My life has never been the same since either, WestCoastGal. I agree with you. So many have moved on from there in the negative sense. They still must feel that we are invincible and should regress back to pre-911 mode. I betcha that is what Rome thought in their day, too.
I worked in NYC during the first WTC bombing and was in the Towers a few weeks after for a disaster recovery program the company I worked for was offering for the business tenants of the building. There was a helluva lot of smoke damage to the building and to tenants even on the high floors. It appeared that only NYers and us commuting workers took it seriously. As soon as I arrived back home on that February day -- just 30 or so miles east at the time -- it was as if I walked into another world. Long Islanders with no ties to NYC had no reaction to the first bombing; NYC is a world away for many people in the burbs.
As a related aside, I found the same non-reaction outside NYC during the Rodney King debacle. It was one of the few times that most businesses in NYC closed early -- so workers could get home safely. There was only a bit of trouble in NYC, but the rumors were abounding that people were being killed in the streets, at Penn Station, etc., just the same. I could not leave right away and when I did, Penn was packed and was full of panic. The trains had difficulty leaving because people were squeezing themselves into every available inch of space on the trains out of fear. NYC was under fear that day.
After surviving a crowd stampede incident in a stairwell leading down to the train platform, I realized how people really can get smothered and trampled on and left for dead in crowds. I was caught with so many others in a stairwell on the stairs and although I was not not moving myself -- the crowd was making everybody move -- I was being moved forward above the steps while stuffed underneath someone's armpit and I could not breath for awhile. It was quite scary. Every space at Penn had the same situation. There wa sno crowd control present.
Looks of panic were on people's faces and as soon as I got home I turned on the news to see what was what and there was very little on the news about what was happening in NY with the business' closing, the rumors rampant and the crowds scared because of what was transpiring in California. My family who lived even further away than I from NYC called me later on and they had no clue was was happening there. Even after I told them, they did not truly comprehend because it was a day where you had to be there and be a NYC resident or a commuter, I suppose.
Now that I recall it, it is funny to me that I was reminding my family about this right before 911, how NYC was scared and fearful with reason and then 911 happenened.
911 stirred people everywhere no matter if they had ties to NYC and PA and the Pentagon and airlines or not -- but as you point out -- too much is reverting back to the pre-911 world.
Agreed. This morning the local crop duster came by (overhead) dusting the neighbors field. I wonder how many other people in America would actually wonder what they were then breathing after that? A few TM'rs maybe? I did.
That is so true because last year my ex co-worker who lives in Queens had emailed and asked that "I please stop sending email regarding 9/11 because he is trying to "move on". I was livid. Of course I was kind and obliged; after I cursed him out under my breath!