Well this is it, friends. Today is 9/11/2011. The ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington. Just under 3,000 people lost their lives that day. A lot of people will say "it feels like it was just yesterday," but I remember the day as if it was 10 years ago. There was one month in my life that I went to college. That month was September 2001. After that month, I got sick of going to school, dropped out and never went back. I had a nine o'clock class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that was my earliest class. I had trouble getting to that class, because I was working midnight shift at the casino at the time. I had split days off, Tuesday and Thursday, so I could go to class on those days. Anyway, I had fallen asleep early that Tuesday morning, and decided to skip that nine o'clock class because of my weird sleeping schedule. I got up and got dressed and ready to go to school because I had a class at noon. I didn't turn on a TV, I didn't listen to radio, I just put on a CD (Linkin Park) and headed off to class. It was my remedial math class that I resented, because I wasn't getting any credit for this stupid thing. I had this class every day at noon, and I guess I must have skipped that class the day before because I had to take a test I missed out in the hallway. As I sat down to take the test, I put the page in front of me and wrote the date. I remember thinking as I wrote 9-11-01, "man, I'll never remember this day. Nothing will happen today. When I think back in 3 months about what happened today, I won't be able to tell you." As I took the test I heard a TV blaring somewhere down the hallway, but I could only make out parts of what they were saying. More and more they kept talking about some event, some sort of tragedy. Some sort of attack. I finished the test and headed back into class. I said to the guy next to me, "Dude, I think we got attacked or something." He says "Yeah didn't you hear? Someone crashed planes into the World Trade Center or something. It's all over the news." I couldn't really hear what the teacher was saying, all I could think about was this huge even that was taking place, wondering what was going on. So I checked my Twitter to get the latest information....no that's not true, but I would have if it happened today. Anyway...
Soon after that someone poked their head into the class room and told us that all of the days renaming classes were canceled and the school was shutting down. We all left, and I drove quickly to my house so I could turn on the TV and finally find out what was going on. As I got home, I turned on the TV in the kitchen, and saw the magnitude of the days events. Four hours had passed, and four planes were hijacked and crashed, three of which were on target, while the other clearly didn't have a vengeance against open fields in Pennsylvania, so we can only speculate where that one was destined for. The twin towers had collapsed, thousands were dead, and all I could do was eat cereal and watch in awe. I headed upstairs to my room, where I used my computer to communicate with friends via AOL instant messenger about what had just transpired while watching the constant news coverage on my little 13 inch TV in the spare bedroom. I walked over to Bucks party store and bought a newspaper that I planned on keeping forever. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. I just had this feeling of "I don't know what just happened and what's going to happen in the days ahead, but this is significant."
I was an 18 year old kid, just graduated from high school, just started college. I didn't know what to think, and I still don't know. I wasn't directly effected by the event, I mean in the sense that I didn't know anyone that died in the event or anything, but it still effected me just as it did everyone else. My mom was afraid that I was going to get drafted into the Army because of it.
So that's where I was on 9/11.
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