I remember that day with clarity. It was a beautiful sunny day.
I was at work and browsing the web (on a dial-up connection, remember those? HAH!). At that time, I would check the various news sites looking for the latest bit of inanity. I wasn’t a news junkie (I’m still not) but I paid attention to events.
I remember bringing up MSNBC’s site and at that time they would have a single picture and headline to try and grab your attention for a new story. The picture here was an aerial shot of the Twin Towers, and the headline said simply “Plane crashes into World Trade Center.”
I remember my first thought being “Great, some idiot flew into the building.” The picture and headline made it sound like it had been a small private plane. I didn’t even bother mentioning it to anyone else in the office.
Then facts started flowing in and word spread through the company- we’d been attacked by terrorists. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon as well, another plane crashed in Pennsylvania. I remember a TV was setup in the company’s conference room and for the rest of the day, we milled in and out of the room, watching and waiting for the latest bit of news. When we left the room, it wasn’t to work but to talk quietly about what was going on. Little work was done after 10AM that morning.
When the Towers finally fell, there was an audible gasp in the room followed by silence. One of my fellow engineers just put his head down. Talking about it later, I remember him saying simply “It was already bad before that, but when the buildings collapsed … Man, that just made it a lot worse.”
Since that day, we re-elected George Bush and subsequently elected our current President. We’ve warred on 2 countries. I got married on a beautiful Spring day that following April. I’ve now got 2 kids, 2 dogs and a cat. I’ve got 2 birds too- but I remember they were already with me that day nine years ago.
9 years later, I still remember.