9/11: 25 Years Later

I remember where I was on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001. It is hard to believe that we are looking at it as being 25 years ago. I lived through it, and those memories have remained clear and present ever since.

Manhattan is more than 250 miles from where I lived on Cape Cod. There are times when it feels like the other side of the world. On 9/11, it felt like everything I was seeing was happening right outside my door.

I was 23 years old, living with my family in a small house on a small road that ended in a cul-de-sac. It was a mundane morning. I had the day off from work and was sitting in the living room at our big, boxy dial-up internet-connected computer.

The morning consisted of writing an unremarkable email to my friend Barry. Back then I didn’t have a cell phone, so the best way to stay in touch with people was either through a landline phone or via email. I remember I was going to tell him I was going to visit Nickerson State Park in Brewster on my day off.

Despite never finishing that email, I still remember its contents. It was so blissfully ordinary. It was my last memory of the time before. I wish I had kept writing that email and sent it instead of turning off the computer. However, everything happened in a flash.



I remember my mother's frantic screams when she heard the first radio reports in her car. She was in the driveway. I don’t remember if she had just gotten home, or was getting ready to leave. Her screams for us to put on the television inside, I can hear today as I close my eyes.

From those early morning moments, I remained seated on the couch watching. I watched as the towers fell. It felt like watching a big-budget Hollywood film that was playing, but this was real. Everything from the television itself, to the layout of the living room, to the feeling of being hungry yet being frozen where I sat; it’s all still with me today.

I remembered the memories of visiting the Twin Towers when I was in 7th Grade. They all came flooding back as smoke and ash filled the view of Lower Manhattan on 9/11. That had been 10 years earlier, 35 years ago now, on a field trip from Mattacheese Middle School. Ironically, a lot of that trip is burned into my memory as well, but in a far more positive light.

It was my first real trip to New York City. My classmates and I saw the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and I even bought a bogus ‘gold’ chain off of a street vendor. One of the places we visited was the World Trade Center complex.

Looking up from the ground, the Twin Towers appeared to pierce the sky. I believe time was running short during that field trip, and so we were not able to go all the way up the 110 stories to the observation deck. We got to go inside to the lobby of one of the towers. I was able to go up to the first concourse level and look down. Maybe it was 20-30 feet up; I don’t remember that, but I can see the bustling energy of the people coming in and out still clear as day.

I remember the surreal feeling on 9/11 watching the towers fall, contrasted with the memories of being there years earlier. It was a struggle, knowing they were now only a memory. Things like that don’t happen, at least not on such a scale. It was like I was floating, or falling down an elevator shaft. I remember having that feeling for the next few days.

Being so far away was no comfort. Everything was on the table after watching the towers fall. Sure, in all honesty, I didn’t feel as though a plane was going to come crashing into any place near me, but that was of no comfort. On 9/11, especially in those early hours, you truly had no idea of what might happen next.

I remember my sister Kate, pregnant with my niece Emma (now 24), frantically calling my then-brother-in-law Peter. He was out on a job landscaping, and she told him what was happening and also wanted to make sure he was alright. She told him in so many words that the world as we knew it was coming to an end. It was hard to imagine such a bold and audacious thought being true, but it was.

I remember my niece Kaleigh, all of 2 ½ years old(now 27), staring at us with a mix of concern and curiosity at what was on the television that was causing all of our fear and angst. How do you explain what was happening to a child? I was in my 20s and couldn’t figure out how to explain it to anyone who might ask. My mother eventually brought Kaleigh into her bedroom and even put Barney on for her to watch, a show my mom really didn’t like. I often wonder if she has any memory from that day. Maybe it is more of an underlying feeling that she can’t explain?

Hours wore on, and I sat on that couch. The towers fell, the Pentagon was hit, and a mystery fourth plane had gone down in rural Pennsylvania. Even when all air travel was suspended, it felt as though some new threat was going to begin. I remember feeling physically on edge but mentally tired watching things unfold.

I am an empath; it’s always been a blessing and a curse. On 9/11, my heart and soul ached for the thousands of people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania affected directly by the attacks. Then I’d think of the families and friends of those lost in the attacks. It was a scale of sadness and loss I’d never imagined.

It was a push and pull between wanting to close my eyes and forcing them to watch. There were a few moments where I wanted to retreat into my bedroom, or take off in my car to try to escape it. There was no escaping it. This was real. This was serious. This was a line of demarcation between one timeline and another.

I remember fearing that if I stopped watching, something else would happen. It was as if I was waiting for a cut scene, like it was a docudrama where they would say, 'that's what the end of days would look like.' Then life would go back to normal, but it didn't. It really never has.

That day on Cape Cod was perfect weather-wise. It was sunny, low humidity, temperatures in the mid-70s. I had planned to visit Nickerson State Park. It would have been a simple day. My Fuji FinePix digital camera, some sort of fast food for lunch which I’d have eaten in the car, and maybe a magazine to read while I sat in the quiet companionship of nature.

Staring out of the living room window at that beautiful late summer day in front of me and contrasting it with the scene of utter horror on the television left me feeling both detached and attached to the situation at the same time. I hoped I would have another day like the one I was meant to have on 9/11 before the towers fell.

