Where Were You?
My favorite times of the year in East Tennessee are the middle of spring and the late summer. That’s when the skys are cloudless and awfully blue and the temperatures hover in the 70’s. It was one of those kinds of days…sunny, no humidity, and it smelled like the first day of school.
The job site that day was a new housing developement and we were fairly isolated. So it wasn’t until lunch time, when I sat in the cab of my truck ready to enjoy my daily baloney sandwich while listening to Jim Rome on the radio, that I first heard about the attacks.
I rarely listen to music on the radio. I like talk programs, so my dial usually swings between news, sports talk, or public radio. It was already set to to NPR. I must have listened to “Morning Edition” on my way in that day. I don’t remember. But, I do remember that before I could switch over to Rome, I caught enough of the a news report to know somthing was up. I mean, usually “Fresh Air” was on public radio at this time.
It’s interesting when you hear about horrible things like that, rather than witness them. You first wonder if you heard right, then once you realize you heard right, you wonder if it’s for real. I think for at least a few seconds I thought maybe it was a “War of The Worlds” type of thing. But Halloween wasn’t for a month and a half, so why would they air a fake horror program? This shit was for real.
I don’t know how long I sat there with my mouth hanging open with half a sandwich in my fist. But it was a while. It hit me hard. I’ve never been to New York. I didn’t know anyone in New York. I had only seen the towers in movies. Sitting in the cab of my truck in the mountains of Tennessee, catching the late summer breeze, I couldn’t have been further from it all. But, still, it hit me hard. I can’t even imagine what it was like for people who were there or connected to people there.
I yelled to a group of co-workers who were having lunch with some roofers nearby. They came over and stood around my truck as I opened the doors and jack the radio up for them to hear. Listening to the details, that’s when the guilt started to come in. Guilt because all this happened while we had been merrily going through our workday. It felt weird to have have suffered through the morning like the rest of the country.
What’s weird to think about is that if it had happened today, just five years later, we probably would have known sooner. For some reason none of the five of us on that particular crew had cell phones at that time. Now, I think we all do. I think the events that day is what made me finally get one. Because once the reality sinked in, I wondered if Granny knew and worried about how she was handling it.
We all cut work for the rest of the day, so that we could be with our families. Not that we could do anything about anything. Just so we could be together, I guess.
I got home to find Granny watching the TV. The first think she said was, “Something terrible has happened.” She knew. She had even seen the towers fall. I told her I heard about it on the radio and sat on the couch with her. I didn’t go shower or even get out of my paint clothes, which is always the first thing I do when I get home. I was watching people covered in ash who couldn’t even get to their homes. What’s a little latex?
We spent the next few hours watching the repeated footage of the attacks and aftermath. It may have not been H.G. Wells, but it was definitely war of the worlds. Unlike fake horror, you don’t get desensitized to it. You die every time you see it. Maybe even die a little more.
Granny had had enough and asked me to turn off the TV. Neither of us said anything as I went to cook her some dinner. We were both quiet, and the absense of the sounds of sirens, choppers, cries, and Katie Couric coming from the TV, although not a regualr thing, was bizarrely eerie.
We sat down to dinner and Granny took my hands because she wanted to pray. “We have to pray for those poor people,” she said. And so we did…for the people in New York and Washington, the people in the towers and the Pentagon, and the people on the planes. She even included the high-jackers in her prayers. She wanted to pray for their souls because she felt like they were influenced by the devil and that he had convinced them that what they had done was right. She prayed that their souls be released from his grasp.
Today, I sat in my truck eating a baloney sandwich and listening to the radio. Just like I did five years ago. Just like I do almost every day. But the monotony of what must, by now, be thousands of baloney sandwiches, will not make me forget that one in 2001.
The defining question of my grandparent’s generation was “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” I guess ours is “Where were you on September 11?” Where were you?
NOTE: I almost didn’t write this because I didn’t want to accidentally be a part of the potential 9-11 overload on this 5th anniversary. But I did. And, at the risk of adding to that, I do want to point you to two other blogs, Joe.My.God and Stop Touching My Food where Joe and ChadFox, respectively, have written very nice posts. One is from the inside. One is from the outside. But both very relavent.
September 11th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I watched the television with awe as the second plane hit. I knew then that this was no accident. I knew then that I would loose a friend who worked in the WTC complex. I think it was the south tower. I knew that our country would never be the same. I knew that I would never be the same. I knew when I saw the look on our PResident’s face as he exited his plane that things would not be right for a very long time.
I had no idea that we would allow so much erosion of our civil liberties and our rights because of those dreadful events.
I mourn so much loss and I’m angry because of it. I hope for a better future.
September 11th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I’ve posted a short description of where I was (and why) on my own blog at Occasional Jots & Tittles. Obviously, by the end of the day, and for the rest of the week, I was in your neck of the woods. Thanks for inspiring me to put it down in writing.
September 11th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
It must have been a beautiful day everywhere. It was here also.I only wish we could have better harnessed the goodwill and collective resolve we all felt.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:39 am
I remember that day very well… My best friend woke me up at 3:00am to turn on CNN to witness the horror… I couldn’t believe it. I was just there the year before walking those grounds. The irony was uncanny..
