Personal 9/11 Memory

A PERSONAL 9/11 MEMORY

In New York City in late 1996 and early 1997, I covered commodities trading, specifically the futures and options trading of "Softs" (coffee, sugar, cocoa, cotton, orange juice, and occasionally whole milk) for Futures World News (FWN), a financial/business wire service broadcast via satellite to 93 countries. I covered those main five markets in real time, writing 13 to 16 articles/stories every weekday, plus one weekly feature story. I also covered weekly money-supply meetings at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York every third week.

Anyway, around 8 a.m., before trading began, I would occasionally walk across the street from our news bureau to interview the traders on the trading floor in one of the World Trade Center towers. I would ask them in person of their expectations for the trading day rather than just give them the usual call on the telephone.

Three of the traders once visited us at our bureau during their break on a special occasion. We watched the New York Yankees championship parade from overhead, a few floor up.

About a year later, I moved to Florida from New Jersey. The day before I started my drive south, I ventured into "The City" for lunch. I ate a sandwich and drank a soda while seated on a bench quite close to the towers. I sat there for three hours, eating and staring up at them, wondering when I would ever see them in person again. I never would.

I lost touch with those traders when I left the wire service in mid-1997.

I moved to southeastern Florida in May 1998 to be near my mom and other family members, and to restart my life after working four jobs in The City from 1991 to 1998, FWN being the third. I was also searching for a slower pace, but being a journalist, I never found it.

While quite distanced from my past professional exploits in The City, on that infamous day in 2001, my thoughts immediately traveled to those commodities traders. They were wonderful, helpful guys. Since then, every year on 9/11, I have been able to find slight comfort by telling myself that because they worked on the second floor of one of the towers, they probably got out safely ... or maybe those guys weren't working there anymore at that time.

While my memories of those young men are now rather foggy, I still often wonder what became of them.

My heart still aches for those who lost their lives, and their families and friends. Rest in peace.

Be well.

Related Memory: When my dad passed away in 1997, Futures World News sent a flower arrangement to the funeral home. I read the card. It was signed Future Worlds News. That provided me with a slight smile during a tragic, challenging time in my life. I thought, at that time, now florists think that I write for a science-fiction magazine.

September 11, 2025, at home