It's been nearly a generation since the scariest moment in many of our lifetimes. I try to keep it fresh in mind and give the tragedy its due, but man, it's getting harder and harder to believe it wasn't just a dream I had.
As always, I raise a glass to those who lost their lives that day.
The sense memory of this day that I have puts me back into AB Anderson Hall on the campus of UMD. I can almost smell the printmaking studio.
I was driving from Hartford, SD to Sioux Falls when I heard about the first plane. Dropped kids off at daycare, and while talking to the provider, we watched the second one hit on live TV. I remember just being in a daze at work all day.
I was off that day. The last girl in my life pre-Milkmaid called me and woke me up after the first one and the second happened while we were on the phone. We must have sat in silence on the phone for a good ten minutes before either of us could speak.
I'm sure I've said it before, but that's part of the ritual for shared tragedies, and I kind of like that... Anyway, I was supposed to fly into NY that day to connect to a flight to Athens. I finished packing my last bag and was heading out to the car when my dad called and told me to turn on the TV. I watched the second plane hit a couple minutes later. It took 2 weeks before we were able to go on our study abroad trip, and a number of the students dropped out. Europe was amazingly hospitable to Americans during the months I was there, and I had the fortune of being kind of disengaged from a lot of the anger back home. It enabled a much more sober reflection on the event than I otherwise would have had, I think.
I avoided the potential 40th birthday hubub at work and took a vacation day to (among other things) talk to Runner daughter's 3rd grade science class about stars and the sun*. I was in the middle of dressing for the day when I saw the second plane strike. I ended up having to deflect several tower-related questions from the third graders that morning. I also remember threading my way home with Runner daughter after piano lessons that evening, trying to take a route which didn't take us past the lines at gas stations.
*the sun was active at that time
The answer to "Where is Perry, FL?"
Uh, make that Thomasville, GA.
We had just moved into our current house. I had no TV because I was waiting for the DirecTV guy to hook it up. My wife called to let me know what was going on. I had to listen to what I could on the radio. The DirecTV guy was testing out our satellite TV hookup when the first tower fell.
I was sitting in my cubicle at Lawson when my colleague across the way asked if I'd heard about the plane hitting the tower. After reading everything we could find online and finally realizing this wasn't a small plane but a jetliner, a few of us went down to the cafe to watch on the big TV and that's when the second plane hit. Not long after that my cell phone started ringing and I had to get to work, I was the main media contact for the company. We had consultants and salespeople in the air, including from our Boston office, and flights were being diverted all over the place, the underwriter for our long-anticipated IPO that was scheduled for the following week was at ground zero (Lehman in 3 World Financial Center), so I was pretty busy and didn't really have time to even start process stuff until I got home that evening.
Our neighbor was a TWA pilot at the time and was one of the last planes to land that day; he was somewhere out towards Indianapolis and was allowed to land at home base StL.
I'd come home after (skipping) my morning class to take a nap, and my mom yelled down to tell me "they blew up the World Trade Center." I'd assumed she just was watching something on the 1993 bombing, and tried to go back to sleep. She woke me up to tell me about the second tower getting hit and I got up after that. My employer called me to let me know I didn't have to work that night since they'd closed to the mall. My friend, who I was very concerned about as he was at AIT near Washington, D.C. called to tell me about his terrible day*. My aunt from Colorado was in town visiting my Grandma, and I remember the whole family watching CNN that night.
* He'd received jelly with the vegetable crackers in his MRE. "Who the hell would eat jelly with vegetable crackers!?" he asked me. I was just glad he was okay.
Meatloaf with Gravy. I remember, and still detest, that MRE. Not terrible comparable to the events of the day, but pretty awful.
I only had channel 4 down in the Hiawatha valley so rarely turned anything on in the morning before class, and that day didn't sign onto AOL either. Got to my morning class and classmates started talking. I think the second plane had just hit when I first learned about it. Winona State allowed classes to go until noon (!) before they cancelled the rest of the day. My 10:00 am class we had a test, and in a brief moment of clarity, the professor through out the test results the next day.
Anyway, spent most of the next several hours in the student center with a hundred kids just staring at the tv. So quiet. Then I just went home and talked to family on the phone as I could.
Saw the aftermath of the first tower being hit in the food court at the student union. Was in class when the second tower and Pentagon were hit (lots of cell phones going off in class), and saw the smoke rising from the Pentagon two miles to the south when I exited class.
I remember Papa Young getting ahold of me through Sheenie's IM (because all phones were down) and telling me to start walking and just get as far from DC as I could by foot. He's normally so calm and rational that, to this day, that reaction of trying to get me away and assuming I was in danger is still incredibly jarring.
Was in my bedroom stretching before going to campus (non-teaching day, iirc) and had turned on a morning show.
Both of the Mrs's brothers lived in Manhattan at the time, which added to the mix.
Sixteen years on, I don't really have much new to say about today's anniversary or my experience. I've shared it before, but Wisława Szymborska's "Photograph from September 11" is worth reading today, whether or not you have previously.
What would be interesting to me is to see what I've written here at the WGOM on this day for the past 12 years and see how much my story has changed, or if I've forgotten details or added stuff.
Nibbish - watch your email for cribbage league info. Hope you are in again this year. Starts next week!
Husker du's early work up on NPR first listen. Good memories and some new surprises.
I was a sophomore in college, laying on the couch in one of our dorm rooms trying to sleep before my first class of the day. My roommate came in saying "dude, a plane just crashed into the world trade center." I didn't believe him and tried to go back to sleep until he turned the TV on,i think just in time for the buildings to actually start to come down.
I think the class I had that day was just sociology and everyone just sort of sat there without saying anything until the teacher just canceled the class.
I moved to Irvine, CA, for grad school about 2 months prior, but classes hadn't started yet, so I had nothing to do that day, and slept through all of the crashes. My (now ex) wife had recently started her job, and heard about it in the car on the way to work. She initially thought it was a (dumb and not funny) prank by the morning DJ's, until she switched stations and found out it was the only thing on the radio. She called me and woke me up, telling me to turn on the TV, that the World Trade Center was gone. I remember groggily trying to understand what that meant, until they showed a replay of one of the towers coming down. Being a West Coaster by then, both towers had already collapsed by the time I knew anything about it. And having nothing I needed to do, I spent the next two days sitting on the couch, watching non-stop news coverage.
My dad was in Las Vegas at the time for business, and couldn't get a flight home to Minnesota for at least a week, so it ended up being quicker and easier for him to take a Greyhound to Los Angeles, stay with us for a few days, and then fly back home from John Wayne Airport.
Steve Howe's son Virgil died. Dang.
I was at the house waiting for a contractor to do some repair work. Got a call from someone - turn on your T.V. - saw the second plane crash. News dudes were postulating this was happening in every big city across the country. I walked out of the house onto the driveway and stood there, with my head spinning.
I walked by the Art office and saw the office staff huddled around a radio and heard some muffled report of a plane crash in NYC, and as I walked into my advisors office the second plane crashed. He was listening to the radio as well, and we both just sat in his office looking at each other in disbelief. Eventually, I walked home and all my roommates were in front of the TV watching coverage trying to make sense of the thing. I can still see the interior of 2022 E 5th street, Duluth, MN on that day.
Speaking of bad things happening to towers, Alex Meyer is out the rest of this year and next year to fix his shoulder.
You can easily fit the word "twin" in there too, but I'm still afraid it's too soon.