By late afternoon it appeared as though the attacks were over. It was an attempt to try to figure out the scope of the damage and also who did it and why. I had skipped lunch but didn’t feel hungry. I still felt the need to venture out to make certain that my world close by was still standing.

The most surreal thing for me was driving around the town of Dennis. Everything in my little corner of the world looked the same, yet I knew everything was different. All of the houses were standing, all of the businesses were open, and there were some cars on the road. It was quieter than expected. Now things do slow down on Cape Cod when Labor Day passes, but I knew that people were glued to their televisions like I had been all day.

I remember feeling so small and insignificant. There was an overwhelming sense of pride, respect, and love for the firefighters and police who were walking into the battle zone when everyone else was running away. I wondered what it took to have that much courage. Perhaps when the situation arises, you just turn off the fear in your brain in the name of duty?

I stepped out for maybe a half-hour in the afternoon. I believe I went to a Subway to get dinner. I don’t remember any conversations I might have had with the people working there, although I am sure we spoke of the tragedy that was unfolding as we stood there.

Once back home, it was a return to sitting frozen still on the couch. I don’t think I left that spot for fourteen hours in total. I was just watching. I was trying to process something that couldn’t be processed. Part of me foolishly still hoped that there would be a disclaimer on the screen that said it was all a hoax. It would be like War of the Worlds on the radio; even as night fell, I clung to that belief.

I remember the next morning being back to business as usual. I returned to work cooking at The Marshside restaurant. It was a slower day since the busy season had ended. Still, I tried to occupy myself with as many tasks as I could.

At some point I found myself standing on the deck with Maui. He was the head chef, and I had known him for 8 years at that point. I remember still having that feeling of falling as we spoke. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like my body’s empathy for the enormous loss.

The deep blue sky was untouched by the gentle exhaust of aircraft as all air travel was still suspended. I also remember the silence. It felt like there was an overwhelming and deafening silence that surrounded those days. It was as if all of us were quietly trying to wrap our heads around what this all meant.

I remember the names coming out over the next few days. I remember the photos, the interviews, the magazines, the newspapers; I still have them, so I will always remember. There is a box in my mother’s basement that is filled with these things I gathered over the coming weeks.

It became even more real when attending a candlelight vigil a week or so later. It was held in the parking lot of the Patriot Square shopping center in Dennis. I don’t remember how many people were there; it was probably a few hundred. We all needed to be around each other to collectively process and grieve, even though most of us didn’t know each other.

I remember there being a few people there who had come from Ground Zero and had helped in the massive recovery effort. Their words painted the picture of the scale of the devastation. I shook their hands, thanked them for their efforts, and said they were heroes for what they had done. Shaking their hands made me feel a direct connection to New York and Ground Zero.

I remember each anniversary of the day that changed our world. Over the years, many harrowing accounts of survival came out. There were stories of people having near misses. There were more magazines, books, and even movies about the events of 9/11. Amazingly, there were fleeting moments in some of the movies where I felt myself asking if it was all real.

In the 25 years since 9/11, I have never been to Manhattan. I have never been to One World Trade Center, which was opened in 2014 and stands an appropriate 1,776 feet tall. I have never been to the 9/11 Memorial, although many Cape Cod police and fire departments display pieces of debris from the Twin Towers.

As I write this, with the memories of that day filling my head, it’s hard to believe that it has been 25 years now. It's hard to believe some people have grown up not knowing about 9/11. If you're under 25, this event probably hits you like World War II did for my generation. 

Please take a moment to remember. Even if you knew nobody involved, or have never even been to New York, just stop and remember for a moment.

Remember 9/11. Remember those who died in the attacks. Remember those who bravely fought on the hijacked planes. Remember those who ran toward the disaster knowing they might not make it out. Remember the families who lost fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, spouses, and children.

We are all part of one family, the human family; above all else, always remember that. Peace and love.

In My Footsteps Podcast Mixtape #5: Blink and You'll Miss It Retro Segments(9-9-2026)

 Happy Labor Day! When this episode premieres, I will be on location producing my first feature film, The Cabin. Thank you to everyone who donated to the fundraiser and helped to get this project made!

Being on location means that in place of a new podcast episode, you get Mixtape #5

All of the Blink and You'll Miss It retro segments are here in chronological order.

They contain foods, toys, television shows, miscellaneous products, and more that were here and gone in a relative flash. If you weren't around when they came out, you might have no memory of them ever existing. 

You will laugh. You will shake your head. Maybe you'll go scouring your basement to see if you have any of the items mentioned, as they might fetch a few bucks on eBay.

Enjoy some memories in mixtape form on the podcast. Happy Labor Day weekend, and thank you again for all of the support for the podcast and my other creative ventures!

To support me and the show, become a member on Patreon. 