September 12th, 2006 at 5:51 am
It was a sunny day in London too.
I’d just walked back into the office toward the end of lunchtime with a liver-sausage and coleslaw sandwich (the sandwich motif is a coincidence but an accurate one, I remember all the details of that day) and my colleague stopped me in reception and , without any expression, said “come and look at this,” and bodily shoved me into her office, she’s a small woman and this was unusual behaviour, so I went, as you do.
I looked at the screen showing the smoking tower and asked “what’s this?” We work in the film industry so we’re used to seeing rushes and preview tapes for movies in production and I thought this was one, I clearly remember thinking it was in questionable taste.
“No. It’s live” she said, and it was, no reall consistent commentary (I suspect the newsrooms were as dumbstruck as we were,) just a live feed from New York.
“What’s happening at Newark?” I said, thinking air-traffic control had screwed up majorly but not understanding how that could even remotely happen but a plane had hit the Empire State in the 40s or something so not impossible, the mind running on as it does, trying to make sense of what’s happening, some logical explanation…
Then, moments later, the second plane came into shot and passed straight into the second tower and we began, slowly, to understand what that probably meant. We tried to call friends, I don’t know what we thought we could do, but all the lines to the States were down for the rest of that day.
The French newspaper Le Monde said it best (this was long before all that “Freedom Fries” bash the French nonsense,) in its headline the following day;
“Today, We Are All Americans.”
Despite everything that’s happened since, I still agree with that sentiment unconditionally.
September 12th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Tony, a beautifully poignant post. The comments are as well. I was in the middle of the ocean in Alaska when my cabin phone wrang (this is highly unusual). I answered to a crew member saying “you have a satellite call”. I authorized the call and it was to check on my whereabouts and safety (my brother is a senator). I answered with “I’m fine! I’m in the middle of the ocean in Alaska and it’s 4:00 in the morning, what the **** do you want?”. The voice came back with “Sir, turn on the television.”. I shall never forget!
September 12th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
I liked this post. I often wondered how the rest of the country was affected by it. Thank you.
It was a bright, sunny, cloudless day Tuesday September 11, 2001. I had just had the day from hell on the Monday before (lots of issues) and went into work on Tuesday in Washington, DC, determined that it would be a better day. At 8:30 a.m., so far, so good. However once the first plane hit and they showed a a repeat of it on my boss’s small black and white screen, I immediately knew we were under attack from SOMEONE because planes don’t fly over Lower Manhattan. Not even by accident. It’s a notorious no-fly zone.
After the second plane hit right before our very eyes on the screen, we KNEW we were under attack. After discussing that, a new plane hit the Pentagon. Well, that was it for us. We were released to go home after that and the traffic getting home was so bad. The look of terror and “what’s going on here now?” on everybody’s faces was a lot to take. I didn’t know what to make of it as I rode down 295 South and saw the Pentagon for the first time ever - I never noticed it there before. All that smoke and those helicopters and fire engines rushing to the scene. All those people dead.
And then to get to my cousin’s house and see footage of the towers COLLAPSING with people inside! I couldn’t reach my friends in NYC because the North Tower held a major cellular signal. People were worried sick about me, but I confirmed that I didn’t work in Arlington, where the Pentagon is located. I was worried sick about friends in NYC (most from college, having recently graduated the previous May) and they confirmed they were all right. One didn’t work down there, the other didn’t go home the night before because of some outstanding circumstances that left her stranded in New Jersey - thank God - she would have been on the train when one tower got hit. Another friend didn’t go to work that day in the WTC when she had a training to attend - she just didn’t feel like getting up. Thank God!
But my heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy. I listen faithfully to NPR, too, and the only problem I have with their remembrance week this week is the coverage of Islam as a culture. It’s a religion, not a culture. The people had a culture before the religion got there and even though some things can be said about what the religion is supposed to teach, it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach or understand what was done in the name of said religion and their god. I mention this because a reporter for NPR said the same thing yesterday and you could feel his raw pain in delivering his story.
That being said, thank you again for posting this. I’ll never forget where I was that day or what I did that day. How I couldn’t get back home that day and stayed with cousins in the area. How I cried so profusely before going to bed that day. How I was terrified to ride the subway to work and the train home that day. How I called out of work one day because I just felt that I couldn’t go. How I woke up having a nightmare that it was all over.
How I felt like burying myself underground until time stopped.
September 14th, 2006 at 2:06 am
I was on my way from Fire Island to the airport. When I saw the smoke I got back on the ferry and went back to Fire Island. It was very quiet that week and kind of lonesome. Two days later I called my manager in San Francisco. He informed me that eight weeks worth of work had disappeared in the smoke and fire of the towers. When I returned to San Francisco I found out that his estimate was wildly conservative, it was more like four years worth of work.
Jerry my boss took a dive of the Golden Gate Bridge 3 years ago. I have moved the company to San Jose.
DonPato
San Jose