Where were you on 9/11?

[Suppressed Poet]

I was a Junior in high school and had late arrival that day. My mom woke me up after the first plane hit. I watched on live television the second tower being struck. My mom started crying with sadness and anger. My dad sat in his chair with a look of fury on his face and said in a low deep tone “We’re going to war.” I had an after school job working as a cashier at Tom Thumb. We had special edition newspapers of The NY Times delivered and they sold out as fast as we unloaded them.

[~Rocktar~]

I was getting ready for work, my wife called me from work to turn on the TV. I watched while she was on the phone. I took my go bag to work since i was living outside of and working in Cheyenne, Wy at the time. The whole town about locked down, the air base there went on full alert and the news told people to stay away, don't approach unless you were expected, no one was permitted to enter or leave period and anyone that tried would be arrested if lucky or shot on sight. FE Warren is a missile base, got to love living in the middle of Minutman III country. I told my wife we would be going to war and to fill up the car on the way home. She didn't, it was one of the first of what would be a lot of instances of things that would lead to divorce. The phone company had a list of emergency procedures we had a quick class on and the Union reps were clear to point out that if you didn't do these or messed up, you could be fired immediately without recourse. It was a tense time. Then it got quiet with no planes in the sky.

Now we have the cowardly replacement building and idiots saying "a thing happened."

[Parkbandit]

I was a manager at Hilton Hotels.

I hope time4fun comes by and gives us another breakdown how she was saving people's lives. I literally never get tired of her storytelling.

[Realk]

My story is pretty similar to SP. Junior in high school, I was late to school that day because the mall of America was on fire as I was getting ready. I got to school and the tv in the class room was on and that's when the planes happened. We spent the rest of the day just shuffling classrooms watching the tv. I had a job at subway after school, it was surprisingly busy because I i feel a good amount of people didn't want to cook that night.

[Suppressed Poet]

I was a manager at Hilton Hotels.

I hope time4fun comes by and gives us another breakdown how she was saving people's lives. I literally never get tired of her storytelling.

Totally unrelated, but were Hilton Hotels franchised back then? If so was ownership overwhelmingly dominated by the Patel clan?

[Suppressed Poet]

My story is pretty similar to SP. Junior in high school, I was late to school that day because the mall of America was on fire as I was getting ready. I got to school and the tv in the class room was on and that's when the planes happened. We spent the rest of the day just shuffling classrooms watching the tv. I had a job at subway after school, it was surprisingly busy because I i feel a good amount of people didn't want to cook that night.

I also distinctly remember on that day that after school & before I started my shift at work, I met with my high school buddy at our normal hangout spot by these railroad tracks where we drank beer & smoked cigarettes. We were discussing what happened that day. Then I recall we joked that if cops showed up just now to bust us for underage drinking/smoking we’d tell them to fuck off because our dads just died in a plane crash. I was a disrespectful ignorant little shit back then & prone to making bad decisions.

[Realk]

I was a disrespectful ignorant little shit back then


I slept the rest of the day after like 3rd period. So no it didn't register the magnitude to me either at the time.

[Parkbandit]

Totally unrelated, but were Hilton Hotels franchised back then? If so was ownership overwhelmingly dominated by the Patel clan?

Most were franchised and yes, there were plenty of Patels in the biz. I hated dealing with them.. they were so fucking cheap. Never wanted to spend a penny on the hotel, but demanded huge POR profit margins every year.

Thankfully, I worked for Hilton Hotel Corp. and the only time I had to deal with the Patels is when I went to their troubled hotels and advised them why they were in trouble. 99% of the time it was because they didn't spend the necessary capital to keep their assets in decent shape.. and they didn't pay their staff.

[Suppressed Poet]

Most were franchised and yes, there were plenty of Patels in the biz. I hated dealing with them.. they were so fucking cheap. Never wanted to spend a penny on the hotel, but demanded huge POR profit margins every year.

Thankfully, I worked for Hilton Hotel Corp. and the only time I had to deal with the Patels is when I went to their troubled hotels and advised them why they were in trouble. 99% of the time it was because they didn't spend the necessary capital to keep their assets in decent shape.. and they didn't pay their staff.

I used to sell merchant services to those guys. Patel must be the Indian translation for cheap bastard. I found out very quickly they won’t accept a good honest deal. No matter what you quote them it’s in their blood to haggle. I would start at an insultingly high rate and spend 30+ minutes arguing with them on the phone before we would finally agree on a deal that would have been my first offer if they behaved normally. Half the time after reaching a verbal agreement to do business they would take my written offer to someone else to haggle with some more. Jews ain’t got shit on the shrewdness of Patels.

[kutter]

I was stationed on board a cutter in Miami when my QM3 came onto the bridge and told me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center, I thought he meant in south Florida but then I went down to the mess deck and watched as the second plane crashed into the other building. Things got very real on base at that point. We were scheduled to go do a law enforcement patrol in the eastern Caribbean, but that got canceled; my ship got sent to Kings Bay, GA for a month instead. Things were insanely tense for a long time.