Or you can support my work and Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Buy My New Book, In Their Footsteps!
• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• MSFTS Community
• Kingfisher Hotels Cape Cod
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy

Listen to Episode 259 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #137: The Cabin Prologue

1. For weeks leading up to my departure from Cape Cod to go produce my feature film, The Cabin, everything was smooth. The fundraiser went off without a hitch; I got my hotel, rented a car, and we hired the whole crew. In my mind, this was the next natural progression in my creative journey. The last five years have been one long road of continued growth. It’s funny how, despite all of the things I just mentioned, the old insecurities came creeping up the day before I was to head out. It was like the Imposter Syndrome and the little negative voice in my head decided to make themselves known. When I woke up on Monday, I felt this tension and these nerves that hadn’t been there even the night before. It was as if the reality of the situation finally stepped to the front. The voice was asking me if I knew what I was getting myself into. It asked who I thought I was, trying to do something new and challenging. It tried telling me that I would be found out and this project would fail. I have had to battle these demons of self-worth and self-confidence for way too long, and this is no different. I have been told every step of the way that the script I wrote is good. We have everything set up to make the best film we can. I have the funds, the place to stay, the car, the time, and yet despite all of that, the voice still came calling. I had to take a step back and reassure myself that I deserve this opportunity based on all of the hard work and sacrifices I’ve made throughout the years. It’s almost as if the closer I get to this new, exciting opportunity, the harder those old thoughts push back. Only when I open that door and step through will those voices shut up. They won’t do it on their own. I have to make them by believing in myself.


2. To time things right, I had to put off doing my laundry until the day before I left for Pennsylvania. I wanted to make sure I had all of the clean clothing possible for the movie shoot. No need to stop at some dollar store and buy shirts made of recycled paper. This meant that those extra days without doing laundry saw me wearing clothes I haven’t taken out of the closet in a long time. Thankfully, I do have enough that I didn’t run out. I suppose there are some guys who have enough outfits to last a handful of days, and if anything goes wrong, they’re stuck wearing an old T-shirt they’ve been using as an oil rag for years. The only downside to waiting to do laundry was the sheer size of the load. The laundromat I go to doesn’t have a good spin cycle to rinse the excess water out of the clothing. This means when I take them out of the washer, they weigh a ton, sopping wet. You do get a workout having to carry the basket. In total, to get that load of laundry done and fully dried, it took about 2 ½ hours. Lucky for me, all I had to do on that day was wash clothes and pack. If I had made any plans, they would have needed to be postponed. Telling someone you can’t meet them because you’re doing laundry sounds like a lame excuse because you don’t really want to see them. Next time I do a huge load like that, I’ll have to weigh it to see just how much of a workout I get when carrying it.


3. Once everything was packed and ready for the long drive out to Pennsylvania, the last thing on my list of things to do on Cape Cod was checking for a few things for the trip and the shoot itself. This meant going to Dollar Tree and Ocean State Job Lot. Hey, I’m not looking to gash the movie budget by getting expensive items. Mark, the film director, asked me to look for cheap clothes we could ruin for the film as well as some LED lights for a few scenes. As is typically the case when I go to these stores, I wandered around looking for any deals I didn’t know I needed. I got a cheap T-shirt for shredding but found myself interested in some of the other clothes. I literally just mentioned above that I didn’t want to get such clothing for my regular wardrobe, and yet here I was on the edge. I will say that teenage me would have scoffed at shopping at Job Lot, or as my Nana used to call it, ‘Odd Lot.’ Now, I find the savings more appealing than caring what some rando might think of whatever I get. I got a cool travel bag for toothpaste and things of the like. The piece de résistance, though, was buying unknown-brand energy shots at both Job Lot and Dollar Tree. They would no doubt come in handy on the long drive out. Eventually I had to remind myself that I could always come back again once the movie was done being filmed.


4. The anxiety was in full-court press Tuesday morning as I got ready to leave for Pennsylvania. Despite checking repeatedly, I still believed that I was missing something when packing. I finally had to accept that everything was good and leave. I was a little early when I got to my mom’s. It was there that I was leaving my car for the week. Leaving it at the airport wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, something like $80 for the week, but $0 is way better. It’s a good thing I was early too because it took a few minutes at the airport to figure out where to go to get my rental car. My sister Ashley, who drove me to the airport, had to circle the parking lot a few times while we figured out the protocol. Eventually she parked in front of the main terminal of the Hyannis Airport while I ran in to check. I was renting through Budget but got rerouted to Avis. The terminal was empty, as I guess not too many people are arriving or departing from Cape Cod on a Tuesday morning in September. The actual process of getting the car was easy and took a few minutes. I had wondered how many people went to the airport to rent a car but didn’t come in via plane. Surely I can’t be the only one. Oh well, they didn’t ask any questions, so I wasn’t sharing any info. Shortly after, Ashley was helping me toss my luggage into the backseat of a pretty sweet Honda Accord. Of course, it began to rain once I was ready to drive, but we’ll get to that in a moment. I was very grateful that my sister took time from her day to drop me at the airport. The money I saved alone on parking and an Uber probably covered the gas and tolls on the trips out and back.

This was what it looked like, except mine was gray.

5. Speaking of tolls. Because this was a new adventure, I wanted to try a few new things. I’d never rented a car for a trip, so driving a pretty new one with a touchscreen display was an immediate luxury. I also wanted to try a different navigation app, so I went old school with MapQuest. It all seemed fine at first. You get to pick out an avatar to move across the map while you drive. I picked someone who looked like he was from Lord of the Rings. I just kept calling him Gandalf. It was my choice to keep the toll option turned on while driving. It was already 450 miles, and I figured that was the fastest, so I could spend a little money on tolls to speed things up. What I didn’t expect was MapQuest not only bringing me to the toll road, the Mass Pike, which was expected, but also taking me off and back onto it. It was like they saw the toll option on the app and wanted to see how much they could rack up for me. I yelled that Gandalf was screwing me over, which wouldn’t have made any sense out of context. I had no clue what my toll bill would be. They do everything by license plate now, and you get a bill sent. That leads to another issue you may have guessed. It’s not my car, so it will be the rental company getting the toll bill. I am sure they will just use my card to pay for it, as I would expect. I do wonder if I can get a receipt so I can see just how much I paid. Oh, and I got rid of MapQuest and went to an old reliable in Waze. That whole getting me on and off the Pike twice was weird. I plan on keeping the toll option off for the drive home as well.


