On the 11th of September in 2001, Glen Prasser awoke in a London hotel room with a plane to catch. Delta Flight 37 was non-stop to Cincinnati, back when CVG handled non-stop international flights and the world was a different place.
Glen wasn’t supposed to be on this trip. But at the last minute, a Procter & Gamble colleague had been unable to go. So there was Glen, a veteran road warrior, filling the breech. By the time he retired from P&G at age 53, Glen had visited 40 countries and spent an average of a month a year on the road. He still has three million Delta frequent flyer miles.
It would be good to get home, he thought that morning. It was always good to get home.
Before we tell you why it took Glen Prasser five days to get home and before we fill in those days with stories you might not believe, we will tell you the one essential thing, the one point, over-arching and undeniable, that Glen would like us all to know:
People are good.
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In the darkest moments. In the desperate hours after unspeakable tragedy, when the world goes dim and “normal life’’ becomes an eternal oxymoron, people rise up. They do. Glen Prasser knows that. Knows it better than he has ever known anything.
Believes it with purity and clarity, all evidence to the contrary.
“I’ve seen it,’’ he said Thursday.
On Saturday, Sept. 11, we will bury our dead all over again, for the 20th year in a row. Everyone will grieve, if only briefly, over what and whom we’ve lost since 9-11 two decades ago. On Saturday, mourning will mingle with memory and our nation will allow itself a tear.
Glen will cry too, but probably not much and not just for the reasons you’d expect. “I was placed in a situation where for three or four days, everyone was kind to each other,’’ he recalled. “We were united.’’
It was a horrible, beautiful, delicate moment in time. Here is how it passed for Glen Prasser.
Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001: A limo took Glen from London to Heathrow Airport for his eight-hour flight back to Cincinnati. Glen grew up in Milwaukee, but P&G brought him to the Queen City permanently in 1999. He was proud that his work travels didn’t keep him from being a good family man. Glen rarely missed a ballgame or a swim meet or a holiday. But the travel was getting to him. Barely six years later, he would retire at age 53. This morning, he slid into his business class seat and closed his eyes.
Halfway through the trip and somewhere over the North Atlantic, the captain came on the P.A. “That’s strange,’’ Glen thought. On overseas flights, you heard from the captain twice: Thirty minutes after takeoff and 30 minutes before landing.
The captain said there was an “issue’’ with the plane. “Nothing major. But we’re going to land in Newfoundland.’’
In truth, the pilot did not know exactly why he’d be landing his perfectly healthy jumbo jet in a place called Gander, Newfoundland. All he knew was that United States airspace had been closed. Air-traffic controllers in Gander were too busy to fill him in on the real reason. They were in the process of guiding 38 jets to Gander in the next 90 minutes, all of which had been bound for the U.S.
“As we approached, I saw 30 to 35 jumbo jets parked,’’ Glen recalled. “Something was going on.’’
That’s when the first of many inexplicables occurred. They keep Glen wondering, even now. “I had the only working cell phone,’’ he said. Twenty years ago, cell phones weren’t common. Cell phones with international capability were rare. Glen needed his for his job.
His wife was teaching third-graders at the time, so Glen called his mother. She told him two planes had hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For the next several hours, Glen let the rest of the passengers on Flight 37 use his phone to contact distraught, wondering relatives. When his cell’s battery ran low, a passenger managed to find his own phone charger in his carry-on bag, even as his phone was in his checked suitcase. The plane had one electrical outlet, normally used for a vacuum cleaner.
Glen’s cell bill that month came to $1,400. Verizon paid it.
“Why was I part of that? Why did I have an international cell phone?’’ Glen still wonders. “Why was I the only one? Why did that one guy have a power cord without a phone?’’
That night, the passengers listened to the radio in the plane as President Bush addressed the nation. Everyone applauded when he finished. “People from all different nations. Would that happen today?’’ Glen asked.
Sept. 12, 2001: Gander is a town of 9,000 people. Almost 7,000 more were on those 38 airplanes. Some boarded buses headed for another local town, Gambo, population 1,200. Glen and other passengers spent that night and the next three nights sleeping in pews at the Emmanuel United Church of Canada, in Gambo.
Sept, 13, 2001: Glen awakened to the smell of breakfast. Including moose stew, provided by locals who’d hunted the moose and stored their bounty in home freezers. Glen ate and went for a walk on the beach. Something awakened in him.
“It was like Charles Dickens. The best of times, the worst of times,’’ he explained. “Blue skies, very serene. I was totally relaxed.’’ No deadlines, no conference calls. “It was almost a feeling of guilt. “Why should we be having such a good time when people at home were grieving beyond belief?’’
A 75-year-old woman had made the breakfast. It was her birthday. Plane passengers went to the only store in Gambo and bought her a card. Everyone signed it.
Sept. 14, 2001: The locals took over. The passengers needed toilet paper. The townspeople brought 200 rolls to the church. The store donated diapers and underwear, toiletries and anything else needed. They invited the passengers to shower in their homes, where they never locked their doors.
“They didn’t want anything. They said, we know you’d do the same for us,’’ Glen said.
That night, Friday, an impromptu church service was held. The Lord’s Prayer was recited, in multiple languages. Some then retreated to the only tavern in Gambo, for $2 LaBatt’s and a tradition known as “screeching.’’ The stranded passengers could become honorary Newfoundlanders. All they had to do was take a shot of the locally available rum – Screech – and kiss a codfish.
Glen’s a proud Newfoundlander.
Sept. 15, 2001: “Flight 37, you’re up.’’ With that, Glen and his fellow Delta travelers made their way back to Gander International Airport. Before they boarded, they emptied their wallets of cash into a bucket, as payment to the hosts they could never fully repay.
On the flight to Cincinnati, the pilot strode the aisle shaking hands with every passenger and thanking them for “being good people,’’ said Glen.
Glen knows he discovered something 20 years ago. “Heartwarming, corny stuff’’ is how he describes it. From the real and metaphorical rubble of 9-11, a new humanity rose. The power of people caring for people. The promise of a saner day, one cleansed and informed by unspeakable tragedy.
It hasn’t happened that way, of course. We have an impressive capacity for our lesser natures. Glen Prasser has seen the other side, though. That’s the side he chooses to believe in. “Nine-eleven reminds us to be kind to one another,’’ he said.
His memories disinfect the present-tense times in which we live. “You see all this hatred on social media,’’ he said, “but 99 percent of people in this world are good.’’
He wants to return to Newfoundland. A 20-year reunion had been scheduled for this summer, but had to be canceled because of COVID-19. That won’t deter him. One day, Glen Prasser will take his wife to Gambo, to be “screeched.’’
“I want her to kiss a cod,’’ he said.
Glen will seek out the townsfolk who offered to take him fishing. He hopes the Breakfast Woman is still living.
Several years ago, a Broadway musical was made about the travelers of 9-11. When “Come From Away’’ arrived at the Aronoff Center downtown, Glen made sure he invited every fellow passenger he could find. A few showed up, along with the plane’s First Officer, eight or nine flight attendants and 40 of Glen’s closest friends.
They made a donation when the night was done. It was a few thousand dollars, sent to the only school in Gambo. It was the least they could do.
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