I'll never forget where I was. Mrs Fs fifth grade science class. I remember all the teachers left suddenly and came back crying. Ended up sending us home.
Didn't really sink in what happened for a while cause I was just a kid. But I also had no idea how it would shape my future.
And now every year on this day I climb 110 flights of stairs to remember those that were lost.
Better than mine I was in 6th grade they pulled us all into the gym and wheeled in 3 tvs with the news playing, We were in middle school 4th to 6th grade.
I imagine it was the most traumatic thing that happened until the pandemic. I wonder how that played out for kids in school at the time.
I was in kindergarten in Colorado. Mom turned on the little white TV in the kitchen because she wanted to know if a football player was hurt. And thats when we watched the second plane hit.
I was eating toast. We walked the block to drop me off at school. We made flags with glitter and stars and ripped paper while our teacher cried and kids got taken home one by one.
Mom picked up white carnations and handed them out to people who came into the store, then she had lunch with me in the mostly empty cafeteria. It was the good grilled cheese and tomato soup that day.
Even in Colorado, it was this weird numb feeling. We went up to the mountains for like a week after that day. It was very quite with out any planes.
I was in kindergarten as well at the time, and I just remember being pulled out of school much earlier than normal. And while I didn't understand or really remember much, the way my parents acted that day makes me think of something gray. They're strong people, willing to shield me from such truths, but despite getting out early, I've never thought of it as a good day.
Mom couldn't really hide it from me seeing as we just watched it together. But i remember it didn't make sense. I suggested it was not on the local news station, maybe it was on a different one? Could dad have changed it to a movie befor work?
It does feel gray. I think thats why I remember the food. Everything was quiet and soft but the food was still food and it was comforting
My family has never been one to share experiences, we're all introverted to some degree, so they wouldn't have me watch things with them.
I remember coming down to the kitchen for food or something, with them both in the living room, but I couldn't grasp what was happening.
Now that I think back on it, we just moved into a new house, my littlest sister was just born at about 7 months old, middle child just turned 3, and my father's birthday was only two days away. I've never asked my parents about that day, part of me doesn't feel like it's right after they protected me like that.
In Colorado, as well, but I was 16. My dad turned on my bedroom light and said “get up, the world’s on fire.”
I sat in the living room watching the first tower smoke and felt like dad was overselling it. Then, the second hit and the news came in about the Pentagon and the fourth plane that crashed in the field taking every one of those motherfucking heroes with it.
They read the names of famous people who had died. I think one was a producer on Frasier or something. I knew I had to do something, so I pulled out the camcorder/VHS system I had hacked together to make my own movie trailers and set a bunch of news footage to Enya’s ‘Only Time’. That made me feel better.
Then, I went to work at the local library and I was having conversations with adults about it all day. People were coming down from camping trips to get the news. A woman my mom’s age stood at the front desk with me and cried and talked through how stupid she felt reading romance novels and I was 16 so I had no idea what to say to that.
It was a whole day of being professional while all these grownups responded to the crisis at or near my desk.
I was in the same place a bit older. I was in fifth grade. I remember getting ready for school, and Mom having the tv on in the kitchen while we all ate and got our stuff together. The news was on and she was paying incredibly close attention to it. So was my dad.
I remember seeing the second tower get hit. Dad was an officer in the army, think he was a Colonel or something at the time. He saw that plane hit, stood up, said "I have to go". Don't think I heard from him for a week. Then the deployments started. It was brutal.
It seems like every twenty years in the United States, there's a defining event that everybody knows where they were at the time. The pandemic, 9/11, the Challenger, JFK, etc.
I was at the grocery store in upper middle class republican hateville. There was significant violence. BUT, even when the world was ending, not a single soul purchased Campbell's Cream of Shrimp soup. The only item that never even got kind of low in stock. Because that sounds NASTY
They pretty much did that at our middle school as well. We all had a class schedule of 6 classes per day, but that day we stayed in our home room and they just had the TV on the entire time with mostly silence. Coincidentally it was my American History class and our teacher did occasionally stop to tell the class how important and tragic this event was and that it would be remembered in history books forever. Which sounds obvious, but to a bunch of 10-12 year olds, I'm actually appreciative it was that class I saw everything in.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 15h ago
I'll never forget where I was. Mrs Fs fifth grade science class. I remember all the teachers left suddenly and came back crying. Ended up sending us home.
Didn't really sink in what happened for a while cause I was just a kid. But I also had no idea how it would shape my future.
And now every year on this day I climb 110 flights of stairs to remember those that were lost.