Corridors in the Sky - Revelations of a New York 9/11 Air Traffic Controller

I was chasing something but never finding it. At first I thought it was the thrill of the wave. Out of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean along the Jacksonville Beaches near my home sometimes rose glassy, perfectly formed, shoulder to head high waves perfect for thrilling rides that paralleled the long, broad, sandy beaches.

As a teenager I would get out of bed in the morning, eat breakfast, grab my board and walk to the beach to surf. All. Day. Long. It was calming and soothing and exciting all at the same time to sit out in the water for hours, watching the sets come in and gauging exactly which wave in a set was the one sent just for me. I was willing to pay whatever price was necessary to be one with their beauty, power, and form. Sometimes I’d wait a whole day or many days without partaking in a single satisfying thrill. I didn’t want to spend my energy trying to catch anything less than the very best.

When I identified a choice wave, I kicked into action, paddling with all my might in order to join with it, allowing it to lift me up into its own course so that I could flow with it and find its nuances of perfection. While racing with the wind in my face, I celebrated the final leg of its long journey home to the shore. I got to be its welcome-home committee.

In my mind the wave rejoiced with fulfillment, because it had come so far to use its last bit of strength to give me delight. My joy proved its journey was not in vain. I would say to myself, That was awesome! Quick, let me get right back out there before I miss the next celebration!

Chasing the wave was an all-consuming passion for a young season of my life. I didn’t think much about having friends or going out or getting a job or an education or, really, anything else. I just wanted to get out there, into the water, where my peace and joy were waiting. There I would remain for up to twelve hours a day. I wouldn’t even get out of the water to eat, because those precious waves meant even more to me than food. Oh, but after twelve hours of surfing, you can rest assured that when I got home I raided our refrigerator. As I laid my head on my pillow at night the waves continued; I was among them, going to sweet sleep with my love. I would wake the next morning and do it all over again.

I didn’t care too much for school. I was bored with it. It just didn’t seem to have anything to offer me compared to the ocean that was a mere few blocks away from where I went to high school. There were many days that my love for the water outweighed attending high school, and I regularly maxed out the number of allowed absences. I think I graduated on the graces of my Home Economics teacher, that one last required elective. I didn’t deserve to pass Home Economics, an incredibly easy class. We were tasked to bake cookies, balance a checkbook, sew a patch on jeans and the like. This super sweet teacher would roll her eyes at my foolish slothfulness and give me a pass. Without her I would have failed my senior year, not having the required number of electives. She did more for me than she likely realized.

Ah, but the smell of the warm, salty ocean breeze that caressed my sun-soaked, mostly bare hot skin, along with the feeling of the cottony soft sand between my toes, and even the literal taste of the salty water when I first splashed-in, gave me a strong sense that I was home as I paddled out to meet the breaking waves. Nothing could keep me out of the water, away from the curvy motion of those rolling, alluring waves. With the ocean’s draw so nearby, it’s amazing that I graduated at all.

I was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1967, and have an older brother, Ed, and a younger sister, Tina. My father, Ed Sr., was an electrical engineer with Southern Bell, and my mother, Maryann, was a housewife. I loved and appreciated my family very much. It instilled such a strong sense of security, belonging, teamwork and play.

My dad welcomed my brother and me in his aviation-related hobbies, which included building remote control airplanes and model rockets. He also frequently took us to NASA at Cape Canaveral where we marveled at different rocket launches, from the Saturn V to the Space Shuttle and all sorts of in-betweens. For a young child, being at real rocket launches, in person, with the atmosphere rumbling throughout my entire little body shaped my future in ways I couldn’t have predicted. The idea of blazing through the sky, farther than I could see, and being taken to outer space made a lasting impact on my impressionable young mind. I thought,

When I was seven years old my father also took me to the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC, “Jax Center,” a radar air traffic control facility), and I’m told that I never stopped talking about it after that day. Actually, I don’t even remember that specific visit. But later in life, when I reconnected with my high school friends, they almost all said that I never stopped insisting that one day I’d be an air traffic controller.

It was ironic actually, because I never really liked flying. My brother did. As an adult he has his pilot’s license and he hobbies in all sorts of aviation adventures, from skydiving to paragliding and beyond. Our dad provided a culture related to aviation that spurred our interests. I’d have to say these childhood experiences with aviation must have formed me to be a good fit for the industry. It all made so much sense to me. It seemed natural.

One time I out performed my older brother and my father while flying remote control airplanes. I think that was a root to my early aviation passion. It was such a rush because, in my mind, I was a little kid and they were bigger and better than me at everything. Put that remote control in my hands, though, and step back and watch. Yes, it was very natural to me. And the respect it brought me made me feel good—a feeling that I wouldn’t have and would be chasing again for quite some time.

When I was in the seventh grade my parents announced their divorce—out of the blue. It was such a shock. I had never even heard them argue. Over the next several years each of my siblings and I had to make impossible decisions. It felt like a choice between keeping your left arm or your right arm. Which arm would you prefer to have, because you can’t have them both. Not only was I the middle child, but now I had my sweet, sweet little nine-year-old sister and precious mother on one side and my cherished big brother and hero father on the other. My father always smelled wonderful when he got home from working amidst the electronics at the phone company. He smelled like my daddy and that distinct, signature aroma pulled me towards him.

There I was, smack in the middle, torn and forced to choose. My little sister and my picture-perfect mother were devastated, and so was I. We seemed to be in the same boat of “I didn’t deserve this and it hurts so bad!” My older brother and my father seemed to be in an entirely different boat, some boat of “life goes on and you just have to make the best of it.” It felt criminal to have our family in two different boats while there was nothing “our boat” could do about it. It was so sudden and so not the security and belonging and teamwork and play that had become an absolute part of my very own identity. I chose to live with my mother at first, but after a few years of missing my father I moved in with him.

It was tough and I don’t recall any sort of coping assistance given to us at all. I don’t say that to cast any blame on my parents. It was obvious to me, even at my young age, that as they split up they were each caught up in their own respective dramas. The 1970s in America produced a terrible wave of destruction to my family and so many others through divorce. Seems like somebody said it was just fine to throw a grenade into family units, and so very many adults took the notion hook, line, and sinker. Looking back, I’m amazed that I didn’t pick up any terrible habits to cope with the shock and pain (or maybe they surfaced later in life, as I’ll share in subsequent chapters). Just tears on my pillow, that’s all. Lots of tears, alone, night after night. Divorce is a terror to children. Maybe that’s one reason surfing was so satisfying to me. It was an escape and a medication.

After I barely graduated high school at seventeen years old, I spent two years surfing and dabbled in waiting tables. I worked at Pizza Hut for a while and then Bennigan’s, a bar and grill chain. But I had zero responsibilities living with my kind father, who gave me lots of space. We did regularly attend church together with his new wife, Terry, and my stepbrother, Michael. My mother also remarried, to Jim, giving me a stepsister, Renee, and another stepbrother, Brian.

As a teenager at church, in a congregation of a couple of thousand people, I was sure that God was real, because every single week it seemed like that blasted guy in the pulpit was talking specifically to me, with details that he couldn’t possibly know about my life. This knowing that God had my number was so pronounced that I literally prayed one time, “Okay God, I hear You calling me to be an Episcopal priest. But I want to be an air traffic controller. Would You please make me an air traffic controller?”

Sure wish I had listened more carefully to that bit in church about not insisting on my own way. Would’ve saved me a...