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Where were you....
because I'm bored.... Inspired by jehawley's question of the day.....
Where were you and what were you doing when 9/11 happened?
I was asleep in my dorm room freshman year in college nursing a hangover. This REALLY annoying girl from down the hall started banging on my door. I was about to tell her exactly what I thought of her when I noticed that she was hysterically crying. She started telling me all these outrageously false facts about how the White House got bombed and the Pentagon got bombed... My first thought was about the movie Independence Day and I was thinking that aliens were attacking...
Of course, I immediately turned on the news and saw that the girl wasn't exactly accurate about what had happened... anyway, classes were cancelled, I spent all morning trying to get in touch with my Dad who was flying that morning.
Re: Where were you....
I was waking up for class. I went online and my best friend imed me saying that I HAD to turn on the news. I turned it on just as the second tower was hit.
I went to my political science class. People were trying to tell the teacher what had happened, but he hadn't heard anything so he taught the whole hour.
After that my next teacher also was teaching. During that class someone ran into the room and said classes were cancelled and campus was being closed.
It was my freshman year of college, too. I went to whatever my first class was, then back to my room to study. I had to go through the lobby, and a bunch of people were crowded around the TV, but I thought they were just goofing off.
I'd sat down to read my textbook when Mom called to tell me that, as far as they knew, everyone was okay. I had no idea what she was talking about, so she filled me in. One set of my grandparents lived in Shanksville, and the other set lived four miles away. Flight 93 went down exactly in between and all of the phone lines were out. Of course, nobody knew the exact location of the crash yet, so all we knew was that my grandpa had headed home from work to check on my grandma.
None of our classes were canceled, but they did have a TV set up on a cart in the student center and another one in the library. I tried to watch as much as I could to see if I could tell where the plane had crashed.
I was at home and we had just gotten back from Maine where my cousin had gotten married the weekend before. My mom had stayed in Maine to visit with my aunt and uncle (her sister). She was supposed to fly home that day, but luckily not throught NY. Her flights were delayed and she was a day late, but thank god she got home ok. All the phone lines everywhere were blocked, but my dad called from work and my aunt called us to make sure we were ok.
You've heard what I've done, not what I've been through.
If you were in my shoes, you'd fall the first step."
I was in 3rd period Spanish during my junior year of high school when I first heard someone whisper that something had happened in NYC. My teacher refused to turn on the tv, so we all thought that two planes had collided and that it had been a horrible accident.
It was during my next class when I found out exactly what happened. We sat and watched the news during the entire class, and watched both towers fall.
I was living in the Chicago suburbs at the time, at the corner of the O'Hare Airport. I was lying on the sofa at home, all doped up with pain meds & muscle relaxants to help with a severe back injury I'd sustained over the weekend. I had the Today Show on in the background when I called my mom to tell her my roommate was off to work and I was settled in on the couch. I saw the WTC and the smoke but couldn't hear what they were saying and in the back of my mind, I thought they were showing pictures from the previous WTC attack in the early 1990's...maybe it's an anniversary or something.
I hung up the phone, turned the volume up on the TV, and then immediately called my mom back. My next call was to my roommate to tell her about what was going on and she'd heard it on the radio and was freaking out in her car during the commute to work. While I was on the phone with her, I watched the second plane hit and I freaked out on the phone which scared my roommate even more. I asked her to come home, but she insisted on going to work (we both worked at the same place).
I spent the entire day at home by myself, wondering where they would hit next. The worst part of the whole thing for me was when they grounded the planes and the skies over my apartment went silent (remember I lived next to O'hare - silence was not normal in any way). It was such an eery feeling and gave me lots of time to think about the what-if's and really feel the grief as they talked about more and more people dying. No amount of medication helped me to relax enough to get any rest or recuperation on that day.
I was in my 8th grade stage craft class. It was announced over the PA since we are so close to the pentagon and many of our families commute to DC for work.
We didn't have classes for a looong time and guidance counselors were constantly pulling students from classes.
All after school activities were cancelled like forever.
Come to think of it, this happened a lot to me in school... like the DC area snipers. Crappy times!