6. I have driven in all of the bad weather. Rain, snow, storms, wind, so when the weather report said some rain along my driving route, I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was a near-death experience. For a while, going through Western Massachusetts, the rain was basic showers, nothing to be too concerned about. Then as I crossed into New York, it changed. Showers became sheets of rain. It was like a whiteout to the point where my windshield wipers were almost useless. The final straw for me came when I came up on a ramp after stopping at a rest area. I was merging, but the rain was so dense I could hardly see the semi truck barreling down. I was in the middle and didn’t know whether to slam on the brakes or gun it. I gunned it, and that truck was coming up fast. All I thought was, ‘man I should have gotten the insurance on the rental.’ I was sure the truck was going to knock me into the guardrail. Luckily, I sped up enough, and the truck driver was able to get into the other lane, so a tragedy was averted. That incident convinced me to pull over and wait out the heaviest rain. My thoughts of arriving in Pennsylvania early went out the window. But hey, I arrived alive, which I think is more important than arriving early. The rain ended up staying moderate much of the way, only really stopping when I was within an hour of my destination. Naturally, as soon as I parked at the motel, the first sound I heard when stepping out was a loud boom of thunder.


7. To answer a question I asked after a 450-mile drive in one day, yes, you can get symptoms similar to jet lag when driving. It’s known as travel fatigue, but oh boy did I have a bad case of it upon arriving. Driving that far, stopping only 3 times, and having to white-knuckle miles of road due to serious rain left my brain resembling a fried egg when I got to my motel room. I texted my mom at first so she wouldn’t worry. Then I texted Mark, the director of The Cabin, so he knew I arrived. He wanted to meet up and start going over logistics of the shoot. My brain was trying to escape through my ears by this point, but I mean, I was in PA for the movie, not a vacation. I was hungry and a bit dehydrated, so trying to listen and formulate thoughts was tough, but I did my best. It was mostly catching up, going over the shoot dates, and planning some of the smaller minutiae that might fall through the cracks. Lucky for me, the following day was basically the one ‘vacation’ day I’d have. We didn’t have plans to do anything related to the movie until later in the afternoon. This gave me plenty of time to hydrate and relax. I don’t know for sure, but I think that it was the most I had driven in one day since I drove to Florida in 2005. On that trip, I got into Southern Virginia in one day from Cape Cod, which I think is over 600 miles. I was so hell-bent on beating the time that MapQuest had said for my arrival and was way ahead until the rain hit. Now I am gleefully anticipating the drive back home, part of which will be at night, and I am sure full of jet lag the next day. Oh wait, sorry, travel fatigue.


8. Travel fatigue made the choice of what to do for dinner much harder. My brain didn’t want to form coherent thoughts, so I did a lot of staring at local maps and various restaurant websites. In order to get the blood flowing again, I needed to just get moving. A half-mile away was a Sheetz, which is a convenience store chain in the Northeast. I decided to walk down there, which allowed me a cool view of Lamb’s Creek. There are more than 800 Sheetz locations, but none in New England, so when I am out in their neck of the woods, I stop in. It’s the same thing with Wawa. Not sure why, but visiting stores I can’t regularly see on Cape Cod is thrilling to me. Their claim to fame is having an actual cooking line there to make food. This isn’t like reheating pizza slices or microwaving egg sandwiches. No, this is an actual line with people working. I say all of that and didn’t order anything. I grabbed typical things, drinks and snacks. I did make sure to get enough stuff that they had to give me a plastic bag with their logo. Yes, they had branded merch in the store, but that costs money. It’s far easier to have them give me a bag that I can keep and eventually forget where I got it from. I am sure before I leave, I will be back to Sheetz. I saw a few brands of things I want to try. Yay, visiting a convenience store is exciting to me now. Man, I’m old.

9. My mind was set on having Chinese food the night I arrived in Mansfield. There were two places close by; it was just a matter of deciding which one. Mark made sure to let me know that the one located a block away, Lucky Star, was the better one. By this point it was dark out, but I had only had a protein shake during my 450-mile drive, so I needed to eat before I crashed out. Rather than drive literally 500 feet, I again just walked. No, I didn’t have PTSD from driving in the rain; these places are literally within walking distance. Mansfield is a college town. A very small college town with a population of under 3,000, but it is a college town nonetheless. So it has a walkable Main Street with lots of stores clustered together. When I went down to order my food, the streets had a charm to them. There were string lights on either side, and even though it was now September, there were still families and groups of friends out walking. I felt right at home. Two things about Lucky Star: their food was great, and the price was lower than similar places on Cape Cod. It was a win-win. I got sesame chicken and also a take-out menu as a souvenir. The portion size was also amazing. Lifting the bag was like a mini workout. I will say that the travel fatigue was a killer. I was eating and expecting to immediately feel 100%, but I was just a puddle. I was able to eat and stayed up until maybe 10:30pm, but my body was desperate for sleep. I was so tired that the bed, which was a little too firm for me, didn’t hold me back. I crashed and enjoyed the one day of being able to ‘sleep in.’ The rest of the week would be earlier wake-ups and longer days than a typical workday on Cape Cod.




