The Day The World Came To Town

by Jim Defede

  Minion knew exactly what to do. The closest Hugo Boss outlet to Gander was Byron’s, a men’s clothing store in St. John’s, about two hundred miles away. Minion contacted the owner, Byron Murphy, and asked if he could send one of his store clerks to Gander with a CARE package for someone.

  “Who’s out there?” Murphy asked.

  “It’s Werner,” Minion replied.

  “Werner Baldessarini?”

  “That’s right.”

  Murphy couldn’t believe his ears. In Murphy’s world of fashion retail, Baldessarini was the equivalent of a movie star. Murphy prided himself on owning the premier men’s clothing store in St. John’s, and, for that matter, in all of Newfoundland. He had over 3,000 square feet spread over two floors in a redbrick building in the historic section of St. John’s. He carried an assortment of name brands—Polo, Manzoni, Lipson, Cambridge, Greg Norman. The Hugo Boss line, however, was one of his bestsellers.

  Since opening the store ten years before, he had always dreamed of meeting someone of Baldessarini’s stature, but was never part of that in-crowd that went to the big fashion shows and rubbed elbows with such icons. Murphy knew he’d regret it his entire life if he let this moment slip away.

  “I’ll go, I’ll do it,” Murphy volunteered.

  Minion gave him a list of items. Murphy packed an assortment of shirts, pants, socks, and underwear—all Hugo Boss, of course. Unsure of the chairman’s preferred style, Murphy selected both boxers and briefs. In addition to a change of clothes, Minion asked Murphy to assemble a basket of food and gave him suggestions on bottles of wine and types of breads and cheeses. Murphy picked up several nice bottles of Merlot—a couple from Australia, one from Chile, and another from Italy. He also found a lovely Gouda and some Brie and a few loaves of French bread.

  The drive from St. John’s is nearly three hours, and Murphy didn’t arrive until almost 6 P.M. The thirty-nine-year-old Murphy didn’t have any problem finding the school, Gander Collegiate, where Baldessarini was staying. Murphy had been born in Gander. As soon as he arrived, he went to the school office and had Baldessarini paged. Within minutes, he spotted the chairman emerging from the school’s gym. He recognized him from his pictures in the catalogs.

  “Mr. Baldessarini,” Murphy said, a bit awestruck, “my name is Byron Murphy.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Baldessarini said. “Thanks for driving out.”

  Murphy led him outside to his car and the packages he’d brought with him. The chairman was a bit embarrassed. He told Murphy that while he was grateful for his efforts, he couldn’t accept the baskets of food and wine. He wanted to eat what everyone else was eating.

  Baldessarini thought about offering the items to the town’s relief effort but decided against it. He was afraid his donation would suggest that the food the people in Gander were offering the passengers wasn’t good enough. Baldessarini’s voice was filled with emotion when he described to Murphy the efforts of everyone in town to aide the passengers, particularly the women, who seemed to be cooking around the clock. He didn’t want to risk doing something that might offend these fine folks, he explained.

  “Take them back with you,” he told Murphy.

  Not wanting to be a complete masochist, though, he did take the underwear. Both the boxers and the briefs. Leaving the other items in the car, Murphy and Baldessarini went back inside the school, where the chairman showed him around and introduced him to some of his new friends from the plane. In the cafeteria, they had a soda and talked a little men’s retail. Baldessarini briefed Murphy on the spring line and asked him questions about his store. How large was it? Which items sold best? Which didn’t? Murphy thought Baldessarini seemed genuinely interested in his opinions.

  In the background, a television was tuned to CNN, and the two men talked about the terrorist attacks. After a couple of hours Murphy announced that he’d better start the drive home to St. John’s. Baldessarini walked him out, thanked him for the clothes, and invited to come to Europe, where he could tour the Hugo Boss headquarters and attend one of the company’s fashion shows.

  As he drove home, it all seemed so surreal for Murphy. Was he dreaming or did he just spend two hours in a high school cafeteria in Gander, Newfoundland, talking to the chairman of Hugo Boss about fashion and world politics after delivering him an emergency supply of underwear? It was no dream, and in the morning, when he opened his store and laid out the cheese and wine for his customers, he had quite a story to tell them.

  Jessica Naish had never seen so much food. Since she’d been bused to the volunteer fire department in Gambo on Wednesday afternoon, hardly an hour had passed without someone from town walking in with another tray or dish of food for the passengers. Casseroles. Stews. Salads. Homemade pies and cakes. Fresh-baked cookies. It wasn’t possible to sample it all.

  Naish was a passenger on Continental Flight 5. An American, she’d been living in Cheddar, England, and was on her way to Houston to visit family and friends. On the plane, she’d met two men, Paul Moroney and Peter Ferris. Although she was sure their paths had never crossed before their ill-fated flight, Naish couldn’t help but feel she had met them before. There was something very familiar about the two, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Until they told her what they did for a living. They were professional Beatles impersonators and performed in a group called the Beatles Band.

  Moroney portrayed John Lennon.

  Ferris played George Harrison.