I was in OAC (grade 13) History class, and my teacher immediately put the tv on. We saw the second plane crash into the towers (whether it was live or not I can't remember, but I believe it was).
My teacher started crying and saying that the world would never be the same.
We had just been there in the spring on a school music trip so I was lucky enough to have visited the twin towers and taken pictures of them before it happened.
I was a freshman in high school, sitting in Biology class. Our teacher turned on the TV and we were watching some of the footage and she started crying. I remember not knowing/understanding exactly what was going on, but I don?t think I can ever forget the way I felt that day when our teacher started crying.
I was driving to school (my Junior year of high school) and heard it on the radio. I had just left my house and called my dad to tell him to turn on the tv. I said, "a plane just flew into the World Trade Center, you need to turn on the TV". He didn't believe me. I had to implore him to just turn on the damn TV. We pretty much watched coverage of the whole incident all day at school.
Everyone was talking about how there was going to be a draft and I was terrified that my brother was going to be drafted. They were doing a local blood drive and several of us wanted to go but I was only 16 (it was 9 days before my birthday). I had a couple of teachers and friends who had family members that worked in NYC. I remember one of my teachers trying to get a hold of her daughter all day. I never forget the look on her face and the way she just burst in tears when she finally heard from her.
I remember that some time after I had gotten to school in the morning my best friend Becca was all cheery but somewhat confused at the same time. She looked at me and goes "Why does everyone look so upset? It's MY BIRTHDAY!" HAHA! She had NO IDEA what had happened. (side note... Becca is INCREDIBLY smart so this story does not do her justice. HA!)
I'm 45 minutes from Charlottesville, 45 minutes from Fredericksburg, an hour and a half from Richmond and an hour and a half south of DC. Stalk my facebook ;-) lol
I was in my Freshman year of college and I was watching "Good Morning America" when I saw the flashing news and my mom came running in. I went to class and found out they were cancelled. At the time, I was living in Alabama and my theater teacher was from NYC, we didn't have class that whole week.
I agree that hearing you ladies in 7th grade and high school, makes me feel so much older. Even though I was a freshman in college.
I had answered in the previous thread... again:
I woke up for school and saw the news. I was in grade 12 and my mom let me skip my first class (I think it was accounting) so we could see what was going to manifest. I lived on the west coast, so things had already happened by the time I would've been on my way.
i do have to agree with the other ladies that hear about you guys in 7th or 8th grade makes me feel old, even though I was a senior.
My dad just retired from FDNY this spring, so reading all these stories brings back so many stories and tears too, even after all these years
I was in 1st period math class, when the principal came over the loud speaker and said that a plane had hit the world trade center, we were all saying how could you miss that bldg and crash into it, how crazy. Then he came over again a short time later and said that another plane had hit the towers, then we knew that something was very wrong. Then the phone in the classroom rang and it was my mom, who was a secretary in the HS i went to. She wanted to let me know that my Dad had been at home, but was heading to the city immediately. The whole day was just chaos, we live close to NYC so so many kids had parents who worked there or were NYPD and FDNY. No teachers taught the rest of the day, whoever hooked up TV's did and we just gathered in classrooms watching it unfold. I remember sitting with my one business teacher and we watched the one tower crash down on the news and we both started crying. We knew that things would never be the same. People were trying to make calls on their cell phones and no one could get through.
My dad was gone for 3-4 days helping dig through the rubble. He was supposed to have been working that day, but did a mutual swap with his partner, who was missing for a few hours, but thankfully they found. His firehouse lost 5 guys that day. My dad was never the same after that, in a good way thank goodness. I guess it changed life's perspective for him. He can talk about it freely now and has soooo many pictures, it is really unbelievable. The town I live in also lost 5 other firefighters.
Its crazy to think how long ago this happened and just typing this story out brings tears to my eyes.
Ditto!!! I can't imagine how much different the situation would have been for you, Christine, since you're so close to it. 9/11 affected all of us, but even more so for the people who were actually there. If it's not too touchy of a subject, tell your daddy he's a hero and give him a great big hug for me!!
I second this exactly! xx