Remembering 9/11

It was 8 years ago, hard to believe. Today’s weather was much the same as it was then that day. Sunny, mild, blue skies, and little white puffy clouds; a good day to be happy. I was on my way into work at BellSouth Mobility (later Cingular). I had taken the route that took me through 80th street. I liked that route because it had nice pretty houses and lots of trees, I love trees.

Since I was in a good mood I was listening to Bob and Tom on the radio instead of the usual talk radio. When I pulled up to Keystone Avenue they said something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. They are clowns so I though, at first, that I might be some silly (but bad) joke. Unfortunately that was not the case. They kept talking about it in a serious manner. In my mind I thought that maybe it was a terrible accident. Some confused aircraft or a plane having serious problems.

I got to work and everyone was talking about it. At that point it had been reported that a second plane crashed into the second tower. Unbelievable, I thought. I had a scheduled training class for advanced Excel, so I went. More news on the radio on the short drive to the training; a plane had hit the Pentagon. At this point, any doubt that we were under attack was dispelled; air space shut down, F-18 flying over the Capital and all major cities. I sat with five others in the training class with no instructor. Time passed and we talked, strangers though we were, about the events transpiring while we sat. The instructor finally came in from watching a TV in the other room. She told us that another plane crashed in Pennsylvania and asked us if we wanted to cancel the class or push forward. We decided to push forward. We struggled through the day and got sketchy news while we learned Excel.

When I got home I found a tearful wife watching the news on TV; building collapsed, people dead, and a skyline changed. They showed the earlier events over and over; planes hitting the buildings, fire, more fire, people jumping out of buildings to escape the flames (a lot of tears), police and firemen rushing inside and rescue workers scrambling outside.

A terrible, terrible day; restless sleepless night leading to a dawn with the world changed.