…and I commented to the teller that when the first of the Towers fell, I was standing right there, at the bank. It’s one of those moments where people always remember where they were.
And she smiled sadly and said, “Oh, I remember exactly where I was. I was rushing to Brooklyn to be there for my mother when my sister’s tower fell.”
I asked with the terrible feeling that I knew the answer. “Was she all right…?”
The teller shook her head and pointed at a photo over on a little shrine at the front of the bank. “That’s her picture over there.”
“I’m…surprised they didn’t give you the day off.”
“I wanted to be here,” she said. “Doing this is how I’m dealing with it.”
I think I’m just not gonna talk to anybody today…
PAD
• 
OUCH…I try and steer clear of 911 stories. I just smile and politely nod.
Regards:
WSJ3
Wow.
God bless.
I hope that everyone is safe today.
See, I’m with her. On the day it happened, I was working. And I kept working, because the work had to be done. I was lucky in that I had no loved ones there.
Everybody can’t just stop. The world keeps turning.
Just think, there was probably an Al-Quaeda PAD who was watching the news and doing a “Count Von Count” voice. You know: “Eighteen! Eighteen people! Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one! Ah ah ah!!”
-_-
Yes, Chris, an appropriate subject for a joke in poor taste. Gøddámņ ghoul.
Peter, you have to keep talking, keep engaging, keep asking questions. Your teller wanted to talk, or she’d have just smiled sadly and concluded your business without comment.
Now you’re one more person who knows her sister’s story. You undoubtedly gave the shrine a look, so that woman’s name and face are in your mind today. That’s what your teller wanted, and you honor her with your empathy.
Someone please remove the comments made by Chris Grillo.
I dont believe in censorship in general but that joke is in such bad taste.
It makes me feel sick.
I work on Long Island and live in the city – when I came off the train into Penn Station, I saw a bunch of people waiting (I am pretty sure it was to go down to ground zero) and one had a bouquet of yellow carnations with a note that said “for my daughter and sister” – I saw that and tears came to my eyes. I pray, today especially, for peace and consolation for those who lost loved ones on that fateful day and for the souls of those whose lives were cut far too short by these animals.
I didn’t lose anyone I was close to. 9/11 was my second day on my current jobas a Web designer at a newspaper. It was certainly a trial by fire.
A week or so later, I learned that an acquaintance was among those lost. I knew Johnny Heff from his band, The Bullys, a great NYC punk band. I’d hung out with him via mutual friends and seen his band play while visiting NYC, and had most recently seen him just under a year before. I didn’t know him well enough to know that he was also John Heffernan of FDNY, and that he’d died trying to save others.
In fact, given what I’ve learned since, I strongly suspect he was one of the firefighters trapped in the stairwell with the WTC building super, Anthony Savas, as depicted in Bill Jemas’s story in A MOMENT OF SILENCE.
So today I think of Johnny Heff and his sacrifice, and of the thousands of others who senselessly lost their lives.
I was at the Doctor’s office when I heard. (I’m in NC). The rest of the day I was home alone with a bad back. All I could do was watch the news. It was horrific. I wish I had been at work or with family. That was not a day to be alone. But I can thank God I was safe. My heart aches for the lives lost and the nation that needs to heal.
I just mowed the lawn today. Can’t stand all the wall-to-wall grief coverage.
I was at work and a friend who had a CNN email-instant-news subscription thingie just mentioned that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre.
I giggled.
The week before a parachutist had been caught intangled in the Statue of Liberty. He was unharmed. It was humourous.
When my friend mentioned a plane had hit, all I could imagine was some small Cessna and all involved would be fine and healthy.
I still feel sick over that giggle.
I was a work when the first plane hit and my boss showed up to relieve me (I work the graveyard shift) and he told me a small plane had hit the world trade center and he laughed about it. I was curious to what happened so I left work and went to my parents house and watched the news where I saw what really happened. Needless to say that whole event was very sad however the news coverage was very addicting. I saw both towers fall on the news and all I could think about was all the people that died and how could ANYONE think that this is an appropriate way to get a message across.
