My day on September 11, 2001
Normally I’m not one for these 9/11 rememberances. For one, because I wonder why we make such a big deal of the 9/11 anniversary but nobody says a word about the anniversary of Katrina. For certain reasons (which aren’t hard to assume what they are), the lives lost on 9/11 are more important than those lost in Katrina, and far more important than the 30,000 children who die each day from starvation and easily-preventable diseases. But I digress.
The reason I want to share my 9/11 story is it’s kind of interesting. And short. So you have no excuse not to read it.
I found out about the planes hitting the towers in the most appropriate place–my dorm room bathroom. It was the beginning of my sophmore year, and I don’t believe my first class on the day was until 11:00, so I woke up and sleepily walked over to the bathroom. When I was at the sink, somebody I had never met (and I don’t think spoke to afterwards) said, “Hey, did you hear two planes hit the Twin Towers?” I said no, and went back to my room, confused as to what was going on.
My roomate Evan and I did not have cable at this point. We got free cable at the beginning of the school year (I guess they forgot to turn it off for the summer), and as long as we weren’t paying for it, we weren’t going to tell anybody. But on the day of the 10th, it finally went out. They had caught up to us, and soon we’d have to call them up and get it reconnected and pay for it. But as of the next morning, we hadn’t yet.
Evan didn’t have a morning class that day either, so when he got up (I believe I told him what happened, but I don’t remember anymore), we went down to our friend Loren’s room to watch CNN. And we were still not sure what was going on. People’s minds were not on terrorism, so we just didn’t get it.
At 11, when I had my first class (oddly enough, a history class), I went not knowing if I was supposed to or not. My professor–who reminded me so much of Lyle, the Effiminate Heterosexual–was crying. I’m not sure, but I think my friend Mike was in that class with me…anyways, he let us go a few minutes after we got there, and at noon or one a school-wide email went out that cancelled the rest of classes for that day and the next.
All in all, it was a strange day. None of us really knew what to expect, or what was going on until at least the end of the day and possibly the next. Later that week we had a vigil at the chapel, and I still don’t think we fully understood what happened. I’m not sure I fully understand now.
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