10. The rain continued into the next morning. In fact, it was more heavy thunderstorms. My plan of walking a nearby bike trail went up in smoke. I used that extra time to go to the closest Walmart and gather supplies for the crew that Mark had laid out. This Walmart was a big one. It was made more impressive by the rolling hills surrounding it. As I walked toward the entrance, a huge bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by a crackling roar of thunder. A guy walking out asked loudly, ‘Who angered Zeus?’ That was pretty funny. Inside, it was a typical Walmart, although larger and cleaner than most I’ve seen. The people, though, fit right in with what you think of as Walmart folk. Not all, mind you; most of them were just ordinary people, but you had a good group of stereotypical odd folks wandering the aisles. I think it was the most I’ve ever bought at Walmart with food and drinks for the next shooting day or two. I went to self-checkout because, of course. A woman was working there, or more like watching me check out. I don’t know if she ever even looked at me while I was there. When I rolled the cart away, there wasn’t even a sound. I guess she’d have noticed if I stole anything, so why bother to interact with customers?


11. An interesting, and probably fitting, thing I’ve noticed since I started my journey off Cape Cod. The sights and music remind me of people from my life. It’s like I have been driving through previous chapters of my life as I am on this road to a new chapter. There were tons of moments like that on my drive up to Pennsylvania. Passing places that somehow sparked memories of old friends or family. Sure, I was playing my music on the drive, but it still seemed to capture the right emotions of this journey. It culminated while I was in Walmart. My favorite Grateful Dead song, Eyes of the World, came on. It’s an 18-minute jam, and a fairly odd choice to play at a Walmart. But it reminded me of an old friend, Dan, who I worked with for years cooking. He was a writer, and he pushed me to be a better writer, mostly to stop his trash talk. That never would work. That really put the icing on the cake for the symbolism part of this trip. I am fulfilling a dream, shedding parts of my old self, and also trying not to lose the essence of who I am. It’s having one foot in the future while keeping one eye on the past. I wanted to make sure I noted this phenomenon before I forgot about it in a sea of filming days.




12. As soon as the rain stopped, I was itching to get outside. I went to a nearby ‘bike and hike’ trail. One thing I noticed was how it immediately got insanely humid as soon as it wasn’t raining. It was still cloudy and maybe 75, but I was sweating pretty good after only about fifteen minutes. In total, on the trail, I walked a mile. There were more spiders than people. I did manage to spot a cute brown cat but only got a fleeting glimpse of it. I think it lived in a house right off the trail. The big thing I wanted to explore was an abandoned old bridge that crosses the Tioga River, which the trail runs along. I wasn’t desperate enough to walk the 2.5 miles in each direction, though. Nope, I drove out to where it was to hike down. Seriously, it was in the middle of nowhere. I passed vultures and crows eating a dead deer. There is an overgrown road leading down to the bridge. It’s now referred to as the Graffiti Bridge and has been closed since the mid-1970s. It is obviously covered in graffiti, which is where the name came from. I was hoping to see a live deer along the riverbanks, but sadly only that poor dead one along the road. The walk was totally worth it, and I got tons of photos and videos of it. I briefly thought of not walking onto it but figured if I didn’t I’d regret it the instant I got back to Cape Cod. It was very peaceful and way less creepy than expected based on the photos.




13. We unofficially got down to business around 4pm on Wednesday. Mark came and picked me up from the motel, and we went to his house located in the next town over. The plan was to start formulating a plan for the movie shoot while awaiting the arrival of the rest of the cast. I quickly made friends with Mark’s dog named Django. He was very old and had limited mobility. Mark even said that this past spring his family thought they were going to have to put him down. But he was there, still kicking. For me, filming a movie was all brand new, so I made sure to sit under Mark’s learning tree and ask loads of questions. One thing that hammered home that I wasn’t on Cape Cod anymore was the wildlife. To save money on the budget, we planned on using a beautiful larger shed in Mark’s backyard to stand in for a location in the film. So I am looking out of the back door and thinking about whether deer ever come through the yard. As if he were psychic, Mark mentioned that he gets a lot of deer in the yard. I laughed and then jumped back when I spotted a lone deer walking out from behind that shed. I don’t think the deer is psychic, but stranger things have happened.