  They both wore their hair in mop-top fashion, the love-me-do haircuts of the early Beatles. Even their clothes harkened back to that era. Ferris was wearing a dark green suit with a black turtleneck sweater and Moroney was dressed in a gray suit and a dark button-down shirt. The rest of the band was back in England. Moroney and Ferris were going to Texas to visit friends they made during a recent series of concerts the group played in Lubbock. The birthplace of Buddy Holly was crazy for the faux Fab Four. The group had sold out shows in February, and then again throughout most of the summer. During the Fourth of July weekend, they appeared with a 120-piece orchestra in an outdoor concert in front of 100,000 people.

  Naish was fascinated with the stories Moroney and Ferris were telling her. As they explained it, they weren’t some Beatles cover band. They were a tribute band. “We try to become for people what the essence of the Beatles were,” Ferris told her. Naish was dying to hear them perform.

  That wasn’t going to happen, both men assured her. At least not here in Newfoundland. Ferris was thirty-four years old and had been born in Belfast. He’d grown up during the “troubles,” as the fighting in Northern Ireland is often called. As a boy, he often saw people who were traumatized by the unrest. It had a unique effect on people. He saw that same look on the faces of his fellow passengers in Gambo as they watched the news reports from the United States. He’d seen enough scared people for one lifetime and, instead of huddling inside, was spending time instead down by the river, which was a short walk from the fire station. It was quiet and peaceful there.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Moldovan family cooking at the Baptist church.

  Courtesy of Gary House

  Oh my God! Did you see that!”

  Anna Lee Gosse turned quickly to see who was screaming. A ninth-grade teacher at Lewisporte Middle School, the twenty-five-year-old was afraid something terrible had happened on the street. As she ran in the direction of the man’s voice, she could still hear him screaming, “Did you see that! Did you see that!”

  The middle school sits on the main road that runs through Lewisporte and divides the town down the middle. As her eyes focused on the man making all of the commotion, Gosse slowed down; she could see that he was also laughing. He was pointing at a large truck, which had stopped in the middle of road to allow several people to cross.

  Based upon the man’s accent, Gosse surmised he was from New York or New Jersey. “He just stopped,” said the man, with the same sort of amazement that the children of Fatima must have felt upon s
eeing the Blessed Virgin.

  The man looked around to make sure others had seen this miracle. “No crosswalk, no stop sign, no traffic light,” he bellowed. “He just stopped.”

  Gosse and another teacher watched the man for a few seconds. These Americans truly are strange folks, she thought, and then turned to go back inside the school.

  Seventeen-year-old Tara Boyde had never met royalty before and she wasn’t sure how to react when one of the passengers told her that he was a prince. He was from somewhere in the Middle East, but she couldn’t remember the name of the country. He had long flowing robes and his wife didn’t speak English. They were traveling on a US Air flight out of Paris with their four-year-old son, and were on their way to the United States, where the boy was scheduled to have surgery. They also had a nurse who was caring for the boy.

  They had been taken to the Salvation Army camp about twenty minutes outside of Gander, and the prospect of sleeping in a cabin in the middle of the woods was not sitting well with His Royal Highness. He was demanding to be taken to a hotel, but Boyde explained that this wasn’t possible. She suspected he was worried about his son. She didn’t know why the child was scheduled to have surgery. She assumed it was serious.

  Boyde attends the Salvation Army church and had volunteered to help as soon as she heard about the planes arriving in Gander. She helped the prince and his family settle into a cabin and then scrounged up a bunch of toys for their little boy. The prince was still angry, but Boyde didn’t let it bother her. This must be very hard on them, she thought.

  Most of the passengers who were taken to the Salvation Army camp enjoyed it because it was so isolated. There was only one small television set in the entire facility. As a result of this, passengers occupied their time swimming in the lake, canoeing, taking hikes, and playing soccer and baseball.

  Pam Coish, the principal for Lewisporte Middle School, was sitting in her office when one of the passengers knocked on her door. Coish recalled the passenger’s name was Denise and she was traveling with a group of people aboard Continental Flight 45 from Milan to Newark. The first day they arrived in Lewisporte, one of the men traveling with Denise, a fellow named Gordon, asked if he could use the school’s computers. “I have a small business to run,” he explained. Coish told him all of the passengers were welcome to use the computers.

  Coish invited Denise into her office.

  “Pam, I just wanted to say how grateful we are for everything you’ve done,” Denise said. She then handed the principal her business card. Coish read it carefully. Her name was Denise Gray-Felder, vice-president of administration and communications for the Rockefeller Foundation. The man with a small business to run, Gray-Felder explained, was Gordon Conway, president of the foundation.

  The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the largest philanthropic groups on the planet, overseeing a $3 billion endowment and providing almost $200 million in grants every year to needy organizations throughout the world. Conway and Gray-Felder, along with four other executives from the foundation, had been flying home from a board of directors meeting in Italy when their plane was diverted to Gander.

  Conway, Gray-Felder, and the others were so impressed with the outpouring of support from the community that they wanted to do something for the school. They came up with the idea of providing new computers for the school and the 317 students who go there each year. The thirty-five machines in the computer lab were hopelessly out-of-date—the students were still using 133s, for goodness’ sake—and the group thought a onetime grant to purchase new equipment was in order.

