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September 11, 2001 – Where Were You?
By JLP | September 11, 2006
I’m watching the reading of the names of the World Trade Center Victims. It is hard to believe that it has been five years since it happened. I remember EXACTLY what I was doing that day when I heard the news. I had just dropped of my oldest at school and was taking my youngest to daycare. When we got to the daycare, I walked inside and the one of the ladies told me that an airplane had just hit the World Trade Center.
One of the ladies, a wife of one of the victims, read the lyrics to Irving Berlin’s “How Deep is the Ocean?” I have heard this song many times but never thought of the words in this way. Here’s the lyrics:
How can I tell you what is in my heart?
How can I measure each and every part?
How can I tell you how much I love you?
How can I measure just how much I do?
How much do I love you?
I’ll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
How far would I travel
To be where you are?
How far is the journey
From here to a star?
And if I ever lost you
How much would I cry?
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
Source: LyricsFreak.com
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Topics: Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »
September 11th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
That’s very touching. I remember where I was. I came into work late that day. I walked in, and one of my coworkers started blabbing about how the World Trade Center had holes in the roof. At first I had no idea what he was talking about. I walked into my bosses office and the rest of my coworkers were in there watching his television. It was very intense. From that day on for about a month, I was on CNN.com everyday and I printed all of the headlines and kept track of them in a binder I still have at home. Towards the end I stopped keeping track of them, but I believe I had a 3″ Binder overflowing with the news stories. I haven’t looked in it since, but now when I get home, I think I might.
September 11th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
I was living on the west coast, going through the beginning of a divorce and living in a house I was seriously rehabbing, which had to be sold as part of the divorce proceedings. A lot of stress, living in this house and under a deadline to get it finished so I could get on with my life.
The TV was the only furniture in my living room – the walls were down to the studs. I come into the living room and sit down in front of the TV. I’m putting on running shoes to go for a morning jog – I was working evening shift that day. I see that silly little banner running across the bottom of the screen, and noticed it said something about the WTC. I go into the kitchen to get some juice. I come back to the TV and they have switched to live footage of the WTC – all I can see is smoke. I just assume there is a big fire. NYC Fire Dept. is great – they’ll put it out.
After I come back from the kitchen a second time I see the second plane impact. It was like getting punched in the stomach. I knew this had to be an attack of some sort. And after hearing about the Pentagon and the crash in PA, knowing that my life and this country would never be the same.
Later my soon-to-be-ex calls – her stepdad is a Army chopper pilot and may have been at the Pentagon. Phone lines are jammed and there is no way to call the east coast. We are civil with each other but there is nothing much I can offer. We later find out he was ok and spent most of the day ferrying officers from a Fort in VA to the Pentagon to check on members of their units.
Never did go jogging that day. Still waiting for the government to speak straight with us and seriously deal with those who want to destroy Western Civilization.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
My wife and I were getting ready for work. She liked to turn on the TV news while we were getting ready. I was standing there in the bedroom watching the fire in the first tower when the second plane impacted. That is when I figured out that it wasn’t some freak accident, but a terror attack.
We went in to work (we both work in the same office for the U.S. Government). Most people were watching the news on TV in the conference room. I was at my desk looking for news on the Internet. No one was working (no jokes about Federal employees, please).
Apparently, someone in our agency was worried about further attacks, so they sent us all home about 1:00 in the afternoon. I guess they were thinking about the Federal Building bombing in OKC a couple years before. So we went home and watched CNN for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
September 12th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
That morning I had just gotten out of the Subway at Fulton Street. Because I was running late for work I was a bit oblivious to the fact that people were standing around watching the first tower on fire. Only once I got to Park Row did I stop to look at what was happening. Still not aware of what was going on I thought the building was just ‘on fire’.
I went up stairs to my office and sat at the window watching the peole when the second plane came around. I though ok he is flying a tad bit low and boom.
Everyone in my office started panicking. It was total chaos. No one knew where to go. Sometime later the report about the pentagon came over the radio. This set in even further panic because someone in the office said ‘oh Police Plaza or City Hall is next?
As we evacuated from our office building to the main building across the street, the first tower fell. That day is etched in my memory as the one day that I completely froze and could not react to anything my brain asked me to do for about 3 minutes. At the time that felt like an eternity until a police officer pratically shoved me inside the building.
Everyone deals with there grief differently. it just occured to me that I never cried or attended the ‘mandatory’ counselling the job offered. I simply left my job and the aea a few months later and moved uptown.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Almost like you, I had just dropped off our kids at school and daycare. I was on the road when I heard on the radio that there was what was then an unconfirmed report of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center. By the time the second tower was hit, I was sitting in front of a television.
I was also on the phone. I spent most of the morning verifying that one person dear to me wasn’t in the Pentagon that morning and that another was not on a flight out of Boston. I didn’t lose anyone that day.
I know too many people who have lost loved ones to violence. I know too many people who have been hurt.