9-11 Memories
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 7:09 pm
Someone already started a thread on this, but it quickly morphed into the "I hate Muslims" thread. So I'm starting this new one for anyone who has memories to share.
My own personal memory has nothing to do with religion or hate.
It was a brilliant, late summer morning, much like today. I had arrived home late the previous night, from an out of town meeting. So I was late driving to the office. During my commute, they broke in on the radio with a news bulletin. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
My first thought was, “isn’t the World Trade Center that place they bombed back in the 90s?” Now, it appeared that some pilot had run out of luck and crashed his plane into the building “The Building’” you’ll notice. I didn’t know at the time that the World Trade Center was actually a complex of buildings.
Just as I was arriving at the office and driving into the parking lot, another bulletin came on with a reporter on the scene, saying a second plane had crashed into the WTC. There was near panic in his voice and the network anchor asked him to calm down.
Inside the office, everyone somehow knew about it already. The air was abuzz with the insectile sound of cheap, portable radios. Later that morning, someone produced a TV from somewhere. There wasn’t much work done in the office that day.
By the time I arrived home, after work, the weather had turned rainy. So we sat and watched those horrible images on TV, over and over again. The rest of the week went pretty much that same way.
On Saturday the sun came out again. That morning I went out back to put the finishing touches on a deck I had been building. The local airport reopened for the first time that morning. The first plane into the air was a very fast, very loud military aircraft. I watched it with my hand above my brow to shade my eyes from the sun. As I looked around the neighbourhood, it seemed that everyone else was doing the same thing. Would that be our reaction from now on, when we hear a jet plane?
By noon. The deck was finished up and it was time for the Christening. I had a beer and my wife had a cup of tea. As we sat there we watched a group of Goldfinches at the bird feeder. Among them were some newly fledged chicks, wobbling to maintain balance on the perches. Both of us remarked at once, how much nicer that was than what we had been watching on TV all week.
The next day, Sunday, was also a bright day. But I had to leave home to attend a week-long meeting, about 150 miles away. I hated leaving my wife alone at a time like that but this meeting had been arranged weeks in advance and attendance was mandatory.
I arrived there in the late afternoon. Just at the entry door of the hotel there was a dead bird on the concrete. (Looked like a starling.) It seemed pretty clear what had happened. The poor brute had flown into the plate glass and broken its neck. I pushed it away with the toe of my shoe and went inside. As I entered I recall thinking “A bird wouldn’t knowingly fly into a building, intent on mayhem. Only humans are capable of such evil
My own personal memory has nothing to do with religion or hate.
It was a brilliant, late summer morning, much like today. I had arrived home late the previous night, from an out of town meeting. So I was late driving to the office. During my commute, they broke in on the radio with a news bulletin. A plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
My first thought was, “isn’t the World Trade Center that place they bombed back in the 90s?” Now, it appeared that some pilot had run out of luck and crashed his plane into the building “The Building’” you’ll notice. I didn’t know at the time that the World Trade Center was actually a complex of buildings.
Just as I was arriving at the office and driving into the parking lot, another bulletin came on with a reporter on the scene, saying a second plane had crashed into the WTC. There was near panic in his voice and the network anchor asked him to calm down.
Inside the office, everyone somehow knew about it already. The air was abuzz with the insectile sound of cheap, portable radios. Later that morning, someone produced a TV from somewhere. There wasn’t much work done in the office that day.
By the time I arrived home, after work, the weather had turned rainy. So we sat and watched those horrible images on TV, over and over again. The rest of the week went pretty much that same way.
On Saturday the sun came out again. That morning I went out back to put the finishing touches on a deck I had been building. The local airport reopened for the first time that morning. The first plane into the air was a very fast, very loud military aircraft. I watched it with my hand above my brow to shade my eyes from the sun. As I looked around the neighbourhood, it seemed that everyone else was doing the same thing. Would that be our reaction from now on, when we hear a jet plane?
By noon. The deck was finished up and it was time for the Christening. I had a beer and my wife had a cup of tea. As we sat there we watched a group of Goldfinches at the bird feeder. Among them were some newly fledged chicks, wobbling to maintain balance on the perches. Both of us remarked at once, how much nicer that was than what we had been watching on TV all week.
The next day, Sunday, was also a bright day. But I had to leave home to attend a week-long meeting, about 150 miles away. I hated leaving my wife alone at a time like that but this meeting had been arranged weeks in advance and attendance was mandatory.
I arrived there in the late afternoon. Just at the entry door of the hotel there was a dead bird on the concrete. (Looked like a starling.) It seemed pretty clear what had happened. The poor brute had flown into the plate glass and broken its neck. I pushed it away with the toe of my shoe and went inside. As I entered I recall thinking “A bird wouldn’t knowingly fly into a building, intent on mayhem. Only humans are capable of such evil