9-11

[hawing]

I can remember a week later going to my brother's soccer game, which was at night, and seeing a few planes fly and wondering in my mind if they would fly into something.

 

Another memory uncovered from my fall 2001: Originally, we were supposed to go to a game at Wrigley on the Saturday after the attacks, then a game at MP that Sunday. Both were postponed to the first weekend of October. So there we were on the first Saturday in October at Wrigley, and I couldn't help but watch every plane that flew overhead. By the latter innings we timed the planes: they went over every 70 seconds.

 

Incidentally, the cubs played the scurvy cur pirates that day - I'm pretty sure. Sammy had an ITP home run, which I missed by being in the bathroom. I was mildly disappointed to miss the ITP, but less so since it was Sosa's accomplishment.

 

(Edited to highlight the quote)

[Principessa21]

I was walking to lab with a friend of mine, and she got a message that said something like "someone flew into the towers." I rolled my eyes, and said to my friend something like "I can't believe they still land helicopters on the buildings in new york." My friend, who's from Queens, responded with "yea, right." My orthodonist was on the east side, and I always went past the MetLife building on my way there. My father once told me once when I was a kid that he saw someone fly a plane into it, like years ago. So I always thought about it when I past it and when my friend got the text message I thought about it again. It wasn't until we got to the lab that we heard what exactly happened and we were under attack. Obviously I felt awful and like everyone else was just shocked and scared.

 

We left lab immeadiately and a bunch of us met in our dorm. I couldn't get a hold of anyone (including my Dad who worked in the city) until later that day. The eeriest was watching the tv, and seeing a good friend of mine from high school, hysterically crying, holding a picture of her father who worked inthe towers. One of my friends with us was trying to get in touch with her father who worked in the towers. Thankfully he survived, and she got to talk to him not soon after, hearing him out of breath, telling her how he was running down the stairs.

 

I grew up five minutes from the beach, and used to see the towers. Even though it was a beach I only went to during the week in high school, it still had a great view of the skyline. It's still weird not seeing them sitting in the sand. My town had a large group that work at a business in the towers, all of them were lost. So there are plaques and every year something is done. It's all still so surreal.

 

ETA: Since this is a baseball community..As a Yankee fan, that World Series was a hard one to lose and began my Schilling hatred. I've heard fans say that that was the worst series lost, since a lot of people looked towards the team after the 9/11 attacks. Personally I'm still scarred from 95, but I digress.

[pogokat]

2nd year of college...they actually cancelled classes at uga that day, so i spent most of the day watching tv in a dorm room...we finally went to see a movie just to gt away from it for a while

[dadofandrew]

We lived in Woodbury, MN then, and planes were always flying over us either landing or taking off, depending on the wind. That night, about 2:30AM, I took the dog out for a walk, and you could hear one lone fighter, but it was very difficult to see in a sky full of stars. I had to look for 2-3 minutes before I finally found it, and I do not know how high they fly, but it was a tiny light, much smaller than most stars.

 

I also recall Pete Jennings saying he was turning it over to someone, maybe Ted Koppel, about 12 or 1AM, and they spoke briefly, and then Pete just stood up on air, his mike box still on and looked very strange. It was unprofessional kind of, but that was not the first thing on anyone's mind.

 

About that same time, they showed a "new" video shot from a tourist on the street, that showed plane #2 hitting WTC, from street level, probably no more than 2 blocks away. The guys on TV were stunned how it looked, and showed it again...and then never mentioned it again. Obviously, someone in gov't or the military asked for it and that was that. To this day, I've never seen it, other than those two times.

 

Finally, they talked to a high ranking retired military man 2 days later on the radio, on my way to work. They asked him what he thought about things, and what he had seen discussed and talked about and bandied about in "war games" scenarios, and he paused for about 10 seconds and finally responded this was worse than anything. He said he had never imagined or even thought about fighter planes circling major US cities, and that was the case at that second.

[RyDogg66]

I kind of had a unique experience on 9/11/01. I was waiting tables at an upscale cafe in Ann Arbor, MI. I eventually ended up managing the restaurant, but at this point I had only been there about 4 weeks and was just to the point of waiting tables by myself and getting to know the regulars. One of the regulars came in and told me he heard that a plane had hit the WTC and he and I assumed it was a small cessna type plane and that it was minor. He left and came back about 20 minutes later and told me that another plane had hit the WTC and that they were rumored to have been commercial jets.

 

It was shocking but I had to keep doing my work, it was about 9:00 on EST and I had another 5-6 hours ahead of me. So I got bits and pieces of information, and sometimes, rumors throughout the day from various regulars and from more waitstaff coming in for the lunch hour. But the interesting thing was throughout the morning, I was waiting on people who were still living in the pre-9/11 world. Me knowing what had happened and them sitting around, sipping coffee, laughing with a friend, or having a meeting over an omlet and some tea, and that then one-by one cell phones ringing, and peoples expressions changing, their faces looking panicked, one woman not able to control herself and letting out a muffled scream. Watching the person who got the call explain what had happened to a colleague or friend, their reactions.....

 

It was surreal to watch it all unfold at the cafe that morning. All morning people who had been going about their days walked into the restaurant not knowing what had happened and I was there to see all of them find out, their reactions.

 

There was a lot of food that was served that was never eaten that morning.

 

I walked home at about 2:30, through campus at the UNiversity of Michigan, where my wife was enrolled in graduate school. I distinctly remember walking past a newspaper box and it already had a "new addition" with the pics of the WTC burning and a huddle of college age girls standing around the box crying.