I was fortunate in that my brother, my cousin, and four close friends in NYC and my other cousin in Wahington DC survived.
My husband was supposed to be on Flight 11. He lost two coworkers.
He is working today. That’s how he’s getting through. I’m doing a massive clean-up of the house and leaving the television off. That’s how I’m getting through.
Hugs to you, Peter, and to your family and friends.
Living in Los Angeles, I woke up to the horror of 9/11. It was a little after 7am Pacific Time. I was in the shower and my husband, who I thought had left for work, burst into the bathroom to tell me that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked. I jumped out of the shower, soap and all, and we watched the coverage on TV. The south tower was already gone and we were just talking about how weird it will be to see the NY skyline with only one of the World Trade building standing. Five seconds later, we saw footage of a building collapsing. I thought for sure it was a replay of the south tower collapse, but my husband put his hand on my sticky shoulder and said, “I think that was the other one.” Like the rest of you, I’ll remember that morning vividly until the day I die.
The other night I was watching a program on Discovery called “Attack on the Pentagon.” With the scope of what happened in New York, the tragedy of what happened in Washington and Pennsylvania sometimes get a bit overshadowed, so I had heard remarkably little about the accounts of the people in the Pentagon during the attack. The one that moved me to tears was the story of a Navy officer who was recounting what had happened that morning at the Pentagon. He lost his best friend to the attack, which was tragic enough, but as you heard more and more of his story, you learn that his 11 year old son was on Flight 77, the very plane that hit the Pentagon. His boy was coming here to the West Coast on an educational field trip.
Take care, everyone.
Monica Davis
Someone please remove the comments made by Chris Grillo.
Some people work away their grief, sadness, and impotence. I laugh it off. When I wasn’t able to crack jokes two years ago (as in I physically could not stand anything humorous) I found that jogging while listening to Cartoon Network’s “The Time is Now” Super Friends remix was wonderul. It was very empowering thinking about the Justice League being there to help us out, right the wrongs, and give order in such chaos.
All this reflection just gives me a somber attitude. Perhaps I’ll follow Luigi’s example and mow his lawn too.
I actually thought it was funny at first too. Like you said, I had remembered the parachuter, too. I was at college, getting a story ready for the newspaper (and my first class) when one of my classmates told me a plane hit the World Trade Center.
I smiled a bit, and said, I hope no one was hurt. Then I went into the campus’s little bar to watch the news, and saw what really happened…followed quickly by the second plane crash. I stopped smiling, and was basically crying for the rest of the day.
I wasn’t able to get home that night (I work in Newark, live in Central Jersey), but fortunately, I was able to stay with friends of my girlfriend’s family.
I was a complete stranger to them, and they took me in for the night. Since then, I have been close to them, and when I see them, I still tear up, thinking of the night we met, and all sat around a TV in shock….not wanting to watch, but unable to turn away.
A few days later, I went over there and was able to do a great story for the paper about my own feelings, and the feelings of the mourning crowd. Everyone was great about letting mne take pictures, especially when they realized I had lost people there, and I was just as much in mourning as they were.
At my age, I’ve lived through several “stand still and try to breath” moments. The age of assasinations…I was in World Georgraphy, 7th Grade, when Mr. Fromhart told us JFK had been shot. Vietnam…still remember the shock of hearing a high school classmate had come back home in a tiny little bag in a big coffin. The Challenger explosion…like others I thought that was a stupid joke til I saw the pictures. Sitting in a class learning how to make scrapbooks of all things, when it was announced that the Gulf War had started.
The morning of 9/11 I tried to think the best when the first plane hit, an accident, big building, those not directly affected will get out. Then the second plane. I stayed at work. But desperately wanted to be home with my children and grandchildren. But I kept working. In some small part of my brain I had the thought that this was my way to help. Stay put and get the job done. Which was reiterated a day or so later when the president asked us to continue with our lives, don’t let the bášŧárdš win.
