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msmemory_archive) wrote2004-09-11 10:28 pm
msmemory_archive) wrote2004-09-11 10:28 pm
Remembering
My parents' generation had Kennedy's assassination as a defining moment. "Where were you?" was a common question, to tie folks together in sharing how they learned of it. (I remember I was very small indeed, and the milkman brought some news to Mother that upset her terribly; she dropped to the chair in the kitchen and hid her face in her apron. Only later did I figure out from the timing what it must have been.)
Where was I three years ago?
I was driving to work, had just decided to cut across Smith St. to go around a knot of traffic at Trapelo and 128.
The announcer came on the radio, and said that someone had just flown a plane into the World Trade Center. "What a nut!" I thought, figuring it was somebody in a private two-seater who thought he would give his girl a fright and miscalculated. Then I found out the truth.
When I got to work, we did nothing all morning but try to catch news. Radio, of course, since the Internet was congested to the point of unusable. Then someone remembered there was a little b&w television in the lab, used by the machinists to illicitly track the ballgames. That got moved into the kitchen, where at least most of us could keep checking in.
I remember talking with KG. He was being horrified by the jumpers. My view was, I didn't know whether I could choose between staying and burning to death, or jumping. At least if one jumped, there was a chance of being unconscious at the time of death. At the time, it didn't occur to us that the towers would come down, annulling the choice.
After work, I did the only thing I could: I hung out our flag. Wasn't eligible to give blood (previous donation was too recent). Prayed, of course, and cried. Watched the news coverage over and over, as if I could numb myself. Thought perhaps we'd get good news eventually, as we did when some of the trapped were found in the Murrah building. Cried some more.
Where was I three years ago?
I was driving to work, had just decided to cut across Smith St. to go around a knot of traffic at Trapelo and 128.
The announcer came on the radio, and said that someone had just flown a plane into the World Trade Center. "What a nut!" I thought, figuring it was somebody in a private two-seater who thought he would give his girl a fright and miscalculated. Then I found out the truth.
When I got to work, we did nothing all morning but try to catch news. Radio, of course, since the Internet was congested to the point of unusable. Then someone remembered there was a little b&w television in the lab, used by the machinists to illicitly track the ballgames. That got moved into the kitchen, where at least most of us could keep checking in.
I remember talking with KG. He was being horrified by the jumpers. My view was, I didn't know whether I could choose between staying and burning to death, or jumping. At least if one jumped, there was a chance of being unconscious at the time of death. At the time, it didn't occur to us that the towers would come down, annulling the choice.
After work, I did the only thing I could: I hung out our flag. Wasn't eligible to give blood (previous donation was too recent). Prayed, of course, and cried. Watched the news coverage over and over, as if I could numb myself. Thought perhaps we'd get good news eventually, as we did when some of the trapped were found in the Murrah building. Cried some more.
no subject
I was having a weird day already. We'd gotten up ungodly early to be at Hammersmith for some temp work. I met Robert & Signy there, it turned out we didn't have work (there'd been a scheduling snafu) so we had a breakfast, then Robert & I went to his place and Signy went home. We had another breakfast, hung out, and had just finished lunch when Signy rang on the mobile telling us to turn on the television - we did in time to see the second plane hit.
We made some phone calls (couldn't get through mostly), then watched all afternoon. Eventually went to fighting practice. I spent the whole next day at PS's watching the news (we didn't have TV or license at our house).
Interestingly, that afternoon PS got sacked from his job, so the mood was very weird indeed....
That day, and in the days that followed, it was interesting to be an American living in Britain - the mood was very different than it had been (which had been mostly anti-Bush sentiments prior to that). A country that has suffered domestic terrorism for years takes these things a bit more in stride than the US did, and of course we were getting UK news reports. Recently I went back and listened to the NPR reports from that first day or so (they're online), and tried to recall the UK reports and analyse the difference.