Friday, September 11, 2009

Where were you?

Where were you?


Where were you when the towers fell?

I was in my freshman year at UW-Eau Claire sound asleep in my dorm room on the top bunk. My roommate had rushed into the room, turned on the lights, and blared the tv. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. Then, I asked her what movie she was watching and why in the world did we have to watch it so dang early (OK, so my language was a bit more vulgar). Then, I realized that the channel was NBC and this wasn't any movie. I snapped awake, crawled down from the bunk and curled up on our couch. I called close friends and family and told them to turn on the news. Someone was running up and down the halls of our dorms yelling at everyone to turn on the tv. I sat glued to the tv all day, I never made it to a class, I don't think many people went to class that day, even though they hadn't been cancelled. I clearly remember the second plane hitting, and watching the towers crumble, cringing at the thought of the lives being lost in front of our eyes.

My aunt, her husband and two kids, my cousin and her boyfriend at the time all lived near the towers and everyone quickly tried to get a hold of them. It was several hours before everyone was tracked down because it was impossible to get a call through. My uncle is a pilot for American Airlines and he was also quickly tracked down, and was also safe and sound. My dad had been on a business trip in Montana, and luckily he realized that if he was going to get home he better rent a car, and rent one very quickly, he left immediately and beat the rush for the cars and made it home safely.

I was very lucky to not have anyone close to me perish in New York, PA or Washington DC that day, but there are thousands of family's that were directly affected. It is hard to believe that eight years have passed already...

3 comments:

  1. I was in college in Frederick County, Maryland and in my Anantomy and Physiology lab. Class was just getting ready to start and most of my classmates had been in A&P lecture that morning. A few of the others were talking about the lights going out at the World Trade Center. I couldn't hear everything so I wasn't too concerned. Then my lab partner got a phone call from her husband, an EMT for Montgomery County, MD, a close suburb of DC. It wasn't too much longer and an administrator was explaining to our teacher why she had to dismiss class. The school was closing for the day. I will never forget her reluctance to cancel class because there wouldn't be a time to make it up. It took a few moments for her to realize what was happening was so much bigger than her class.

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  2. I was washing a car at Enterprise and it came on over a radio....I remember thinking what the heck is going on. I was at a very small branch and was working by myself that day. I have such a love of news that I wanted to be at home watching, but I sat glued to the radio the rest of the day.

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  3. I'm a long time lurker but decided to come out from hiding because the events that happened on September 11th for me is pretty atypical of most Americans.

    8 years ago, I thought September 11th was the best thing that happened to me. It was just like having a snow day in a tropical world... school was canceled and I slept in all day. No, I'm not cold hearted, but since I was living on am airforce base on a subtropical Japanese island I didn't hear of the events until September 12th. So when the towers fell, I was asleep in my bed hoping for another day of no school as a typhoon hovered over the island for almost a week and circled the island I was living on hitting us not once, not twice, but three times. Well I got my wish...we didn't have school for many weeks.

    ~Tellie

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