By Phil Hudgins
Twenty years ago this Saturday morning, Angela Calman was not a happy person. She had missed her flight, again, and she complained, “as I always do,” she said.
That plane—American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles—never made it to its destination. Forty-six minutes after takeoff from Logan Airport, terrorists crashed the Boeing 767 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. All 92 people aboard—81 passengers and 11 crew members—were killed. Hundreds in and around the twin towers perished.
Angela—now Angela Calman-Wonson—shared her experience that week with Roger B. Porter, her former professor at Harvard University and a friend of mine since 1973.
As she was walking to work one rainy morning after the tragedy, Angela watched as a familiar car sped by, hit a puddle and drenched her from head to toe. It had happened before, caused by the same car. But on this day, unlike other rainy days, the driver stopped.
The car door opened, and the young man driving said, “Hey, lady, you OK? I’m sorry.”
“I’m all right,” she said. “No big deal.”
“I just didn’t want you to think I didn’t care that your clothes got all wet,” the man said. “Have a good day.”
Angela smiled and waved him on. “Everything is the same, and yet, everything has changed,” she told Roger Porter.
Angela spent hours at work with one of the grief counselors sent to those left behind. She sat there, unable to process the how or why. “But instead of answering my questions,” she said, “the counselor asked the most important one. ‘You were not on that plane. What are you going to do with that?’”
Angela continued: “It is the question that all of us who survived are asking ourselves. We are here. ‘What are we going to do with that gift?’ The man in the car that was always so cavalier about driving by, seemed to be trying to answer. From the consideration of the driver to the overflowing tip jar at the coffee shop, we are all trying to do something with that gift.
“And at a time when we feel so helpless, we have become so helpful—to each other. I wish that things were still the way they used to be. They aren’t. But on some level as things are at their very worst, we have found a way to be our very best, and in this change—I find that gift.”
On Sept. 11, 2001, a Tuesday, I was filling in as editor at one of my former employer’s newspapers. It was production day, a busy one for sure. But we managed to report reactions to the day’s events from several local residents.
One thing I noticed. Angela was right. We seemed to be nicer to each other following that tragedy. We were one nation. We were Americans.
No one wants another tragedy like 9/11, but wouldn’t it be good if we were that considerate of each other again?