14. Dinner was an event. I went with Mark. We picked up his son Anthony, who lives a few minutes away. The plan was to go meet a few others from the cast who had arrived and were staying in another hotel in Wellsboro. As we all got acquainted, or reacquainted, in the parking lot, we decided to go eat at Pizza Hut. It was convenient because it was literally a block away. For a moment, I thought Mark had said ‘Frog Hut,’ which got me intrigued because it was a place that, when looking for food on this trip, looked interesting. It was right across the street from Pizza Hut, so from our table I could see it. I hadn’t eaten at Pizza Hut since I was in high school, so it was very full-circle on this trip. There were six of us at a big table; the rest of the restaurant was empty when we got there around 5pm. The server was really friendly, and we all ordered. Then the positive coincidences continued. Someone ordered a pepperoni pizza. That’s not the coincidence. No, the server came out with a large pepperoni pizza that someone had made by mistake, and she asked if we wanted it for free. Well, you can guess what we said. There we are with all of our meals plus a free large pizza. It ended up becoming part of the food for the film crew the next day. As we laughed and told stories, the server came back and said they had made a mistake with someone’s food. She brought the mistake out, and the person who ordered took it, but then she also said they were remaking it. In the end, we got two free items. It was as if they knew we were making a movie and they wanted a positive write-up in my blog. In reality, it was one cook who made mistakes. He actually came out and apologized. We were all fine with it since it resulted in free food.

The Frog Hut

15. The Cabin wasn’t just the title of the film. It was also the largest shooting location. In order to have the film appear as isolated as it needed to be, Mark found a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I don’t use that phrase lightly. To get to it, we had to drive 25 miles north, near the New York border, to a very small and very rural town called Osceola. When I say ‘rural’ I mean like sparse houses, and of the ones you’d see, half of them looked like the people would shoot you and turn you into a skin suit if you put a toe on their property. It was one-part terrifying and one-part exhilarating. The cabin itself is owned by hunters, and oh boy could you tell. There had to have been more than 20 stuffed deer heads and deer skulls, all over the walls and on various tables. There were also stuffed squirrels, a turkey, a black bear, and probably other animals scattered about. Our job on that first trip out was to clean it enough to make it camera-ready. This meant some sweeping, covering up objects that didn’t fit with the movie’s theme, and blocking areas to fit upcoming scenes. Blocking just means getting the scenery set, like moving a bed back so we could get a clear shot of the bed where the main character in the film is supposed to be sleeping. It probably took us longer to drive out to the cabin than we were there cleaning. It was a mix of rustic, modern, confusing, and horrifying. It would prove to be home for us all for the entirety of two days of the movie shoot.

What the buck is going on?

16. We ended up making that long and lonely drive out to this cabin three times. The first time was the most memorable. It was around 6:30pm as we got deeper into the drive. I kept hoping I’d see a deer, or even a bear. What I got was lightning, and lots of it. When the rain had stopped that morning, the humidity began building. By the time dusk rolled around, it was in the mid-80s. As Mark explained it, heat lightning was a common occurrence in that area due to a similar weather pattern. On the drive out, as the sun sank behind the surrounding hills, I became fascinated with the lightning. I shot video and photos trying to get bolts of lightning. This lightning never let up. It was literally like 15-20 flashes per minute for probably three hours. That is not a stretch. It was amazing. As we got near the end of cleaning the cabin, I again wanted some lightning photos. Behind the cabin is a pathway that leads to a big clearing up a hill. There was a birdhouse on a high pole, and I thought a photo of the lightning behind the birdhouse would be money. None of the photos captured the lightning bolts. It was around this time that all of our phones got the emergency alert: tornado warning. Here we were in the middle of nowhere as it got dark, and now there was the potential for tornadoes. I turned my back to the lightning and shot a video of me explaining what we were doing and the tornado warning. All the while, the pink sky behind me was exploding with lightning flashes. It ended up being one of the best, and most surreal, experiences of my life. Once we had cleaned the cabin to Mark’s satisfaction, it was time to leave. We drove the dirt road out as the lightning made the sky look like a movie special effect. If I didn’t have the videos, I wouldn’t have believed it. There didn’t end up being any tornadoes. We also didn’t see any weird people out there, at least on that first day. The first day of the movie shoot came next, and we all had to make sure to be at Mark’s house by 8:15am. Luckily, the first scenes to be shot were inside his house, so it was shaping up to be a good way to ease us into filming The Cabin.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #136: Expensive Soup, Goodbye Dolly, Finally Caught, etc.

1. I have heard of things being marked down in a store, but this one takes the cake. While in a supermarket, I was looking for soup to have with dinner. Of course there are loads of ‘New Low Price’ stickers everywhere. They don’t mention that first they had to jack the costs up a ton, so the low prices are still probably above where they should be. Anyway, I noticed one particular markdown that caught my eye. It was a Campbell’s soup, now marked at $3.99. The old price? $21.99. For soup? Unless it’s made with fresh lobster mixed with real gold, I couldn’t imagine any soup being that expensive. Honestly, I think it was a mistake, but still I had to grab a photo of it so nobody would think I was telling tall tales. You know, like seeing a three-foot garter snake but telling everyone it was a fifteen-foot boa constrictor? Not that I’ve ever told anyone that.

That's some markdown

2. Sometimes workouts wipe you out, and you know it immediately. Sometimes they are sneaky and leave you a puddle after you’re done. This week I had a shorter day at work. Since there literally is a gym attached to the office where I train people, I figured why not just use that instead of driving somewhere else. When I exercise at my work gym, it typically ends up being option overload. I have unobstructed access to almost anything I could want for training. This time it was lots of kettlebells, BOSU, cable machine, and such. I worked every major muscle and even threw in some HIIT cardio while I was at it. Good job for thirty minutes. I got done and had barely broken a sweat, so I figured I hadn’t gone as hard as I did. The joke was on me; before I had even gotten into my car, my body felt like it was turning to dust. All I wanted to do was go home and collapse in a heap on the floor, but I had to stop at the store. If I could have lain on the floor and slept, I would have. The best workouts are when you feel you didn’t do enough but in reality did more than enough. I’m sure some of you are saying the best workouts are none at all. That is a perfectly fine choice as well.


