September 11, 2001

There is always the question where were you when? I was home watching the Today show. I think I watched until both towers fell, and then left for the Red Cross. It so happened that they were having two blood drives that day one at a GTCC (a local College) from 9 to 12, and the other at First Baptist church in High Point from 2 to 7pm. When I got to the chapter it was already busy. People were calling to find out where they could give blood. This resulted in an overflow of people at the two locations. I drove the van around resuppling the blood drives with snack supplies. Through out the day we had to go and buy more supplies to take care of all the people that were donating. The college had to close at 1:30 because the blood people ran out of supplies to take blood. The blood drive at the church that was supposed to close at 7:00 was open until 11:00pm. We had to call local restaurants for donations. So we could feed the people who came from work and had not eaten yet.

At this time I was starting my second year with the Evening Degree Program at HPU. Since I had never gone to college, and at the age of 63 I was just seeing if I could make the grade at that level. I was carrying a 3.5avarage. I had no plans to do anything with my education except to say I had a diploma.
I had a decision to make go to school and not go on national disasters or go on disasters and quite school. I decided on disasters. On Thursday I told the Red Cross that I was available to go wherever I was needed, and went to the EDP offices and withdrew from the classes that I was taking. On Friday I was told to make arrangements to fly to New York and I would be working in logistics. On Saturday I called relatives and friends to tell that I was flying to New York the next day 9-16-01. One of my friends thought that I was crazy for flying so soon after 9-11.