  “We’d like to replace your computer lab,” Gray-Felder told Coish.

  The principal was flabbergasted. She had no idea they’d been running the Rockefeller Foundation from one of her classrooms. And she felt funny about accepting a gift from any of the passengers.

  “We didn’t do it for the money,” Coish told Gray-Felder. She told the vice-president it wasn’t necessary for the foundation to do anything.

  “This is something we want to do,” Gray-Felder insisted. “And we’ll do it whether you want it or not.”

  Gray-Felder had no intention of allowing Coish to demur. Her time in Lewisporte had been such a wondrous experience. After thirty hours on the plane, she and the 115 other passengers aboard Continental Flight 45 had been taken by bus to Lewisporte and dropped off in front of the Philadelphia Tabernacle Pentecostal Church Wednesday afternoon. Gray-Felder was a bit leery at first. She imagined sleeping on hard wooden pews. Luckily the benches were padded. At the end of each pew was a stack of blankets and several toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste.

  Across the street was the middle school. The passengers were told they could shower and eat over there as well use the phones and the school’s computers. It was Conway who dove into work sooner than the other foundation members. The foundation has offices and programs around the world, so a lot of its work is done over the Internet. Gray-Felder and the others soon followed suit, first letting everyone know they were safe and then falling into the rhythm of reading reports, reviewing grant proposals, and working on budgets.

  Immersing themselves in the mundane was a good way for them to occupy their minds with something other than the horrors of September 11. While Conway and some of the other executives used a few of the school’s computers, Gray-Felder had her laptop with her. She had a problem, however, connecting it to the school’s phone system, so one of the teachers, Judy Freake, allowed her to use an outlet in her home.

  There was nothing the passengers needed that the people in town weren’t prepared to provide. Each night the strandees were there, several women from town would stay up until two in the morning washing loads of towels so the passengers would have fresh towels each morning when they woke up.

  Gray-Felder knew people had donated the towels from their own homes, and she asked one of the women how everyone was going to reclaim their towels once the passengers left. The woman looked at her as if it was an odd question.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

  The selflessness of the townspeople gave Gray-Felder chills.

  Their first night in Lewisporte, Gray-Felder had had trouble sleeping and around 3 A.M. spotted several men from town, including Pastor Russell Bartlett, sitting by the entrance of the church. She asked why they were still awake.

  “We thought it was important to watch over you,” the pastor explained, “and make sure nothing happened to you while you slept.”

  Conway and the others were all touched by similar experiences. There was a pub near the school where the Rockefeller folks would gather for what they jokingly referred to as “quasi—staff meetings,” and all of them agreed they should find a way to repay both the school and the church. When Gray-Felder knocked on Coish’s door to deliver the news, she also explained that if there was a more pressing need at the school, the foundation would leave it up to the principal and her staff to decide how best to use their money. Coish said she wanted to speak to her vice-principal and would let her know in a couple of weeks.

  After Gray-Felder left, Coish decided to keep the news from the rest of her staff in case the foundation people later changed their minds about the grant. She was afraid of getting her staff’s hopes up too high.

  When Gray-Felder met with Pastor Bartlett at the church, he was also dumbfounded. She said the foundation would like to do something nice for the church. Was there a project or a program the foundation could support? Like Coish, the pastor said he wanted time to think about it.

  A young couple from one of the planes was walking down a residential street in Gander, carrying a small child, when they heard a woman yell out, “Wait! Wait!” She had stuck her head out her front door and motioned for the young couple to please stop and that she would be right back. The couple wasn’t sure what was happening but patiently waited to find out.

  After a couple of minutes the woman came running out of her house with a stroller. “Here, why don’t you use this?” she asked. There
was no use carrying their child, the woman explained, when she had a perfectly good stroller they could borrow.

  The young couple tried to tell her it wasn’t necessary. Besides, they weren’t sure when they were leaving or how they would be able to get the stroller back to her. The woman told her it didn’t matter. Her kids were grown and she didn’t need it any longer. “Take it,” she insisted. “I want to help.”

  The crew of Lufthansa 400 stayed at the Sinbad Hotel, along with ten other flight crews. There was little for them to do. Captain Reinhard Knoth divided his crew into two groups. The first would be responsible for making sure the plane was ready to fly as soon as they were given the clearance to leave. They needed to make sure the plane was clean, that there was food and water on board, and that the ground workers in Gander received any assistance they might need. The second group would make sure the passengers were okay and being properly treated. Knoth placed himself in that second group.

  Knoth felt a deep sense of responsibility for his passengers. Whether it took six hours or six days to get them from Frankfurt to New York, they were still his passengers and he was obliged to look after them.

  Every morning he’d set out from his hotel to walk to Gander Collegiate, the high school where the passengers from his flight were staying. Knoth didn’t mind walking, the weather was beautiful, and it gave him a chance to think. Or at least it would have, if the folks in Gander hadn’t been so friendly. Without fail, Knoth would walk no more than two or three blocks before one of the townspeople pulled up alongside him and offered him a ride to wherever he was going. The same would happen when he walked back to the hotel from the school.