Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Where Were You?

I was in my freshman year of high school, standing in the line for first-period lunch (which was really early in my district, since classes started at 6:30 am). I was waiting for pizza, because there was hardly any line, and I didn't know any better yet. Pizza was only good on Mondays; only a newbie would eat it on a Tuesday.

The two boys behind me were talking about it. I thought they were describing a movie they'd seen.

One of my friends spotted me in the line. Asked me if I heard what was happening. The rumors were already flying. "Two planes collided and got damaged and one of them crash-landed in DC and the other crashed in New York." The kind of stories we make up when the truth is less believable than fiction.

Eventually the lunch line dissolved. We all wound up in the games room to the side of the cafeteria, crowded around the single television in the area. A junior by the pool table sobbed into her boyfriend's arms. The rest of us just stared at the screen, unable to comprehend what it meant quite yet.

Moments like that, everyone remembers. Even as I was standing there in the crowded room, with no cell phone to frantically text my friends yet, and no way to know if my aunt the flight stewardess from New York was on any of those planes, I knew that would be the question of the day. "Where were you?"

So, 11 years later, where were you then?

(standing with my favorite part of the memorial: the survivor tree. when the mess cleared, this tree was still standing, alone of the hundreds that once filled the plaza.)
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3 comments:

  1. Ghenet MyrthilSeptember 11, 2012 at 2:03 PM

    I was also in high school, in my senior year. I was in an elective forensics class, and our teacher told us what happened. We watched footage from the hallways, where there were TVs. I definitely won't forget that!

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  2. Kaylie AustenSeptember 11, 2012 at 2:51 PM

    I was asleep. The alarm woke me up, shoved me straight into the radio broadcast. I dreamed I was in that scene, like a movie ad was being told, until I fully awoke and realized what happened. I immediately got a hold of those I knew in NYC. They were all fine, but I choked back tears for the fallen ones and the forever changed families left behind.

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  3. author...September 11, 2012 at 6:07 PM

    I was at work. i'm not sure if we were listening to the radio or if the woman who worked the front desk called back to the design room, but i do remember not realizing at first what a huge thing it was. the head designer and i ran to my house and grabbed my tv. i think we heard about the second plane hitting while we were in the car. knew then it wasn't some weird, freak accident. plugged the tv in back at work. we all sat there sickened and stunned. awful, frighteing, sad day.

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