I have been thinking about 9/11 a lot this year. I always think about it, but this year, for some reason, it’s been at the edge of my consciousness for weeks. I think it has something to do with the fact there is a major printing industry trade show this week, and, all those years ago there was one in Chicago. I opted not to go, which was the first time in a decade or longer I had decided not to go to Graph Expo. There seemed to me to be no particular reason to go. I’d had no precognition. I had been in Ecuador on a multi-week humanitarian trip in August, as well. All in all, I just felt home was the best place for me to be that day, that week.

The weather that morning was bright, dry, and warm–perfect weather for early Fall. So much so when I saw the 2012 episode of Blue Bloods (“The Job”) where Frank Reagan delivers the eulogy for his former partner, I gasped in a kind of recognition. “Everybody remembers where they were at that exact moment” the towers collapsed, Frank says, revealing he was a first responder to the World Trade Center attacks. “I was in the North Tower.”

Frank Reagan : On that beautiful, cloudless morning that seemed to promise nothing but goodness, John and his dear wife Molly were about to pull out of the driveway for a much needed and long overdue vacation. But when news of the attack came over the radio, they both knew that Montauck would have to wait. Molly kissed him goodbye, urged him to be careful as she had done every day for the almost thirty years that he served and protected this city. And then, John headed for Ground Zero. Where were you on 9/11? On September the 11th, 2001, John McKenna saved more than one hundred lives.

It is true, even if the words were spoken by a fictional character. Everybody remembers. Me, I was at home on my sofa, watching Matt Lauer, having woken up early, but happily, as the weather was amazing, much as it is today. So, I’d been watching for awhile before, even wrote a cheerful entry in my journal earlier that morning. I was home even though I had been working in New York City a lot; I was the Editor of a publishing industry magazine called E-Now (it was about digital publishing) and was in early talks with the publisher about relocating to be closer to the city (maybe somewhere in New Jersey or even Brooklyn) and be a full-time staffer there. I was happy and excited about the prospect and possibilities it offered me.

My boss there was on vacation on 9/11 and so was I. We had tabled further discussion of the relocation and job specifics to mid-September, after the big bosses came back from their extended late August vacations. That was how publishing was done in New York then. Long, lazy, August vacations at the Cape were the norm for the upper echelons.

By the end of 9/11, though, the building I worked it was destroyed (it was close to the Towers), as were my job prospects. Thankfully, no one I worked with was hurt; the building had been evacuated safely. A few of the established titles the company owned moved to mid-town to occupy space there. My magazine, which was about a year old then, was shuttered. The entire publishing industry worldwide was devastated by what happened in New York that day.

But, as I have written in previous posts on this blog, New York City means more to me than a job in publishing. So, today, all these years later, I remember 9/11. I will always remember.