I can't believe it's been 10 years since 9/11. I hate to sound cliched, but it really does seem like yesterday. Perhaps it's because footage of the towers collapsing, soldiers in beige being deployed, and constant reminders of "Muslim terrorists" (because no one remembers or admits that there are Christian terrorists) and ever increasing, less effective airport security. And with this weekend being the 10 year anniversary, I thought it'd be interesting to find out what people remember from *That Day*.
As remember that morning, I was eating my usual bowl of Cheerios while watching Breakfast Television on A-Channel with Jon Ljungberg broadcasting from the Pancake House at the Forks. He and the guest chef were making waffles with cinnamon apple sauce and whipped cream. I looked at my pathetic bowl of Cheerios with utter disdain. Watching Jon ruin waffles but covering his mistakes in heaps of gooey steaming apple cinnamon and whipped cream, mmmmm. I shut off the tv and ran down the 7 flights of stairs to Kathy's apartment so we could, as we always did, walk to work together... laughing and joking about wanting waffles now. We got to work, she headed upstairs to her top floor corner office, I headed to the new computer lab. My "To Do" list was to uninstall Windows XP and reinstall Windows 2000 because NRC hadn't cleared XP to be rolled out to all NRC computers yet. Once the new-old operating system was installed, I got to test out a demo of Office 2000 on these new computers!!
*As a complete aside and unrelated to 9/11, that year, my boss had come back from a conference with a 128kb mem stick. It was the size of a iPod is now and cost nearly $200USD. That's neither here nor there, but after having a high school student working with me all summer, I'm starting to realize I'm old and technology hasn't changed A LOT in 10 years. Anyways, back to my story...*
Shortly after formatting the 500Mb hard drive that cost me nearly half my annual IT budget to buy them, our Facilities Manager with the Napoleonic complex came over the PA system and said, "We are streaming the news in the Herzberg room if you would like to watch. Understandably, network access is slow."
I email Kathy with a descriptive "WTF?" email so we agree to meet downstairs. We arrived at the Herzberg room moments before the second tower was hit. It was an unreal experience to stand there, hot chocolate in hand, giggling and laughing as we always do when we're together to turn and see the tower get hit. I remember going cold instantly and just saying, "Guess that means America's at war now."
Kathy answers "Yeah, but with who?"
I recall her saying "This seems like one of those times that Bruce Willis is going to pop out any minute and save the day."
Yeah!? Where was Jeremy Irons with a German accent as authentic as Mel Gibson's brogue in "Braveheart"?
It really did seem like this was some unbelievable Hollywood movie, that people weren't really being burned alive or jumping from windows, two more planes weren't getting hijacked, the Pentagon lost a wall. (.... or did it... conspiracy theorists have loads of ideas to the contrary about the Pentagon crashes)
We just stood there for over an hour watching the news feed until the first tower fell. I couldn't handle much more so I went back to my computers, numb and cold and feeling sick. Maybe watching the progression bar of Windows installer made my world seem normal. Maybe being in a silent, windowless room by myself would make the events go away, or stop, or even realize that it's a big hoax.
As often as I could, I would try to get online for updates or go to the Herzberg room to see the latest news. I would spend the next 2 days completely obsessed with anything relating to the events of that day; staying up late, getting up early, just to find out any updates.
What about you? What are your memories?