September 11th is upon us yet again. Even in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there are many shows that will be airing this weekend about that fateful day.
There are not many days in my life that are those "Where were you when you heard.....?" moments. I was young when Challenger exploded. I don't remember. I do remember that I was at my cousin's wedding shower when Columbia exploded. Someone said to turn on the news because the space shuttle had just exploded. How sad that so many didn't even know that a shuttle had launched.
I remember the Oklahoma City bombing. My grandparents live just outside of OK City, so my first thought was for them. I remember hearing about it when I got home from school. There were pictures of people covered in blood and debris. If you ever get the chance to visit the memorial in OK City, go! It is a wonderful tribute. Take a box of Kleenex. There's a room where there are plastic shadow boxes -- one for each person killed. There's a picture as the back wall and then family members (I assume) put things in the boxes as memories. They have Kleenex in there. Good thing. I was balling. It was very sad to see some of the same toys I had bought for my daughter as lasting memories of children killed.
And, of course, I remember September 11th. I was in college, living in the dorm. I was waiting for financial aid to go through before I paid my tuition. On September 10th, I got a letter from the housing office that I was going to be evicted because I hadn't paid my tuition and was going to be dropped from my classes the next day. I knew the last day to pay wasn't the 11th, but I was going to get this straight with housing before they screwed it up. I skipped class that morning to straighten it out. I took a shower and came back into my room and turned on the Today show as usual. When I turned around, they were showing the Pentagon on fire. They said that the World Trade Centers had been hit as well. They showed the footage of the plane slamming into the second tower. How could that not be forever burned into my memory? I went to the business office. It was so quiet. They had TVs showing the news and the footage over and over again. I left and went to work. Between the time I left the business office and got to work, the first building had collapsed. They knew the second one would follow. For days, everyone was glued to the TV.
I can't believe it's been (not quite) 4 years now. What a sad anniversary for so many people.
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I was on my way to work, in the drive-thru line at Dunkin Donuts, listening to Howard Stern. At first everyone thought it was an accident. And then the second plane hit.
I remember that when I arrived at work one of my co-workers had lost his laptop. We’ve since concluded that he left it on top of his car and drove away (he was just an idiot like that), but that morning he kept trying to convince us that someone came into the office and stole it off his desk. All day long he was obsessed with the laptop, kept harassing everyone about it, and just couldn’t fathom why no one else was interested.
We didn’t have a TV in our office but we kept checking a bunch of different websites and listening to the radio. When they first started to report that one of the towers collapsed, my boss didn’t believe it. She told us that it was impossible and that we should turn off the radio and get back to work.
It was also my mother’s birthday.
I can't believe it's been 4 years either. I was working with a co-worker in a different building, away from my office. A manager in the bldg came and told us that the first tower had been hit. My co-worker's husband flew for Delta at the time and they said initially that one of the planes was a Delta plane from Boston and her husband was leaving from Boston that morning to fly somewhere. She didn't know where he was for several hours. We were glued to Cnn.com, etc when we could get on - it kept crashing.
Later that morning, we heard about the Pentagon getting hit. My mother in law worked there at the time and we didn't hear from her for several hours. I remember frantic IMs, phone calls, etc. until someone finally talked to her.
Very scary time, one I truly hope we don't have to relive.
The irony is that my son also truly walked for the first time that day.
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