I was sitting on the couch in the family room, eating a bowl of frosted cherios, watching tv. Whatever show I was watching just stopped, and the "BREAKING NEWS" flasher showed up on the screen. It showed a building I'd never seen before smoking and burning. And then they were both smoking and burning.
My mom came in and told me my ride was here. I got into the Gayheart's green van with captains chairs and rode in silence all the way to school.
I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know what those buildings were, or what it meant. Didn't know what it meant except that everything in the world would be completely changed forever.
We got to school, said goodbye and thank-you to a silently crying Ann Gayheart, and walked along with everybody else into the school. The hallways were different, not silent obviously because they were full of 7th 8th and 9th graders, but different. Walking past the office, the ladies had the Channel One tv on watching CNN. The same picture playing all the time.
Then I got to my 9th grade Geography class, Mr. Voorhies' class. He was just sitting at his desk; not crying neccesarily, but subdued, reflective, staring at the tv. It was his birthday and his only sons first birthday, and he said because of this day, it would never be the same for him.
After the bell rang and we were all sitting at our desks staring at the tv as well, he turned it off and started talking to us about everyhting that was happening. What he thought it meant, what 'they' thought it meant, what those towers were and what they meant. I didn't understand half of it, because I was never interested in that kind of stuff, but I was listening intently.
The rest of the day the tv's were in on in every class, and I'm not sure we did any work the whole day. I remember when I got to fourth period, Sewing 1, our teacher asked us if we wanted to tv left on or if she should turn it off. We all wanted it on. And its a good thing we did because I think it was then that another plane hit somewhere, I can't remember which one it was, and we were all in shock. It just kept happening, and nobody knew why.
That day changed everything, everywhere. Countries that didn't neccessarily like the U.S. before became supportive and were grieving with us; people who didn't feel particularly patriotic suddenly realized how close they were to losing it all and what that would have meant for them; these generations witnessed what would become a new chapter in history books, our generations' Kennedy assasination so to speak.
I remember one commercial that was just a shot of a street maybe in San Francisco, or Virginia, somewhere. With houses on either side of the street. It said "When they brought down the towers they wanted to change America forever." The shot changes to the same street with red, white, and blue everywhere you can see, and the voice said, "Well, they succeeded."
"Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day our world was broken. It lives forever in our hearts and our history, a tragedy that unites us in a common memory and a common story ... the day that began like any other and ended as none ever has."
~Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, New York City, September 11, 2008