3. One of the banes of my existence during the warmer months is woodpeckers. I am kidding; it’s not that bad, but they do become annoying. Obviously, if you just look at their name, you know this bird loves to peck at wood. Every year they return and choose the areas on the other side of my walls to hammer away at. What do you do to stop them? I’ll bang on the other side of the wall to scare them off, but what if they don’t get scared? I was hitting the wall, and the dang woodpecker just kept going. There was only so hard I was going to pound on the wall. I could just imagine me putting a hole in the wall trying to scare a bird. I mean, how do you explain that to someone? If you say you were trying to scare away woodpeckers, they might just call the nuthouse to come and get you. You’d almost be better off saying it was roid rage or something like that. In the end, the woodpecker got tired of annoying me, I guess, and went away. The only thing worse than a woodpecker attacking the walls is when they do the same thing to the gutters. Then it goes from a dull thud to a jackhammer that never ceases to give me a mini heart attack when it happens.

It was one of these that was the culprit.

4. Live your life in a way that, when you pass, hundreds of millions of people feel like they have lost a loved one. That is the sentiment I get when looking around social media after the death of music icon and humanitarian icon Dolly Parton at the age of 80 this week. She is someone whose music touched generations, but whose contributions to society in general touched so many more. She made life better for countless people whom she never met. I have been reading dozens of stories from celebrities and ordinary people about their interactions and connections to Dolly. I am preparing a blog post to go more in depth, but I will quickly summarize mine. When dealing with a crisis of confidence or uncertainty about where I am going in my life, I look for inspiration and direction. I tend to look toward not just people who have been successful, but people who have been successful and, on top of that, a good person. Numerous Dolly Parton quotes have made the rounds in my life during the last several years. The biggest one in particular is her quote: “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” I felt that, as I have always felt like there was something beyond just a (no pun intended) 9-to-5 job. I have been trying to create my own path for years, and that quote reassures me each time I read it. I think there are very few people who were as universally loved and admired as Dolly Parton. Her death, even though she was 80, has stunned the world. But I circle back to the top. I feel like I am part of the largest group of mourners ever. Hundreds of millions of us feel like we lost someone special even though the vast majority of us never met her or even saw her in real life. There will never be another like Dolly Parton. Rest in peace to the Queen of Country. We will always love you.



5. I want to piggyback on that last entry. There are many celebrities, in particular musicians, who have inspired me with their work. Sadly, when you’re working on creating your own path, you sometimes forget to give thanks to those who inspire you to carry on. Such as it was with Dolly Parton. It was like after hearing of her death, I remembered all of the times that I read quotes of hers that seemed to bring clarity to my mind. I should have put it out in the universe, even if it was a social media post that she’d never see. Yes, celebrities don’t need the validation; after all, they have already made it. However, I would know that they lent a hand in my journey even if they never did. This is going to be a kind of catch-all, thank-you purge while it is fresh in my mind, as I don’t want to have a posthumous thank you as I just did for Dolly Parton. Whether working on a creative project or simply looking for answers in a sometimes overwhelming life, these are the artists whose music I have leaned on the most in those times. Thank you so much to: Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Norah Jones, Dave Grohl, Elton John, Phil Collins, Thom Yorke, Glen Phillips, Bono, Michael Stipe, Sade, and probably more, but those are the people whose words and music have spoken to me above all others. There are certainly more who have since passed on, but I wanted to thank these people while I still have the chance.


6. My life at times feels like two totally different films smashed together. No matter if they make sense, they are jammed into one hybrid. I feel like I am, on one hand, a health-conscious, wise, confident, and driven person. Then on the other hand, I am a self-loathing, terrified person bound to bits of self-destructive behavior. One day this week, it crystallized in a series of events that saw me ping-pong back and forth from fitness to fatness. I began at my day job as a personal trainer. As the day drew to a close, I was hungry and decided that going for a run was not going to happen. I wanted to eat, preferably something bad. That came in the form of a large pepperoni pizza. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it tasted great, but it left me feeling angry, knowing the amount of exercise I’d have to do to burn off what I’d just eaten. A few hours later, I was doing some writing work and felt the urge to go for a walk. So after eating a large pizza I proceeded to go and walk nearly 5 ½ miles on a perfect summer afternoon. I burned over 700 calories. Finally, the day swung totally in the opposite direction again. I got hungry after the walk and couldn’t decide what to have for dinner. My mind was set on cereal. So I went and got a box of cereal to have for dinner. Not a bowl, the whole box. It is wild when I write it down to think about how I swung in such opposing ways in the same day. I was a personal trainer and went for a long walk, burning lots of calories. Yet on the same day I ate a large pizza and a box of cereal. So yes, my life feels like it can be a pair of diametrically opposed films that are crashing into each other. It’s sort of like when you mix two perfect colors of Play-Doh, and it makes some weird color. The weirdest thing is that I kind of enjoy almost having the best of both worlds. I do heavy bouts of exercise when I want to and don’t deprive myself of the foods I like, even if they are way less than healthy.


