9/11, eight years later

Jesus, it's hard to believe. Eight years ago tonight most of us were probably watching Broncos-Giants on Monday Night Football. I was playing Boggle with the wife. It was the last night of normal.

Next morning I woke up to a friend calling me and telling me to put on the TV and that was that.

I know some sense of normalcy is returning to the day and the coverage is not as all-encompassing as it was in the first few years after it happened, but I hope this day always remain raw and relevant to those who us who lived through the abject terror of staring at a cruelly perfect sky and wondering what was next.

 

The last night of normal is a great way to put it.

And Ed McCaffrey broke his leg in that game, screwing up my fantasy team.

Was at my brother's the other night and there was a special on some cable channel with the footage of the towers after they were hit. I hadn't seen it since 9/11. It was very surreal.

 

I was in high school chemistry class when an announcement asked us to turn on the TV. Shock.

 

My original post had something about how my wife began student teaching the next day. She was driving in to work and heard McCaffrey--who was also on her team--was out for the year. She said to me that night: "I said to myself: 'Can my day get any worse?'"

I'll never forget running to the bathroom upon realizing I had a friend in the Towers and being unsure if I should sit on the toilet or get on my knees and grip it. Thank goodness he was fine, and thank goodness I somehow lost no friends or loved ones despite knowing countless people who work in NYC & in the Capital region of DC. Many thoughts today to those who were not so fortunate.

 

8 years ago at this very moment I was only a few miles away from the bastards who left from Portland, ME in the early hours of 9/11 to fly to Logan to hijack a plane. They spent the night on the town in Portland, just as my friend & I did. We were in town for a trade show the morning of the 11th & the thought of how close we possibly came to those fucks sickens me. I know they went to Wal Mart. We went to the Olive Garden & a mall (the sausage in my spaghetti had me running for a toilet in the mall) and who knows if our cars passed each other or even if we shared a stall in that bathroom.

Obviously the show was canceled & it was certainly a long & quiet ride back to CT listening to the harrowing news reports from the NYC AM news stations.

 

I was woken up by my brother in law, heard it on the answering machine, knew I'd be in for a long day, long week, and long months ahead. In a way, I really appreciated having something to do that day, going around to local college campuses and getting reaction. Very thereputic. I'll never forget when I called the local fire department for their reaction "People are really shaken up, we've lost more than 300 brothers today."
In the weeks ahead I covered more community events, more stuff that featured American flags (I think we had to have red, white and blue art on A1 every day for at least a month) and even embedded with a military unit during training (stateside). A hell of a day.

I'll have the flag out tomorrow. God bless the 2,966. The 6,030 soldiers who've died since and the others that have died in the conflict.

 

I'll never forget being awakened by the sirens in New York City. You always hear sirens in the city but this was like every siren was going off. I looked out the window and saw the smoke pouring out of the WTC. I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV and didn't turn it off for days. I watched the towers come down from 36th Street, a heartbreaking sight. Every moment of that day is seared into my memory as are many of the things I would see for days to come. One thing that really sticks with me is the way New Yorkers were acting toward each other during that time. Every time you walked down the street or into a restaurant, you'd see people hugging each other and saying how glad they were to see each other. It really was, in an odd way, a stirring few days in the city with a real sense of shared sorrow.

 

Just kind of weird to think I was on top of the Towers twice.

 

I was in SoCal at the time. And as I have said here before, I did not weep or freak out, because at the time I had no friends or relatives in NYC and I didn't want to trivialize the all-too-real grief of those who did by attempting to artificially involve my West Coast self and my emotions in this tragedy.

I later found out that a friend was at a press conference in the Pentagon when it was hit.

Still . . . the uncertainty was a bit nerve-wracking, as we wondered where was next. The Howard Stern show, my only window onto NYC at the time, was an absolute classic that day, and not for humorous reasons.

9/11 finally became truly real to me last summer, when a Jersey native and friend described his friend's first-hand experience to me as we walked the streets near Ground Zero. Being there filled the gaps in my imagination.

Still, can't begin to imagine the emotions felt at this time every year by those who were genuinely touched by this event.

As for it changing everything . . . I sometimes wish it had. But we're all still quite eager to jump down each other's throats these days. Especially politically.

 

Third worst tragedy to befall the U.S. this decade, IMO.

No. 1 being the economic meltdown. No. 2 being Katrina.

 

From the Washington Post...

The rest is here...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091004425.html?hpid=topnews

 

I remember hearing about it on Stern, of all places, then going to a journalism class where we talked about the impact it would have. A few cell phones went off and we moved from the building to the student union to watch and see the media coverage.
When the second tower fell, we were all silent.
Twenty or 30 minutes later I started walking to my next class (it was cancelled when I got there) and ran into my buddy, a native Long Islander who's sister and dad worked near the Towers. Asked him if he checked in at home yet and if things were OK. He asked why.
He had a tough morning schedule with a two-hour 9 a.m. class and hadn't seen a TV or heard anything from anyone. When I told him I thought he was going to collapse.
Classes were cancelled and we spent the next 10-12 hours in and out of the TV room at our house.