like me might say a prayer.
Too much mahogany will do you in every time. The image you describe of yourself was pretty much me – in publishing.
I was in NYC at the time and I feel both engulfed by that event and totally removed from it, watching the smoke down the avenue. Every 9/11, I get those same feelings while watching the coverage, but I can’t turn away.
It’s still unfathomable, isn’t it?
Beautiful post, Ann.
I’m right there with you.
Even after the second plane hit, I remember thinking, “What are the odds of two plane accidents in one day and in the same place?” So oblivious. Unaware.
This was amazing, Ann.
What a lovely post. That facile certainty of youth is so comforting, isn’t it? And when it’s gone – it’s all shit.
This brought me back and I remember that morning well. My sister called me and woke me up (early over here). Beatifully written post.
Beautifully. I really can spell. Just can’t type well.
Beautiful and heartfelt. Thank you.
Wow: I was also an ad exec … how did we not know that about each other?
I woke up early early morning in Oz and saw this on the TV. I thought I was dreaming. Then I thought it was World War 3.
I agree with your S.L. slogan, mainly because that’s what I thought it was, like my whole life, like until this very moment.
Great post. Thank you.
Cheers,
Casey
What a lovely post, Ann. So much of what I’ve been reading this weekend about “the event” has been just a rehashing of the horror. I feel almost too sensitive about this. I choose to remember but not relive this day, since it certainly does live in infamy now, but your post is a compelling personal story of how you heard about it, and that, today, is far more palatable for this girl.
Beautiful post. Horrifying day. My heart has continued to break over this horrific incident and all the people affected.
Very beautifully written, Ann. Since becoming a mother, 9/11 became that much more horrific, knowing and truly understanding the loss of thousands of lives, children left without a parent, parents who lost their children, no matter their age. It’s all still so raw to me, still just as shocking today as it was 10 years ago.
This is an excellent post. I thought I had left a comment, but I probably hadn’t because it meant switching to a different e-mail address.
It just sounded so much like me – playing at ad sales, so sure of everything. How different I am now. (We were in Africa then and our apartment, our lives and all our friends were in Manhattan).
It is a very small world. That was our first wake-up call. But now with Twitter and the like…natural or man-made disasters hit faster and harder. Days like yesterday are good reminders for me to slow down. Enjoy the peace amongst the chaos. Liked envisioning you in your former life.
I remember turning on the TV randomly, that morning. I was out of a job, recently laid off from my marketing position, and had a phone interview scheduled for 10 AM that morning for a job in Denver. And that interview never took place. I sat there, glued to the TV, all day.
That was the end of the innocence for our generation. We packed in our youthful optimism in one day. We were never sure about anything ever again. This is a generation filled with broken families but never broken, until 9/11. Out of the sadness came a wave of pride and humanity, I guess this is what we have to try and remember. I was 3,000 miles away but felt like it happened down the street. We were all touched that day no matter where we were or what we were doing. I will say a prayer on Sunday for the families of everyone whose lives were changed that day.
I had recently been laid off from my job at a high-tech PR firm and was between jobs, getting ready for a conference call with Quest about a job in Denver. I happened to be watching CNN that morning as it unfolded in real-time, and I never left the TV’s side for hours. I had my hand over my mouth, trying to absorb it all. The job interview never happened, and the job disappeared, like the hopes of so many that day across the country.
Thank you for writing this memory of yours, Ann. It made so much sense to me. xo