In the five years since 11.09.2001, I don’t believe I’ve ever written a post on the subject. It’s not as if I have a particular aversion to talking about it; I just never felt any need to do so.
I still don’t feel any compulsion to talk about it but I will anyway because
- it’s been five years and it seems like a good time as any to do so,
- I’ve got accompanying photos so it won’t be all talk, and
- as each year passes, I’m more likely to forget details about the day so it’s best to get it recorded for the sake of remembrance.
American flag hanging on 35th Avenue between 43rd and 44th Street in Astoria, NY.
It was the third week of classes in my last year at Binghamton University. I woke up that morning at 7:15am so I could shower and get to my 8:30am Operating Systems class on time. It was our first exam/quiz of the semester and I wanted to make sure I’d get there on time. Aaron noticed there was something wrong with our bathtub - there was an odor and black gunk coming up out of the drain. At this point, a shower was out of the question. We quietly - Justin will dispute that - debated whether to wake Justin or Jeremy at such an early hour to tell them about the drain problem. We ultimately left a note (I think?) for them, detailing the situation and jetted off to campus.
After quickly finishing the exam/quiz, Ben and I killed time in the Science Library, on their public computing stations. At some point, Ben tells me that a plane hit the World Trade Center. He and I both assumed that, with no further information available at the time from CNN.com, that some bozo had flown a prop plane into one of the towers. It’s not without precedence since this had already happened once before in 1945 when a B-25 bomber flown by Army Air Corps bomber pilot Lt. Colonel William Smith slammed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building amidst a heavy fog. Of course, it was a clear day this time but accidents can happen anytime.
A few minutes after 9:02am, we both knew this was no accident. Once that second plane hit the South Tower, we began a mad game of clicking Refresh/hitting F5 at the computer. There were other students around us at their own computers who had overheard our excited cries and had also started to visit the various news sites. Well, they must all have been trying to go to the heavy hitters - CNN.com and NYTimes.com - because we were repeatedly getting timeout errors. While we were debating whether or not to go to our Programming Languages class, we saw that the Pentagon had also been hit. We finally decided to go to our next class since there had been no official word of classes being cancelled.
When we got to our next class, a visibly shaken Professor Head talked about how this was our generation’s Pearl Harbor. She tried teaching but, finding it difficult to do so, ultimately let us out 20 minutes early. Classes were officially cancelled for the day, and the career/job fair - the first of the school year - was cancelled. With no idea of what had happened since 9:45am, Aaron and I drove back to the apartment. I think the radio was on in the car but I don’t remember what I heard during the ride.
Upon entering the apartment, Justin and Jeremy, who had been watching the continuing coverage on CNN, updated us on what transpired. I recall being in a state of utter disbelief when told that the towers had collapsed. To this point, I had not seen any images of the events, only descriptions from CNN.com’s breaking news banner. I immediately glued myself to the television and that’s when I saw, or I should say didn’t see, the towers. Still in shock, I didn’t even realize that there was a plumber in our bathroom working on our tub until he came out to tell us that it was fixed. I thanked him in a rather perfunctory manner but I was barely paying him any attention as my gaze was fixed to the television. We didn’t have our cable modem installed yet so I tried to get online with my brother’s AOL account only to encounter what everyone else surely ran into - busy signals.
With no way to get online and the prospect of watching even more television coverage as the alternative, the four of us decided to drive out into town. We didn’t really have too much to do - a few errands, maybe lunch, and a trip to Wal-Mart - but just getting away from the continuing media coverage was welcome. We couldn’t avoid it entirely since, everywhere we went, there was a radio with the news playing, or, in the case of Wal-Mart, a giant bank of televisions showing CNN.
Later in the afternoon, I was able to finally check in with my family back in New York City to see if they were all ok. None of my friends worked in the WTC complex so I didn’t have to make those calls immediately to check on them though, ultimately, I would discover a few acquaintances I knew had died in the attack.
Now, five years later, after finally putting this all down on paper - or bytes, as it were - I’m not going to talk about it ever again. When I’m older and begin to forget some of the minute details of the day, I’ll go back to this post and re-read it and I’m sure the memories will surge forward.
I’ll end this post with photos of the Tribute in Light, taken from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
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