This morning I was reading CNN on-line and saw where hundreds of children were at Ground Zero today with pictures and flowers, remembering their parents who died. Tears flowed again.
It’s still a raw wound. Perhaps, Chris, that’s why folks are not happy with your humor. We haven’t got a thick enough scab to handle it yet.
At the time, I drove in every day to Liberty State Park in Jersey City, and took a trolley to my office on the Hudson facing the Trade Center. When I got out of my car that morning and walked towards the trolley I noticed that one of the towers was on fire.
Later, I was standing at our floor-to-ceiling window on the sixth floor staring, with the rest of my office, when the first tower fell. It just plain didn’t seem real.
We evacuated our building then and I somehow got back to my car. Was heading to my in-laws to be with family when i say the second tower fall in the rear view window.
Things are, oddly enough, mostly normal here today – our main office is in the World Financial Center (this office is a satelite) and I wonder how things are there.
Peace to all.
I watched on CNN as the stuff unfolded on 9-11-01, my car was broke down, I was waiting on a ride to work and my wife was at work. I was on the phone with her when the first tower fell, the commentator was babbling about more fire from the building as it was falling, and I’m yelling in the phone “The whole dámņ tower is gone, completely gone!” and this idiot is watching the same stuff and just talking about more smoke…
Today, I find myself pìššëd-off. Not much else can really describe whtat my emotional state is. I want to reach out and hit the ones responsible for all this BS, the government tells us we can’t do anything about the Saudis. I think that the horror should be shown more often, I think that everyone should be reminded of what happened , every day. Every Day. Not to keep people in fear, or mourning like the stuff going on in NYC, PA and DC, but to get more people mad, to get more of a push about finding the real root of all this BS in Saudi. 17 of the SOBs that did all of this were from Saudi, but they don’t help us to find the groups and people that support them.
People should be pìššëd today, not mourning.
jeff
I was at work 2 years ago today. We were sent home early since I work for a federal agency. I remember not feeling particularly scared, but sick for days after that. I had nightmares about the end of the world, based on the fact I didn’t think we had responsible leadership, I think. I tried pointing this out to my friends, but at the time, no one would listen to me. The world didn’t blow up then, though. But I think my fears were valid and are valid, at least as far as leadership goes.
And I think things are worse now than before, and wonder about the denial in people who feel differently than me.
Those people who died on 9/11 are still dead. Our boys in Iraq are still dying. Osama Bin Laden is still missing. And our country continues on a course that merits reconsideration on every level.
And I am preaching to the choir and to the deaf but I am finally saying something. And I think that’s a good thing.
Brian
Like so many others I was at work the day of 9/11; I worked on the 36th floor of a building in midtown Manhattan. I had just gotten to work moments before the 2nd tower was hit. Myself and many of my coworkers watched from a window in our hall; It’s a great big window with an amazing view of the city and often I had found myself stopping by just to take a peak of the beauty that is NYC. I had never imagined that I would stand at that window and watch the greatest horror I’ve ever seen in my life.
We stood there for hours and watched the horrors unfold…the 2nd plane, the collapse of tower 2, the collapse of Tower 1, the neverending smoke. One of my best friends (also named Mike) worked in Tower 2; Thank God he made it out that day but at the time I didn’t know…..I thought I lost him! In the end he was OK but the pain of that moment I will never forget….I can’t even image how those who actually lost someone go on; I really praise them for all their strength.
I found that the easiest way for me to deal with this is to face it head on; I went down to Ground Zero today (as I did last year). I didn’t go during the morning…I went later in the afternoon so it was a little less crowded; I wanted to get as close as I could…I needed to make my mourning a little more personal than standing in a crowd of thousands from blocks away. I walked around the site reading as many of the tributes that people had posted on the fences. The one that had gotten me the most was a picture of a man with his 2 kids at the Yankee game; they looked like they were in the nose-bleed seats because you could see the field and the rest of the stadium in th background. But it didn’t matter where they sat, they seemed to be having such a good time…the 3 of them laughing and smiling; The absoulte time of their lives! The picture was timestamped Sepemteber 10, 2001. It was glued to a big piece of cardboard that said “We Miss You Daddy!”.