7. The latest episode of being the fun uncle. I went to my mom’s to visit, and my 7-year-old niece Sylvie was there. We had fun with stuffed animals playing around. Sylvie had this spray-on, leave-in conditioner, and she started spraying the animals and combing their fur. Naturally, she wanted to style my hair by spraying the conditioner in it. The only issue is that I have less than an inch of hair on my head. I don’t need much conditioner. She also grabbed a pen and said she might be able to color in my gray hairs, but that didn’t work. To say I ended up with a lot of that conditioner in my hair would be a huge understatement. I’d say conservatively Sylvie sprayed the bottle 20 times on my head. It was plastered down with it. I left it in the whole time she was there, but once she had gone home, I went straight to the bathroom to try to wash it out. Despite soaking my head with water, I could still feel it hanging on. I guess that makes it a good conditioner. It took a full, hot shower to finally remove all of the conditioner. I did make the mistake of telling Sylvie that in the winter I will have a lot more hair. That means the odds of a follow-up featuring the conditioner are likely, but with even more to slick my hair down.

This is the stuff she used, I'm impressed I found it.

8. I know we were all kids once. I know most of us did dangerous and reckless things when we were kids. I’m assuming that those who are Gen-X like have way more stories and battle scars than a lot of the younger people do. I preface this next story by saying all of this so that I can then say that kids have to be smarter. I was leaving the supermarket one evening this week. I took a back road behind the plaza and through a neighborhood because in the summer it’s way easier than trying to navigate Route 28 (our busiest street on Cape Cod). On this occasion, I was going slow to a stop sign and preparing to turn right down another road. I would say 99 out of 100 times when I hit that intersection, there is nobody anywhere. No cars, no people, just a wide open road. However, I also never assume, so I stopped and waited a moment. Good thing I did. Without warning, and from an area completely shielded by bushes, a kid on a motorized scooter came flying around the corner. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t look, just flies right in front of my car. I had no idea that he was there until he flew in front of my car. It was a total blind spot. I am so grateful that I was taking my time because if I had started driving a second or two earlier, I could have hit that kid. I can only assume he goes down that route and never sees a car. I also remember, as a teenager, you feel you’re invincible until something comes along to slap you in the face. I shouted a few words at his stunned face and then went on my way. I am glad I didn’t end up being his wake-up call to be more careful, or something worse.


9. This week I finished the series Glitch on Netflix. It was another in my run of sci-fi, supernatural, suspenseful shows. Yes, I guess I have a type. The series is from Australia and has 18 episodes, which are divided into 3 seasons. The gist of it is a group of people returns from the dead, literally crawling out of their graves. The show is then trying to figure out why they came back looking normal and healthy, and also the ramifications of their return. I won’t spoil anything but will say it actually has a happy ending despite it being totally different than what I expected. One thing totally unrelated to the plot of the show has to do with the recent trend on streaming platforms of original shows having incredibly small numbers of episodes counting as a ‘season.’ 6 episodes is a season? Even 8-10 is weak. I guess growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when TV shows had 20 or so episodes in a season, I have been spoiled. Attention spans and commitment levels are a lot shorter in the 2020s. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t matter much when you’re binging a show that has already run its course, but I have a few shows that are still currently going, and having to wait a year or more for another handful of episodes is pretty lame. I’ll still do it, but yes, I will complain about it along the way.

10. Well, it only took 9 months, but Netflix finally realized I was getting all of their shows ad-free when my subscription was the low tier with ads. I had wondered if they would ever catch on. I mean, I certainly wasn’t going to write to a multi-billion dollar corporation and tell them I was getting a higher tier than what I was paying for. In December, when I got Netflix back, I noticed after a few days I hadn’t seen one ad during my time on the platform. Weeks turned to months, and I almost started taking it for granted, expecting that they might have forgotten about me. This week I was watching something when all of a sudden an ad popped up. Then, maybe ten minutes into the show, a full-on ad break came on. I was sad for a moment, but hey, I had a good run with ad-free Netflix. Besides, I grew up in the times when you couldn’t skip commercials; they were just part of the experience. I guess if I was a kid who had only known streaming, I might be upset. I’m old, though; I can deal with a few ads with my shows. It’s just like the 90s all over again. Well, except my knee doesn’t get sore because of playing sports; it gets sore because it’s Tuesday.


11. As things ramp up for going on location to film The Cabin next week, I have gotten to enjoy recording some scenes with friends that I cast in the movie. First, it cuts down on the search for people to play the roles. Second, it allows me to thank them by giving them roles in the film. Two scenes were audio-only, as they will be telephone calls in the film. A third was a fake Zoom call. The audio scenes went pretty seamlessly. In the end, I decided that it might be better to do the fake Zoom call in person, just in case anything went wrong. Boy, I was lucky I did. There were a few minor mishaps when it came to lighting and sound that would have been harder to try to solve from the other end of a computer. Plus, if you’re on Zoom, you only get something like 45 minutes of video time before it shuts down. I could have just imagined needing to spend most of that time fixing technical issues only to have Zoom kick us off as we finally got going. In the end, we got it all to work and got the scenes shot. It was the final thing I could do on Cape Cod for the film before heading off on location in a few days.