<Begin Segment 5>

AI: Before we get too far, let me ask you to just go back to that day if you will and recall the day for me.

PJ: Well, that weekend before -- September 11th was on a Tuesday, and I had gone to Portland, I think, for a speech or something that I had to do on Friday. Saturday I came back and had to pack up the U-Haul and literally move everything into my house, which I did on Sunday and Monday. And so it was, I just remember the context being, first of all, very frenzied. And I was in boxes and I was, I was unsettled. I was very ungrounded because I was moving houses, but it was more than moving houses, it was also symbolic of other changes that were going on in my life. And on September 11th... actually, on September 10th, on Monday, September 10th, I had a friend of mine who was out from California helping me to move. And he was supposed to stay until September 11th. And on September 10th, in the morning, he said, "You know, I have a really funny feeling." He's a very intuitive person, and he said, "I have a very funny feeling." He said, "I just, I feel like I need to get back to California today." He said, "I don't know what it is but I..." and his son, he has a teenage son, and his son was going through some problems and so he said, "I don't know if it's something that I'm feeling with Jonathan, that he needs me to go back, or what it is, but I'm gonna change my flight." And so he did. He changed his flight to that afternoon, I think, late afternoon, and he left.

And on September 11th in the morning, I don't remember what time I got the call, but it was very shortly after the planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, very early in the morning I got a call from a friend of mine on the East Coast, in Boston. And I was asleep. And she called and she said, she was hysterical, and she said, "Have you seen what's happened? Have you seen what's happened?" And I had no idea what she was talking about. And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said these planes... and it still didn't... I just couldn't quite comprehend it. And so I tried to get the TV but I have this little tiny TV set that, you know, and I don't have cable, and so I couldn't really get reception. So I turned on the radio and was listening to it and I remember just thinking, "Oh, my God." And immediately, you know, I jumped to, "Who's gonna get blamed for this?" I mean, I immediately went there. Because, I guess somehow I knew. Excuse me. [Cries] So I don't think I had, I don't think I really knew what it would look like, but... thank you.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.