Caring for calves, milking cows, chopping corn — pretty much every farmer, as well as non-farmer, remembers exactly what they were doing and where they were on that September day. Dan Baginski is no exception.
However, Dan, the son of Dan and Maureen Baginski, who own and operate Dan Maur Farms in Othello, Washington, recalls more of where he wasn’t on 9/11 than where he was.
Dan had made his way back to his Washington childhood farm, some 3,000 miles away from his new home and new job located in New York City.
The Morning Everything Changed
On that September morning, the Baginskis were at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup, prepping for show day.
“We were milking in the fair parlor when we first heard about the news report, and I walked out to find mom and crew on the wash rack when the first tower fell,” Dan recalls, a quarter-century later.
He had taken vacation time from his New York City job to join the family to show some of their beloved Brown Swiss cattle. This was the first time since Dan finished grad school that he was able to join his family out west to help show cows.
While smoke and uncertainty plagued the Big Apple, the Baginskis were focused on showing cows. That was until the news spread of an airplane flying into the World Trade Center. The family paused, as did the country. The words coming out of the radio were surreal, especially considering Dan’s office was in the second tower at the World Trade Center. The one that was hit first. Then minutes later, the other tower was struck.
Dan’s desk was on the 78th floor of the South Tower — the exact impact zone where United Airlines Flight 175 crashed at 9:03 a.m.
The Realization
The next day it began sinking in for the Baginskis. If Dan hadn’t flown back to Washington for the State Fair — if he hadn’t taken vacation time to show Brown Swiss cattle with his family — he would have been at work in the World Trade Center.
Some of Dan’s coworkers made it out alive, but many did not, including his manager and 25 others from his office.
His sister Jennifer was not in Washington with her family at the fair. Instead, she was living in New York City at the time and recalls seeing everything from the view of her apartment.
“I remember being in the middle of it, literally, hearing and seeing everything unfold from my Soho apartment,” she says.
25 Years of Remembering
Even now, 25 years later, Dan speaks about what unfolded that September day with a lump in his throat and gratitude in his heart.
“First responders put themselves in danger every single day to protect their neighbors and fellow citizens,” he says. “I remember we hung the American flag at the fair that morning in 2001; it has always been an important part of our fair decorations.”
Dan has been to funerals. He has had to bury friends from college, and he says he never really cried.
“I don’t know what it is about 9/11,” he says. “That day touched so many Americans, even those that had no ties to New York City and the towers. It especially touched me and my family.”
Driving home from the fair that week, the Baginski family says that patriotic signs and flags were everywhere on I-90. Dan remembers he cried the entire way home.
The Key He Still Carries
Now, a quarter-century later, Dan still carries his World Trade Center Tower Two key on his keychain as a reminder of how fortunate he was to be far away from New York City on that September day.
The key opens a door that no longer exists. An office that was obliterated. A tower that fell.
But for Dan Baginski, that key represents something more: the inexplicable grace of being exactly where he was supposed to be — not at a desk in Lower Manhattan, but in a fair barn in Washington, milking Brown Swiss cows with his family.
Twenty-five years later he still carries that key.
And every September 11th, he remembers the coworkers who didn’t make it home. The manager who perished. The 25 others from his office who were at their desks that morning while he was 3,000 miles away, doing what his family has always done: taking care of cows.
“I think about them every year,” Dan says quietly. “And I’m grateful — grateful for my family, grateful for the farm, grateful for the decision to go show cows that week.”
The cow show that saved his life. He’s never taken a single day for granted since.
