Today is September 11th. I will defer to my good friend Eric, who moved north after 9/11/01 and lives a couple of doors down, to comment on the day:

On 9/11/01 I dropped off my wife at the PATH train station at Exchange Place in Jersey City, NJ, right across the bay from lower Manhattan. I kissed her goodbye and she went into the station, I started to drive home (we lived in Bayonne, NJ right next to Jersey City) listening to Howard Stern on the way. I learned of the first airplane hitting from him. By the time I got home and turned on the TV the second plane had hit.

My wife’s train ended in Manhatten at the WTC station. In all of the aftermath news shots of the big hole, the platform she arrived at could be seen half intact.

Let me say now that my wife passed through the Trade Center about 5 to 10 minutes before the first plane hit and she made it to her office in mid-town without any trouble.

Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. To make things really fun, all of the telephone cables connecting NY and NJ relayed through the Trade Center Communication Center, so I couldn’t call her. She had no cell phone. And she was four months pregnant with our daughter.

While I always have lots I want to say, today I will bite my tongue and let this anniversary quietly belong to those who still have the dust in their lungs.