The Day Before
It’s 1200 miles or so from Gulf Shores to New York City.
I love both places – one is home now, the other I’ve visited a half dozen times and want to go back one day.
Here, I love visiting the water at sunrise, or just before. Still not too hot, still quiet. It’s where I like to meet Dorinda.
Twenty-five years ago, the water surrounding New York City was quiet at sunrise. It was Sept. 10, the day before. Much like the quietness in the photos here at sunrise from the morning of Sept. 8 at the Orange Beach Fishing Pier.
Tomorrow, we’ll observe the 25th anniversary of 9/11. We’ll remember where we were that day. I’ll remember Dorinda calling, crying, telling me about the heroes aboard United Airlines Flight 93, the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against the hijackers. She had heard it on the news while at work. Who knows how much worse that day would have been if not for those heroes.
Five years ago, on the 20th anniversary of that day, I wrote a column as editor of the Palatka (Florida) Daily News. I had talked with Julie Duffy, a Palatka native, who was a flight attendant for American Airlines. She frequently worked Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles.
She wasn’t working the day that flight slammed into the World Trade Center, the first plane to hit.
Below is a portion of that column, printed as it was in 2021, the 20th anniversary:
“But for the grace of God go I.”
Indeed.
***
‘But for the grace of God go I’
(Sept. 10, 2021)
Julie Duffy will recall Saturday’s 20th anniversary of 9/11 a little bit differently than most.
All of us who remember Sept. 11, 2001, will have a somber moment or two. Maybe we’ll read a poignant story or see television coverage recalling that tragic Tuesday morning of two decades ago.
But the day carries more meaning for Duffy, a Palatka native. She was an American Airlines flight attendant from 1990 to 2013. Based out of Boston, she frequently worked on Flight 11, normally a flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Flight 11 did not make it to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001.
Duffy wasn’t working the flight on 9/11, the day American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked after taking off from Boston’s Logan International Airport. It was the first plane to pierce one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. She knew the flight captain and other co-workers who died when the plane crashed into the north tower and exploded.
As she has done for 20 years since the tragedy, she will spend Saturday thinking about those she knew who were killed in the crash. She will talk with other flight attendant friends she has stayed in touch with since retiring.
“It’s always a somber day,” Duffy said. “It doesn’t take much to bring tears to my eyes when I start watching the memorial services and when they call out the names every year as they do.”
And she will wonder.
She will wonder why God chose to spare her life that day. Some of her co-workers who died had children. Duffy did not.
She wonders, why not me?
Duffy said God must have had plans for her. Ninety-two people aboard Flight 11 died. The number included 11 crew members. She has visited the National 9/11 Memorial in New York City several times, placing roses on the names of former co-workers inscribed into bronze parapets.
She flashes back to that horrible morning.
“I was off that day,” Duffy said. “Being in Boston, a small base, it was a nice flight because it was East Coast to West Coast, and a lot of stops. It was a desirable flight that I flew often.
“I was driving to Providence for a meeting that morning and started hearing the information on the radio. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When I heard it was an American Airlines flight, out of Boston, I knew that I would know the crew. I had been there quite a while and knew almost everybody. I went to five memorial services the following week for my friends and co-workers.”
One of those co-workers was Flight 11 Capt. John Ogonowski, who on off days worked on his family farm in Dracut, Massachusetts, where he lived with his wife and three daughters.
Duffy finds it difficult to realize 20 years have passed since that tragic day. Two decades.
Ceremonies nationwide Saturday, including one in Palatka, will remember the day when nearly 3,000 Americans died in four coordinated terrorist attacks.
“It seems like it was yesterday,” Duffy said. “It’s kind of like that wound is right below the surface and once you start thinking about things or you start talking about things, it just comes right up.
“I remember it vividly. I had some flight attendant friends who lived near me in Newport, Rhode Island, and they all came to my house. We stayed together for about five days afterward. It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed, it just feels like it’s so new.”
A 1979 graduate of Palatka High School, Duffy and her husband, Ed, moved to Palm Coast after her retirement to be closer to family members in Putnam County. Her parents, Ken and Emily Morris, still live in Palatka, along with several other family members and friends.
“I wanted to do some traveling, so I went off to be a flight attendant,” Duffy said of her career with American Airlines. “I was going to do it for a couple of years and 24 years later, I retired. I loved it. It was the best job ever, even after 9/11.”
She recalls attending Ogonowski’s service at his farm.
“But for the grace of God, go I,” Duffy told me.
***
Much has changed since I talked with Julie in 2021. Five more years have passed. There have been three more grandchildren. Moves. A wedding. I have much more trouble walking these days.
And 17 months ago, I lost Dorinda. Cancer. She fought back, too.
I’ll think about Sept. 11, 2001, tomorrow.
And about Dorinda, telling me about the heroes who were on United Airlines Flight 93.
They were heroes.
She is mine.
Comments