LHS Class of 1970
Note From John Cline
Return To
Dear Tom and Joe -- I thought I'd send the notes below in case any of my
classmates were interested in this. Some may have relatives and friends
here. I hope and pray all are OK. You have my permission to send them on
in a general email to classmates if you'd like. Hope I have your correct
email addresses. Rick Foreman lives in Manhattan, but I don't think he
works in the Financial District.
The current cover of Time magazine has a photo of the WTC explosion shot by
a photog. who must have been standing close to me, because that was the
perspecti ve I saw it from.
The emails below were written in response to an email I got a few days ago
from classmate Mike Rafferty, asking about me and whether I was OK. I am,
at least physically. I was so touched by Mike's out-of-the-blue kindness
that I just let it all out in two emails to him. I've gotten many phone
calls from relatives and friends, but sometimes writing is easier than
making sense to people on the phone. Rodney Buss very kindly called and I
hope I made sense to him.
I have thought a lot over the past week about friends and family and why
some are sacrificed while others are not, why some die hideously and some
in their sleep. The result has not strengthened my faith, but has made me
want to nurture what shreds I have left. I thought a lot about attending
last year's reunion and what a great time I had seeing so many people. I
am so glad that I was allowed to live to possibly attend the next one and
hope I see even more '70 people.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to work from home, but not doing too well. Lots of
busy signals, lots of confusion over who's doing what. I don't know when
we'll be back into our old bldg.
Meanwhile classmates, love your country, love each other and love the life
you have...
Kind regards to all,
John Cline
Most recent email to Mike, sent yesterday, 9-18, is immediately below:
Yesterday, Sunday, our church (Riverdale Presbyterian in the Bronx) looked
like Easter Sunday. Couldn't believe the crowd. We had an easel near the
altar where people could spontaneously write names of people to be prayed
for. Filled up 2 pages. The service was wonderful and cathartic, but very
somber. St. Margaret's R.C. Church in our old Bronx neighborhood lost 2
fireman-parishioners. On Sat., they collected relief supplies in the
parish hall and sent packed trucks. The people participating remarked on
how expensive some of the supplies were, $40 flashlights, etc., from a
working class neighborhood. People have come through in a way that makes
me feel that there could be another Greatest Generation out there.
After church, we went into the city for the first time since Tuesday and
saw the memorial on Union Sq. at 14th St. Pictures plastered all over on
fences, statues, retaining walls, any surface, e.g., "Help Us Find ..."
Photos color printed on computer paper. Lots of candles and flowers.
Reminded me of the tons of flowers for Pr. Diana (not as many as at
Kensington Palace, but still amazing). Candles of every description. Lots
of candles in big glass jars like church votives. The sidewalks were
coated in wax that people had stepped in and tracked everywhere. It was
heartbreaking. I was struck by the photos of the missing: every color,
every background, some obviously working people, others very elite,
seemingly evenly distributed between men and women. Some older. Many in
their 20s and 30s just starting families.
There were places where people were chanting Sanskrit prayers. We saw
Peter Jennings in the crowd, smoking a cigarette and listening with a
couple of his producers (without cameras, so as not to attract attention).
Eventually, of course, this will all have to be cleaned up, just as London
and the Columbine H.S. area were, but for now it has become a holy place.
I have been surprised at the spirituality in NY.
There is a section of the WTC frame still standing that would make an
incredible memorial, if it could be stabilized and if people could bear to
look at it. It would look like the Wilhelm's Church on the Kurfurstendamm
in Berlin or Coventry Cathedral, where the old ruined church from WWII is
right next to the modern one that replaced it. The fragment has a beauty
that the building never had in its useful life. It's too early to talk
about this, but I couldn't help thinking about it.
A friend of mine from church who's a prof. photographer got a call from a
client whose wedding he photographed and from whom he hadn't heard in
several years. He wanted a picture of his wife for her funeral.
Email below is what I wrote to Mike on Wednesday night, a day after the
attack, when I finally could get online...
Mike, what a wonderful surprise to get your kind note. My office was (or
is) a block from the WTC. Church St. is the east boundary of the WTC
complex. I am lucky to be alive, because I often stop in the WTC shopping
mall beneath the plaza before work to go to the big drug store down there.
