Remembering 9/11

Growing up I remember school assignments, typically history ones, where we were learning about a particular time period and we had to interview someone about what they were doing when a specific event occurred.  I recall interviewing my grandpa about what he was doing when Pearl Harbor was bombed and asking my parents what they were doing when we landed on the moon.  Will Sebastian ever have an assignment to ask me what I was doing when 9/11 happened?

My immediate answer wouldn't be that impressive.  I was sleeping.  It happened on the east coast and it was pretty early in the morning.  I was in my last semester at Cal State Fullerton and my alarm was going off.  I hit snooze several times until I thought I heard something about a plane crash and the pentagon?  OK, that got me out of bed and downstairs where my parents had the TV on and I got up to speed on the morning's tragic events.  To this day I couldn't tell you if I was awake when the second plane hit.  It was too early, I was too tired, I was shocked at what I was seeing on the news, and I had to get to school because I had a midterm.

People were following the news at school.  My first class of the day was History of Rock and the professor didn't bother to show up.  We went to the student center and watched the news on the big screen.  My second class of the day was Stress Management, the class where I had the midterm.  The instructor was a sweet older lady and given the name of the class, postponed our test until a less stressful time.  She mentioned she heard rumors of the campus closing for the day and suggested we get to our cars and go home before the inevitable mass exodus that would soon follow.

I had to work later in the afternoon.  That's pretty much the last thing I remember of the day.  I was working after school day care and we had a little pow-wow before school got out to discuss what to tell the kids if they asked what had happened.  I don't really remember what we came up with, something along the lines of, bad people did something bad, very basic.

A few years ago I was talking to my (much younger) cousins and, while they were alive, they were so young that they don't remember anything about that day.  This past weekend we were at dinner with two of Adam's coworkers who both lived on the east coast in 2001 (Boston and New Jersey) and the day's events hit much closer to home for them.  They're around our age and it was interesting to hear their memories.

It's tragic the reason why this date is so memorable.  It's humbling to recall the events and those who lost their lives, and it never gets old hearing recounts of all of the heroic efforts of the day.  It's part of our American history and we will never forget.