So it has now been ten years since 9/11. Wow.
I remember that morning well. I was getting ready for work around 6:45 in the morning and the phone rang. I was living with my parents at the time and they asked me to answer it.
”So what do you think of all this?” my dad’s friend said in an anxious tone of voice.
I laugh as I write this now, because I said to him hang on, I’ll get my dad, who was at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Dad said without looking at the TV on in front of him (with no sound on-he’s hard of hearing, so this is typical), “What in the hell is he doing calling me now? Tell him I’m still asleep!”
I told his friend that and nearly passed out as he screamed to wake him the hell up and told me what happened. I at first thought he said that the Pentagon blew up, so that’s what I screamed when I got off the phone.
”TURN ON THE TV! THE PENTAGON HAS BEEN BOMBED!”
So, we all watched TV for a bit before my mom and I headed off to work. Laura Bush was forced to speak to the nation, I think, and she looked so scared. My mom finally told me to pry myself away from the TV because I had to finish getting ready for work. She was right-and I did just that and went on my way to work.
I worked for a manufacturing company in Anaheim at that time and listened to the radio as I drove on the 57 freeway to work. Every radio station had news on. I mean every station. I think I tried changing the radio station and there was no use.
My jaw dropped in the car as I heard about both of the towers collapsing to the ground. I remember looking at the cars around me as we waded through traffic, and the faces were dead serious. This truly was scary.
I made it to work and walked in the door and the receptionist and I exchanged looks that knew the seriousness of the situation. I sat near her and she asked my opinion two seconds after I sat down if she should call her sister who lived a few blocks from Ground Zero to see how she is. We all had codes to use when we dialed long distance numbers, so she didn’t want the person who audited the monthly phone bill to think she was making a frivolous call. Yeah, I think the boss will understand this one, I said.
She called and I’ll admit that I turned around and listened. Her sister was fine and asked my co-worker to make another call to check on her husband since she could only receive calls. My co-worker called and found out he was all right also.
I took my break and sat at the TV that was set up that day. It was a mass huddle to find out information about this horrific event across the country that rocked us to our core. Someone thought of the significance of the date. We sat silently and listened. A manager thought we should just all go home that day and close up shop. I remember thinking that we would let the enemy win that way. After all, we weren’t in a high rise building (and a lot in LA were emptied that day for safety’s sake) and we didn’t make defense parts. We weren’t at risk. We kept working.
There were prayer services that evening all across the country. I debated going to a nearby one but paranoid me thought it was unsafe. I thought I’d be part of a group bombing, LOL. How dumb of me! Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!
Every TV station was filled with 9/11 news. You could not escape it. Like the rest of the world, I was glued to the TV that evening as I looked at the cleanup efforts and the mangled mess that was.
And I was a mere 26. LOL.
It has really been 10 years since. We are smarter. We are more paranoid about national security. We are.
I hope that no one ever forgets 9/11. I certainly won’t.
