9/11/01: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
*ring ring*
me: “grunt grunt groan, whut”
*ring ring*
me: *answers phone* “Hello?”
Mama: “SCOTT.”
me: “Hey…happy birthday, Mama!”
Mama: “SCOTT. Â We’re at war.”
me: “We’re what?”
Mama: “We’re under attack! Turn the TV on. I heard it on the radio on the way to the school [where she worked at the time].”
me: “Yeah, OK…”
*boots computer, opens WinTV, watches second plane hit*
me: “Hey, how’d they have cameras ready to go when it hit? Waitaminit…that’s another one!”
*watches awhile longer, hears about Pentagon bombing, then 747 crash in Pennsylvania*
me: “…” *carried slack-jawed look while watching for another hour or so*
*showers and heads for 11AM class, Dr. Saddow’s Electromagnetic Fields I*
And that’s where I was and what I was doing on my Mama’s birthday back in 2001, now simply known as 9/11 and serves as one of my generation’s flash-point events, similar to the JFK assassination and the Challenger explosion.
This year, her birthday was much more low-key…a large chunk of family hit one of the better fish camps for supper tonight. But we’re still living in the post 9/11 world, and that won’t go unremembered every day from now on.