It look me almost 5 minutes to stop crying.
And even though I no longer work on that floor I went back to that window this morning; I stood there for a few minutes and said a prayer for all those that were lost. I looked out the windows and felt a great sadness but then I thought of my son….We had found out my wife was pregnant 3 days before 9/11; When he was born I was so scared to bring him into this world after what I had seen. But As I looked out of that window today, besides being sad, I felt a great amount of Hope as well. I believe that the world can be a better place….I have to… for my son’s sake and for my own.
And even though it’s bitter sweet….it’s still a beautiful view.
The morning of 9/11, I had just gotten off work at my TV job. I went to bed and listened to a little Howard Stern to relax. He described the first airplane hitting the towers, and started talking terrorism. “Jumping the gun,” I thought rationally. “Surely the government would have said or done something it if was a terrorist attack.”
Then the second plane hit, and Stern said, “That proves it. It’s terrorism.” And he was right. And the leader of our government hadn’t bothered to stop his stupid photo-op of reading a children’s book.
It wasn’t conceit or indifference that made me take a pill to go to sleep. It was the knowledge that, for the next few days, I’d have to run continual special reports programming recounting this tragedy time and time again, and I’d need what sleep I could get. You civilians had the option of turning off continual coverage. I knew I’d be soaking in it.
Incidentally, one of our producers was on vacation in New York, staying in the WTC hotel. He was out getting breakfast at a nearby restaurant when it fell, burying his car and all his posessions. If Mr. David feels awkward…imagine having to live with survivor’s guilt, knowing it was only a mere twist of fate that kept you alive.
My favorite thing about my new job on September 10, 2001, was that it was in New York City. My second favorite thing was that I could see the Twin Towers from my desk. I’d heard the complaints from architects and urban planners, but I still loved those buildings. They were my second-favorite structure, after the Chrysler. I loved the view from Windows On The World, which I’d only managed to get up to once in my life. I loved standing on the plaza and looking up, up, up, my eye fololowing the graceful, gliding lines of the exterior up to the heavens, nearly toppling over as I tilted back to glimpse the top over a hundred stories away. There was the bakery in the lower level which sold the best muffins in New York. The Borders whose staff put up detailed cards as to why I should check out this writer or that book and actually knew their assigned sections intimately. I prefered that TKTS booth as you didn’t have to worry about inclement weather and bad buskers.
Everyone staring through that office window at the antenna making its agonizingly slow decent into the smoke and dust had lost someone in those buildings. Best friends. Tennis buddies. People with whom they had worked while they were in the Towers. Except for me. I still don’t know how I managed not to lose anyone, why I was spared that. I hated myself for that sometimes, like I hated myself for living when so many good people had died, people profiled day after week after month in the Times.
It was a lousy job and I left in a year. I miss the City again, but I’m glad I don’t have to see the window with a gaping hole in the sky. I lost a piece of myself when those Towers fell.
Most everyone has a story about September 11. I think this thread illustrates perfectly how much people need to talk about that day still. That need is all the more urgent when that person lost someone so suddenly and horrible and, for over a thousand people, irretrievably, an empty box buried at the funeral. Like someone said above, that clerk needed you to listen. I’m glad you were there for her.
As for the joke, it may be in exceedingly poor taste, but a lot of people respond to horror with humor. I remember the jokes told about the Challenger. Were those appropriate? No, but they were natural reactions to something so difficult to wrap your mind around.
I can’t get angry anymore. It’s too late for anger. I just have a heavy weight on me. I still have those dreams, the ones where the victims stare at me from the windows of the Towers, waiting, waiting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/nyregion/10ABOU.html
A good article about one family in Staten Island dealing with their grief.
I found out about it while I was walking in the street. In London, where I work.
