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American Morning

Ground Zero Workers' Hard Hats Say It All

Aired March 18, 2002 - 08:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Patriotic bumper stickers adorned cars all across the country following September 11th. Some express support for all of the heroes still digging in the rubble that was once the World Trade Center. But how are the hard-headed recovery workers at Ground Zero showing their patriotism?

CNN's Jeanne Moos reports they're not the kind of people who wear their hearts on their sleeves. If you want to know what is on their minds, just check out their heads.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Remember the old saying, keep it under your hat? Well, the workers down by the World Trade Center tend to keep it on their hat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a Ground Zero sticker.

MOOS (on camera): "I'm always like this," that's cute. "My day's not complete until I've terrified a complete stranger."

(voice-over): There's nothing tongue-tied about these guys when it comes to their headgear.

(on camera): So, just like an anti-scab sticker?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nonunion.

MOOS (voice-over): You can ponder everything from a slogan inspired by the group, the Grateful Dead...

(on camera): Another dope...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dopeless (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MOOS (voice-over): To sentiments of those grateful to be alive. We may call them hard hats, but they're soft on this subject.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 18 hats. That's for the 18 carpenters that we lost over here.

MOOS (on camera): So give us a tour of your hat. What do you got on it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, well, let's start at the beginning here.

MOOS (voice-over): Of course the most common adornment is...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Old Glory.

MOOS: And the most glorious version is the hard hat itself painted like a flag.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have any decals on it because I've already been willing it for my grandson, but he wants it as soon as I am done with it.

MOOS: You may not think of hard hats as poets, but this electrician penned part of his own poem on his hat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "As we start to mend, slow down, smile, joke, make a friend."

MOOS: From the poetic to the prosaic...

(on camera): "All people suck," very nice.

(voice-over): To the personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My daughter gave me that one yesterday. She had her teeth cleaned.

MOOS (on camera): Let's see if your teeth are clean.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't say I had my teeth cleaned.

MOOS: I just wanted to see if you had anything exciting up there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You all right?

MOOS: Yeah, I'm all right. No problem. I'm the one who needs a hard hat.

(voice-over): Some use their headgear to carry useful objects.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just a chock to hold doors open when we go into fires.

MOOS: You've got to take your hat off to a guy whose hat reads -- I fear no beer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here, that's Governor Pataki.

MOOS (on camera): Hey, look at his hat hair.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got hat head.

MOOS: You got a lot of hat head here.

(voice-over): VIPs touring the site are always asked to autograph hard hats, from presidents to Paula Zahn. The president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, signed this guy's hat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "With respect and admiration."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this here is my friend, Willie Love (ph), dock builder.

MOOS (on camera): Well, I don't get it. You got your friend signing your hat?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, that's my friend. He felt left out because I had these other people on my hard hat.

MOOS (voice-over): For once it's easy to read a guy's mind.

(on camera): "Don't interrupt me when I'm talking to myself."

(voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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