9/11

There has been a good deal of conversation about September 11, 2001 this past week as the 10^th anniversary drew closer. One of the things I heard over and over this week was people telling where they were when they found out that the World Trade Center had been attacked. The news commentators have been comparing 9/11 to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Kennedy, saying that this generation will be able to tell their children where they were when they heard the news. So at the risk of sounding cheesy here is my “story”.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was a sophomore in high school. The morning started like a normal fall morning, with the exception that it was the second Tuesday of the month which meant that early morning seminary was cancelled. Because seminary was cancelled, I got up around 6am instead of 5am. I was in my room getting ready and listening to the local country radio station, 92.9 KFRG, when I head that the first tower had been hit. I remember standing there holding my hair straightener and thinking that this must be a joke that the “frogmen in the morning” were playing. I continued getting ready and then heard that the second tower had been hit. By the time I was ready for the day I had serious doubts that the news was a joke, the panic in the radio hosts voices continued to grow in the 30 minutes it took be to get ready. I turned on the news while sitting at my parent’s kitchen table and eating my oatmeal. The images on the screen confirmed that what I had heard on the radio wasn’t just a sick attempt at humor. As I walked to school that morning I remember wondering if the events in NYC would impact band practice scheduled for evening (practice was cancelled). When I got to school and saw my friends I asked if they had seen the news that morning, none of them had. I tried to explain what had happened but they all thought that I was joking with them. I remember walking into first period band and being so frustrated that no one believed me, even beginning to question if I had somehow imagined the news. As soon as we walked into the classroom I knew I hadn’t. Our teacher suspended normal class (it was band remember), let us know practice was cancelled for the evening, and proceeded to tell the class what had happened. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur, school wasn’t cancelled, but normal lessons were. We watched the news in every class period that day, many students left crying, and the campus Christian club had prayer meetings throughout the day. I am not sure what happened that evening, but I do remember that morning.