My wife called me on my cell phone from home to tell me the news (the newsflash had just come on television) and to tell me to call my best friend *now*. I’ve known Ian since we were two years old. He’s my closest friend on this planet. And he worked one block over from the World Trade Centre.
Thankfully, Ian is alive and well, but I will never forget the sheer fright and hammer-to-the-guts feeling while I waited for him to pick up the phone, a feeling that stayed with me as I watched the terrible scenes later when I returned to the office and that evening, when I waited for the phone call to let me know he was home and safe.
I found out about it while I was walking in the street. In London, where I work.
My wife called me on my cell phone from home to tell me the news (the newsflash had just come on television) and to tell me to call my best friend *now*. I’ve known Ian since we were two years old. He’s my closest friend on this planet. And he worked one block over from the World Trade Centre.
Thankfully, Ian is alive and well, but I will never forget the sheer fright and hammer-to-the-guts feeling while I waited for him to pick up the phone, a feeling that stayed with me as I watched the terrible scenes later when I returned to the office and that evening, when I waited for the phone call to let me know he was home and safe.
Chris I read your reasons for humour and I understand a bit better where you are coming from.
Jimmy Cauty a member of one time UK band KLF has made a freely available tribute to 9/11 on this website.
Its a touching tribute, I highly recommend listening to it.
Be quick though as the MP3 is going to be removed soon and deleted forever.
Click on this link to download it:
http://www.crapola.com/blacksmoke//911.htm
I was actually at home in bed with a bad cold when it happened, so I didn’t get up until about 11 in the morning. When I did get up, the first thing I did was check my email and the headline “Attack on America” was flashing all over the place on AOL. It still didn’t hit me as I was reading it — I’ve never been sure if it was because I wasn’t mentally at my best due to the cold, or the fact that AOL had a history of placing up headlines that weren’t entirely true.
But anyway, I did my regular computer routine for about 45 minutes before I decided to turn on the TV. When I saw what was happening on CNN, it finally hit me. I didn’t catch on until about noon that day. Because I called off work that day to get better (around 7:30 that morning), I missed the entire attack as it happened. I’ve felt, and I guess I still feel, that I was literally the last person on the planet to hear about what happened to us.
Elie
There is a difference between humor and pure insensitivity.
Just because there is a joke out there doesn’t mean it has to be told.
When Chris has to jump out of a building to die rather than being killed by fire…then he can crack all the jokes he wants.
I was at home when I first heard the news. I woke up and the TV was on Good Morning America (yes, I often fall asleep with the TV on). It was a little before 9 and Diane Sawyer was doing her best to describe what happened to the first tower…no one knowing much at this time. Then I saw, live on TV, the 2nd tower get hit. I think everyone watching knew then it wasn’t an accident. I was glued to the TV. Switching between ABC, CNN and Fox, all were showing and saying the same things. Then the news about a car bomb at the state dept. (later proven false) and the Pentagon. Now it hit home. One of my best friends, and the guy that was the best man at my wedding works in the Pentagon. There was no footage available yet, so I had no idea how bad it was there. I tried calling his mother and she was in hysterics…because she couldn’t get thru to him at work, on his cell phone, or even to his home phone. By then it was time for me to go to work. I work Master Control at a TV station and ended up watching network coverage of the events the entire week. No local programming, no commericials, just news coverage. That was depressing, since there was no way to get away from it for 8 hours every day for over a week. Then I would find myself watching news at home, in case something new happened in the 15 minutes it took to drive home.
Eventually we found out that my friend was OK (he works on the far other side of the Pentagon), but it was a scary time.
My niece was born on September 11th two years ago. Every time I think of her I’m reminded of the Towers, while at the same time I’m aware that life does indeed go on and will continue to do so.
Death and tragedy struck this country a couple of years ago, but life and hope will always come out on top.
I was at work. Good old boring Tuesday morning. Nothing much going on, billing, filing, dispensing sarcasm.
