where was I...
As I'm sure many will do today, on this fifth year after 9/11, I'm going to share my little vignette of that day.
I had just started the third week of classes of my senior year in college. I was doing my usual morning routine of cinnamon Pop Tarts and orange juice, checking my e-mail, and probably finishing up an assignment for my 11:30 class. A few minutes before 9:00, Tim Kingman instant messaged me that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. Not long after, a second plane struck. I turned on the TV, but the cable wasn't working on my side of campus. I tried checking any number of news websites, but they were all overloaded with traffic. I settled for the radio. A few BG students and I started an instant messenger chatroom to keep each other apprised of the news.
I suddenly remembered that I still had my old rabbit-ear antenna squirreled away in my dorm room, so I hooked that up to my TV and attempted to get a signal. At last, I had a visual... and that's when the enormity of the situation hit me. I didn't know what to think. I didn't even know what to believe, as there were reports of other planes hitting the White House and/or Pentagon. At one point, I was told that an entire wing of the White House was gone. People in the chatroom were already saying things like "NUKE THEM ALL!!" even though we didn't know who "them" was and the earliest reports were that terrorists, not a specific country, were responsible. A message board I frequent has people from all over the world, so I went there to see if any of the New York City members had checked in.
When my friends Nick and GT came back from their morning class, they hadn't yet heard what was going on. I shared the news and pointed them to the TV. Nick, not realizing that just about every news website in the world was flooded with traffic, started up his web browser and, out of sheer habit, immediately started typing www.thegia.com -- the Gaming Intelligence Agency, a wry-witted video game news site. Nick realized the unintentional crassness of his maneuver, but that didn't stop him from sharing his little faux pas with us, nor did it stop us from recalling the incident for years to come. (As it turned out, by coincidence, The GIA's website was also down.)
Even though I wanted to continue watching the news, I went to my 11:30 class. Both towers had fallen, the Pentagon was on fire, and all air traffic in the country had ground to a halt. My computer art professor, ever known for her displays of genuine emotion (*ahem*), made a brief comment about trying to get through our scheduled critique despite the events of that morning, then proceeded as if nothing happened. I heard reports from other students about professors who went a step further and accused students of being lazy in attempting to get out of class -- which, to me, would be akin to telling an employee they should come to work on Memorial Day because they personally didn't have any relatives who were veterans. I imagine these were some of the same professors who attempted to continue classes during the big city-wide Bowling Green blackout a year earlier, even in classrooms that had no windows and would have been pitch black had it not been for the tiny safety lights.
My afternoon drawing class had only seven out of about 20 students show up. We sat in a circle and the professor engaged us in a discussion of what had transpired and what our thoughts were, then let us go. It was actually rather cathartic, and I'm glad he did that.
It would take far too long to explain my views on life and the world and how they were affected by 9/11, but I'll offer up this snippet of a sermon given by Rev. Dr. Allen Grothe (my church's minister) in 2003:
Currently, there is a country-western song enjoying a fair amount of play on the radio, but it is a song which I am not sure is helpful to anyone. The song is entitled "Have You Forgotten?" and it refers to the events of September 11, 2001. Perhaps the most telling verse is this one: "They took all the footage off my TV, said it's too disturbing for you and me. It'll just breed anger, that's what the experts say; if it was up to me, I'd show it every day. Some say this country's just looking for a fight. Well, after 9/11, I'd have to say that's right." In other words, television should keep showing footage of September 11 precisely in order to breed anger in us and keep us looking for a fight -- keep us looking for ways to repay evil with evil.
It goes without saying that none of us can ever forget September 11, and, actually, it is a bit insulting to have anyone imply otherwise. Yet what I choose to remember is different from what the singer chooses to remember. I remember the way the world rallied around us in our sorrow and, yes, in our vulnerability. In the words of the Invocation [...] shared this morning, I remember the way we ourselves began to see ourselves and understand ourselves not just as individuals but as individual members of one body, individual citizens of one country... In all honesty, despite what television announcers told us in their self-appointed wisdom, the world did not change on September 11. The world did not become any more dangerous than it already was. However, I was glad to see that people seemed to change, at least for a while. People seemed less isolated and less self-centered. People seemed to realize far more deeply both their need of God and their need of one another, and I continue to find peace in that remembrance.
[...]
Whether we are in favor of the war or against it [the war in Iraq, mind you, not Afghanistan; this was 2003, remember], hopefully, we all ultimately seek peace and not just self-interest or vengeance. Yet we still need to ask ourselves what we consciously choose to remember.
Amen to that.
2 Comments:
I had started my 3d week of my 2nd year of Grad school at BG. I had actually gotten to the music school and started practicing before 8. I went down to check my mailbox at about 10 til 9, and the office ladies were already listening to the radio. After 30 minutes, I decided to go back upstairs, and pack up my instrument. By the time I came back down, someone had wheeled in a TV, with rabbit ears, since the cable wasn't working. We watched the towers fall and clung to each other crying. There were so many of us in the Musical Arts Building office. Later that morning, I had a class with Dr. Hess, who, like your profs, proceeded to have class as if nothing happened. In fact, many people didn't know. SHe then made some mention of the "bad news" in passing and proceeded to teach a class on Schubert's "Death and the Maiden." Nice.
Later that day, I went to the Wal-Mart to buy some things we needed at home. Everyone there was crying and hugging each other.
That night, as I sat in front of CNN, with tears of fear and anger streaming down my face, and after I had destroyed a bag of Keebler Rainbow Chips Deluxe all by myself, my friend Nat called and said "You need to get your mind off this. Come over and we'll watch a movie." I did and we watched Tim Meadows' "Ladies Man."
The next day, I was putting up posters around the music building that said classes were cancelled that Friday because there was going to be a Memorial Gathering near the Administration Building. A student was cheering about no classes on Friday. I turned on him and was screaming "Where were you on Tuesday?!? Do you know WHY there are no clasees? What is wrong with you? Get out of here!" And I was crying again. I later heard that some people in the hall who saw that exchange, told professors about it, and that this kids parents were eventually notified. I don't know what happened after that.
Friday, September 14 brought us the campus memorial. Later that night, a group of us drove out to Cleveland to see the opening concert of the Cleveland Orchestra's 2001-2002 season. The conductor came out and, before he took the podium, he bowed his head for a moment of silence. Everyone else did, too.
After the concert, as the orchestra was filing off stage, and everyone was leaving the hall, someone up in the balcony near us started singing "God Bless America"
in full voice, very very loudly. Everyone else in Severance Hall joined in, including those still on stage. It was the most beautiful rendition I'd ever heard.
Michelle
Amazing, little private conservative Mount Union was more "liberal" that day than BGSU. I was in my dorm getting ready for my 9:15 when the first plane hit. I had my TV on the campus weather station, whose sound was actually the 104.1fm radio broadcast, and that's how I found out. Initially, I didn't think anything of it, that some pilot wasn't paying attention, or that air traffic control screwed up, and what a shame that all those people had to pay for a dumb mistake. I got to class, and EVERYONE was glued to TV's; the profs didn't know what to do, with themselves or us. Linguistics went as planned, but when I got to HELL (literally - Human Experience of Literature and Language), the teachers just kept the TV on. Halfway through class, Mount Union announced they would cancel classes for the rest of the day so that all could keep up with the events taking place, pray in the chapel, etc.
I quite agree on your viewpoint of "Have You Forgotten". Pisses me off everytime I hear it. Usually, I change the station 'cause I can't stand the ignorance in the message. The only 9/11 song I've heard that's really worth listening to is Alan Jackson's "Where were you when the world stopped turning".
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