I had the day off.
I was feeding my 2 and 4 y.o. kids breakfast. Cocoa Puffs.
CNN was on the TV and FreeRepublic on the computer.
Nothing's been the same since.
Yeah, I remember it like yesterday too. I can totally see it. Very detailed visual memory of it. I had just gone back to school to finish my EE and was living in an ancient off campus apartment. I was headed out the door to class but stopped to look at the TV. The first tower had been hit...looked like it might have been an accident. Then the second tower was hit and obviously it was no accident. I can’t remember if I left for class before or after the towers collapsed, but I remember driving to school in a daze and with occasional tears, then walking around campus in a daze. It was a beautiful early Fall day — very clear. Strange to think it was nearly a decade ago.
Some surreal days indeed.
For some reason I slept late that day and didn’t turn on the news till sometime after the first plane hit. On the news they were talking about a tragic accident when I saw another plane come into view and was wondering why such a large plane would be that close.
When the second plane hit, I think everyone instinctively knew it was intentional. Things are kind of jumbled in my memory but news of the Shanksville and Pentagon crashes came in at some point.
When the first tower fell it was like my heart dropped out of my chest. I just knew there would be tens of thousands dead. Thank God I was wrong.
I went into town to a friend’s house and found he and his girlfriend sitting in front of the TV. We took a drive around town and were amazed at how deserted the streets were. Gas stations on the other hand were packed with people buying gas. There were even police stationed at the gas stations apparently to keep things calm.
For the first time in my life there were no jet contrails overhead.
In the following weeks I noticed that all the small planes were flying low and slow past the tower at the local airport.