I was at my desk about 5 minutes and on the phone (with a reporter from CNN
who had called Moody's to see if we had downgraded Japan's sovereign debt
rating) when I heard this bang like a load of steel bouncing on a flatbed
truck, but much much louder. I thought, from the sound of car alarms and
sirens, that it was a bad traffic accident. I had my back to my window,
and if I had turned around, I would have seen the first plane strike. I
went down to the lobby entrance, never looking outside (!) still expecting
a traffic accident, looked up, and saw the north tower (No. 1) on fire
above about the 78th fl. skylobby. A couple of people from Moody's on the
street had actually seen the plane hit, so there wasn't too much doubt what
had happened. I was mezmerized, and after a couple of minutes, less than
10 minutes after the first plane hit, I saw a body fall from the east side
of the north tower, then maybe a minute later, another, then another and
another, 15 seconds to a minute apart. Maybe 10 in all. Even a block away
and 80 stories up, they were unmistakable, even though debris also was
falling. I'd seen someone die in a hospital, but I couldn't believe what I
was seeing. I didn't actually see them strike the pavement, because a
building was in the way. Then, about 5 minutes or less after the last body
dropped through the smoke (I didn't actually seen them on ledges because
they were above the fire and obscured by smoke), there was the huge
explosion when the 2nd plane hit the south tower, Tower No. 2. I could not
see the plane, because it was obscured by the tower itself, but felt the
heat from the huge fireball. Debris shot past us, maybe 500 feet overhead
and then people started to run to get into our building. Some of my
colleagues had been watching from an office higher up in Moody's bldg. and
saw the 2nd plane come in. People were saying they were jets, but that
part seemed the most difficult to believe. Security made us go back into
the bldg. into the basement. Seeing people from Moody's crying was so
weird; Wall St. financial analysts crying. We're supposed to have hearts
of stone. I guess then, the whole thing started to jell, then, just after
a couple of minutes, came the announcement to evacuate. We went upstairs
calmly and out to the north away from the WTC. I walked east to City Hall
Park where the open space in front of the Woolworth Bldg. allowed a great
view of both towers on fire. I was standing between City Hall and the
Brooklyn Bridge approach when I saw the South Tower fall. There was an
explosion, then it tilted slightly and the top 50 stories just sheared off.
Then people really got scared. The crowd was huge and moving, like the
exits right at the end of a sold-out ball game. I looked for a place to
stand in case the crowd got dangerous, but it didn't. We just all started
walking north, away from the big dust cloud. I was about 100 yds or so
ahead of it, and luckily the wind was blowing it to the south away from me.
Mike, I'm sorry to be so long-winded. It was so weird. The whole
horrible thing was played out against one of the bluest skies and most
beautiful days I can remember, just after some incredibly humid weather and
severe storms the night before. The subways were shut down, so I had to
walk the 5 miles up to Midtown where Grand Central is. The walk went by in
a flash, but took about an hour. We stopped in a deli about 25th St.,
about 3/4 of a mile south of Grand Central, and looked at the TV inside,
then we found out that the 2nd tower had fallen. That's when we heard
about the Pentagon and the Pittsburgh plane and the whole terrorist plot
thing. I was with a friend from the office. About 3 blocks from Grand
Central, I passed by a Speedo athletic clothing store and saw a woman
inside looking at swimming suits. I couldn't believe it, and yet she may
have had a perfectly logical reason for shopping. I got to Grand Central,
and it had been shut down. No trains. I stood around talking to people
who'd walked up from Downtown, all remarking how, "Gee, the walk really
wasn't that bad." After about 20 minutes, it opened and there were 3
trains, one to Hastings-on-Hudson where I now live. The terminal was
deserted, all the ticket windows closed. I kept thinking that I was really
stupid to be in there and that it was the next thing that would explode,
and I imagined the expensively restored ceiling coming down on me from 120
feet up. I was so tired, I just got on the train when the track was
called, and sat. It seemed to take forever for it to fill up and get out
of the underground tunnel that runs beneath Park Ave. betw. Gr. Cent. at
42nd St. and 97th St. That is the only time during the day when I came
close to panic. I got off the train at Hastings and walked home alone in
beautiful weather. I couldn't believe what had gone on and still can't,
even though I've been to 2 prayer services. I was actually supposed to go
on a boat ride that afternoon in NY Harbor with the Public Finance analysts
to celebrate a good year, and wound up watching people die instead. TV has
mastered violence to such a degree that what I actually witnessed was
amazingly like some made-for-TV disaster movies like "Towering Inferno" or
some of the Bruce Willis action flik-genre garbage. I guess that's why it
still doesn't seem real. The movies do disaster almost as well as real
terrorists. Sometimes better. Meanwhile, we don't know how many people
are dead, and Bruce is still alive and probably on the verge of making
another cheesy "die hard" movie. I walked by the WTC on the way to work
Tues. morning just minutes before the plane struck. Hundreds and hundreds
were on the way in to their offices, and of all the people I glanced at,
maybe made fleeting eye contact with, I wonder how many are no longer with
us. Nancy and I are only now hearing about missing acquaintances. A man
in my daughter's school's parent association (firefighter) has simply not
come home. Absolutely wonderful man and parent. The son of a lady in our
church was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Just found that
out this evening. And so it will go as people will not come home and
bodies are recovered.
My own building's lobby has been used as a temporary morgue. Many windows
have been blown out, but it is probably still OK structurally, but no one
has been there to see. Phones and elect. are out. Don't know when we'll
be back in.
Mike, you're the first person I've had time to spill my guts to at length
about this. Thanks for asking about me. It meant a lot to me, your
gesture. Thanks again. Hope you'll email again and aren't too turned off
by the long-winded response.
Kindest regards -- stay well
John
At 09:29 AM 9/12/01 EDT, you wrote:
Hi John,
I have no way of knowing how close Church Street might be to the WTC, but I'm sure that it must be close. Just wanted you to know that you have friends
in Illinois that are thinking of you and your city, and hope that you are OK.
Mike Rafferty
E-Mail Webmasters | sarge@sargethepoet.com |
Voice Mail 847-362-4261 Contact Information Page
Copyright © 2001 Joseph A.
Merrill III
Last Loaded 03, July 2008
Libertyville High School Class of 1970, P.O. BOX 186 Libertyville
Illinois 60048-0186
Page URL:
http://sargethepoet.com/lhsc70/john_cline_note.htm