 

I didnt actually see any live pictures of the tragedy until I got home that afternoon at about 3:00.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I was working in Milwaukee as a cable sweep tech, contracting for Time Warner. I more or less set my own hours, got up and went to work and left work when I wanted. I got up that morning, came out to the living room, and snapped on the tv about 20 seconds before plane #2 hit. Of course, at the time, I thought it was a terrible accident, and then they were showing footage from hit #1. Now at this point, I'm confused as heck, thinking "WHAT are the odds that TWO planes accidentally hit the same building?!?!"

 

The guy we reported to from TW called me shortly after (as if I had intentions of going to work at this point) and said we were shut down at least for the day, because when we're sweeping, all cable downstream from the location we're working is out, and they wanted people to have zero interruption from the news. I think it was 3 days later we were back to work, and I remember driving to Milwaukee (from Janesville), being ultra paranoid about driving past semi trailers on the interstate. Irrational fear, yeah, but just the same, I couldn't help feeling it.

[DHonks]

I woke up in Arizona at my parents' vacation home, in the same bed I'd woken up in to hear about the Oklahoma City Bombing, and from which I watched the Waco firebombing.

 

I was preparing for my Junior year of college, which didn't start until September 17th. Ironically, the only time I'd been to NYC was the week before, for Labor Day. On the night before Labor Day, my friend asked if I wanted to get up early and either see the Trade Towers or the Empire State Building. I responded, "nah, no need to fight through the lines on a holiday. Plus, I need some things to visit the next time I come to New York City."

[Glennron]

I was walking into Homeroom in 8th grade. I was the first one into class and my teacher had the TV, which he never did. They had the breaking news on and me and my teacher were discussing if it was accidental or whatnot. A few minutes later the plane flew into the second tower so the answer was pretty obvious. My teacher was from New York and his sister lived just a few blocks away from the towers, so needless to say he was basically freaking out all day trying to come into contact with her. He wasn't even able to contact her for a couple days but she apparently was fine. Definitely one of the most bone-chilling memories I have.

[berniebrewer4life]

I will never forget it. I was standing in DDHS' Music Room my senoir year, our music teacher was playing the song "God Save the People"(we were going to do godspell later in the year). The principal announced what happened over the loud speakers. We went into a large group room and watched the coverage for 1 hour, then went to a philosophy and US Gov't and politics class. I had also registered for the draft the day before, and you KNOW that was on my mind.

[Paul77]

For some reason I find myself thinking about the last 30 minutes of sleep I had that morning all the time. The thought of all this happening while I was sleeping just bothers me in some irrational way. I've never been able to put my finger on it. It almost feels like guilt, but I don't know why.

 

My girlfriend called me twice. The first time was to see if I was awake. After that call I dragged myself out of bed, parked on the couch and turned on the Tv. I fired up the Tivo and I laid down on the couch in a semi awake state listening to the tv. A short time later she called again with the news. I was so mad at myself for sleeping/watching "King of Queens" while this was unfolding on TV. I'm still upset about it. Weird, I know.

[jaybird2001wi]

When I was in NY a couple years ago, I made it a point to take the subway to Ground Zero, but was way too paranoid and creeped out by the area because it just reminded me of what went wrong 4 or 5 years earlier. I spent as little time in the area and took a quick snapshot of the area and here is what I got:

 

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z317/jaybird2422/GroundZero.jpg

 

I tried to get as wide of a shot as possible, so I put my back on the wall of a store or business across the street.

After I left this site, I took the No. 7 to Shea Stadium.

Here is a pic of me near the Statue of Liberty, which was shut down after 9-11 but finally was re-opened a year or two ago.

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z317/jaybird2422/JaySOL.jpg

But believe it or not, despite 9-11, I was not as scared as I imagined I would be when my plane hit NYC. I felt safe walking around Manhattan (I was kind of spoiled because UW-Whitewater paid for my hotel fee at the luxurious Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, just blocks away from Times Square. It was a Journalism convention. http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/smile.gif )

[colbyjack]

I was working, trying to put together Arab World Fest of all things. Shortly after the first WTC tower burnt down, that festival was cancelled.

 

Interesting to read so many posters here with accounts from grade school, middle school, high school and even college. I remember distinctly my mom talking about the day Kennedy was shot, way before my time, and she told me that the attack on 9-11 was the only other event, including her wedding day, that stood out so vividly.

 

Other than watching the footage of the planes crashing, the thing that has always stood out the most to me was watching the fighter jets circle the Milwaukee/Mitchell area for most of the night. All air travel was shut down, yet you could see the flashing lights and hear the distant sound of the jets whipping around the city all night long.

[thablingster]

I was on my way to a linguistics class at UWM in the morning and I happened to tune into Bob and Brian and was horrendously confused when they weren't laughing and sounded all serious. Once I got to class we spent more time talking about what was going on than we did actually doing linguistics. I remember my other classes were canceled and the mall I worked on closed so I didn't have to work that day.

[stoops17]

My 8am college class was cancelled after the first plane, when I got back to our house, my roommates and I, just sat and watched the news coverage. I think we ordered pizza for lunch/dinner and didn't really leave the couch all day. Very little was spoken, it was very somber. The next day on campus was very somber as well, with a quiet over most groups of people walking and even at lunch in the commons.

[Samurai Bucky]

I first heard about while I was on my way to a training course to learn about .NET programming. During the breaks, we would run into the hotel bar area where there were TVs. One time we came out and the people were trying to decide of one or both of the towers had collapsed. They couldn't believe it and I said, "I'm telling you the two towers were right there!"