Community Corner

Share Your Memories and Stories for the 9/11 Tribute on Canton Patch

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of September 11, share your opinions, memories, photos and feelings with Canton Patch.

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of , Canton Patch wants to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the . Patch also wants to honor those who serve in the military, police and fire departments. We want to –those of the everyday heroes in our town.

How was your life impacted? How has your town or job changed since 9/11? How have you adapted to the post-9/11 world? Where were you on that awful day in history?

At 9:30 a.m., after watching the horrific footage of the burning towers on the news, I spent an hour trying to reach my good friend, who was waitressing in NYC at the time. After several hours of frantic calls and busy signals, I finally received that relief of reaching my loved one, who was safe and sound. At ten in the morning, my close friend's father got the call and was deployed as part of the rescue mission for FEMA. He was packing up and on his way to Ground Zero.

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As a young reporter, I covered the attacks from Boston's Logan Airport on September 11. Eerily empty, I got picked up walking through the deserted parking lot. I ended up driving around the airport in a luggage cart along with a stranded Canadian television crew. I traveled back to my downtown Boston office on the commuter-less subway train, and walked around the city's quiet streets. No one was around.

A few weeks later, I was on a plane to New Jersey. Instead of reporting and taking photographs, I served workers in the American Red Cross canteen at the New Jersey landfill. On my second trip, I made the journey down Broadway toward Ground Zero, working at the closest canteen to the Twin Towers. I served coffee to FBI members, NYPD, firefighters and U.S. military members. I toured the Layfayette Street Fire House and met the firefighters who survived the attack.

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Like many New Yorkers and workers, I wore a mask over my face and carried my camera bag with me as I walked near Ground Zero. As I returned on the commuter rail from Penn Station back to New Jersey, I noticed my bag and shoes were covered in dirt. "Sacred ground," as one of the businessmen I had interviewed, who had survived the attacks, had told me.

For me, as for millions of others, Ground Zero will always be sacred ground.

If you would be willing to share your story, please email: lisa.gentes@patch.com


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