It is 7 years today since 9/11 happened. Do you remember where you were? I remember it like it was yesterday...
I was a Junior in college, it was the 2nd full week of school. I got up at like 8:30 for my 9:45 class. I took a shower. Put on my favorite shirt which was a dark blue T-shirt with "COLLEGE" written across the front and I was wearing shorts, of course. It was unusual for me to eat breakfast in college, but for some reason this morning I poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat in front of my roommate's big TV, turned it on. Right away I was seeing images of smoke pouring out of the world trade center. At first I didn't think much of it, I figured there was a fire on one of the floors and they were working to put it out. So I changed the channel, then I changed it again and on every major station this news story was on. It must have been more than a fire I thought, so I listened to the broadcast and quickly saw footage of a plane hitting the first tower. As I was kept eating breakfast I started to hear reports that another plane struck the 2nd tower. "What is going on!" I thought.
Well, it was time for me to start going to class. I remember passing Ryan Alt on the way to my ECE 330 Signals and Systems lecture and he said something like "S^*t's going down, man." and he just kept walking. I got to my class and they brought a TV out with the news coverage on. My professor was like "I understand if you don't want to be at lecture today so you can go if you'd like." So everybody went into the hallway to watch the TV.
Around lunchtime I went over to my friend, Christy's, place to go and grab some lunch. When I was in her apartment I said "Man, isn't this crazy whats going on in New York City this morning?" And she didn't know what I Was talking about. So I told her and I remember tears welled up in her eyes and she put her head in her hands but she didn't cry. We turned on the TV for a bit and then went down to State St. to get some lunch at Q'Doba.
That afternoon, I called Amber and we talked about what was going on, she came over and we watched the news for a long time and that's when we found out that a plane hit the Pentagon and another crashed in PA. My mom called as well to see how I was doing. I remember she wrote me an email that day with the subject "Cruel World"
Then I went to bed. And over the course of the week I remember attending a memorial service on campus for the victims and watching the concert in NYC for the fireman and their families. Bruce played an acoustic version of "My City of Ruins". Very fitting.
Every year around this time I'm always a bit anxious as to what is going to happen on 9/11 this year, if anything. "What do the terrorists have planned this year" I keep thinking. And of course I see the shows of all the footage of that day which gives me the chills. Especially when CNN re-plays the actual broadcast as the events unfolded that day.
The world hasn't been the same since!
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I remember I was in my dorm room, and I was woken up at about 7:50 when my phone rang. It was my ex-girlfriend calling me hysterically about how we were under attack, and how she was scared. I don't remember how I responded to her at the time, but I know that I was a little groggy at the time, since her call woke me. I turned on the TV, and I'm pretty sure I just sat there watching it for the rest of the day. I remember when the second plane hit, and wondering what was happening. Then the towers collapsed, which seemed surreal.
I think being removed from the event by so much space made the attack somewhat less real to me. Even after seeing the Ground Zero site, it's an event that in my mind is undefined. I remember it well, and yet it's not something that stands out in my memory.
I often wonder whether my cool reaction to mentions of 9/11 has to do with the way that the attacks have been exploited and abused as justifications for political actions. 7 years later, politicians still invoke the image of 9/11 any time that they think it might help them, and some pretty terrible abuses of power have happened under the name of 9/11.
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