I was wrestling with a stubborn batch of billing that spitefully refused to balance when the phone rang. It was a former co-worker named Bill. “Do you have a radio in the office?” he said before I’d even finished my canned greeting.
“Um…I think Loretta’s got one kicking around somewhere,” I said, trying to juggle the phone and numbers at the same time.
“You need to turn it on now. A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”
I still feel guilty over my next words. I didn’t say “Oh my God” or some other exclamation of horror.
I said “Is that all?”
Like it was worth interrupting work for. I don’t know what the hëll I was thinking. Bill had a tendency to exaggerate and to call over things as trivial as what he had for dinner last night. He could make a Greek tragedy out of stubbing his toe.
But he wasn’t kidding this time.
The radio went on. The second plane hit. I was still thinking “Is that all?” but in a much, much different context. I wanted to know if it would be over. Two more planes crashed in succession, one into the Pentagon, one into a field in Pennsylvania. I could not stop shaking.
But we did not stop working. I was told to keep billing and filing.
I spent lunch with my dad. We had Wendy’s and listened to the radio in the car in the parking lot. I’d refrained from crying all day until I heard a man weeping and begging a reporter to tell him if his kids were okay – apparently there was an elementary school not far from Ground Zero. One woman screamed that her husband was in Tower Two as it fell.
For the rest of the day I could not stop crying. I kept working. I kept answering the phone. But I kept crying. The people who were met with a very choked-up version of my phone greeting were understanding, sympathetic, and they all wanted to talk about it.
But I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t know how I felt about it yet.
I got hit on that afternoon by a solicitor who ended up being a very lousy boyfriend. At the time I could not believe I was being hit on when people were covered in ash and debris. Didn’t bode too well for the relationship.
Life moved on in very stupid ways.
I got home and was glued to the TV and the Internet. I talked with friends in Toronto and Texas. I had to argue with my dad because he wanted to nuke the entire Middle East and he would not listen to my reasoning that nuclear war was the last thing we wanted just then.
My father is not the brightest crayon in the box.
I emailed every one of my friends, even the ones I’d been arguing with, even my personal Judas of an ex-boyfriend, to tell each and every one of them that I loved them and was grateful to have them. I emailed Peter to make sure he and everyone else over at DC and in Manhattan were all right. I called my mother. I didn’t eat supper. I had a nightmare that night of the Sears Tower collapsing in flames and smoke and I woke up screaming. I contemplated giving blood to the Red Cross.
Two years later. It’s all very contemplative and emotional and solemn and none of it makes any sense at all. There is nothing that will ever make sense of what happened and nothing that will ever repair the damage done.
But we go on. Because we have to.
For me it was a surreal experience. I never was in danger, never even felt like it, since I live in southwest Ohio. Yet the incident still made me late for work.
Why? Because I was just ready to leave the house during a commercial when Bryant Gumbel came back on – interrupting the commercials, mind you to announce that “a situation was developing at the World Trade Center”. His words were followed within seconds by live pictures of a smoking One WTC tower.
Ok, I thought, there was an accident. I nearly left the house again, and then Gumbel took a phone call. It was a worker in a nearby building who claimed it was an airplane, and it was no accident. He said he saw the plane fly right over his office, turn, and hit the building…”on purpose”, in his own words.
By that time, I couldn’t leave. Being near the end of his show, Gumbel was the only person left in the studio, and he was doing an excellent job trying to piece together what was going on. He kept the caller on the phone, getting second-by-second updates, meanwhile telling us that no information has come from the government or wire services.
Then, as Gumbel was talking, the second plane whisked across the screen on live TV, slamming into Two WTC. Naturally the video crew scrambled to try and get the clearest and closes slow-motion video of it they could.
I finally left for work after the network news came on, finally relieving Gumbel from his impromptu coverage, after they announced the FAA alert cancelling and grounding all flights. I brought a small portable TV with me. I made it to work only a short time before watching both towers collapse. Needless to say, I, and the others working around me, didn’t get any actual work done that day.
Ironically, though, one of my tasks for the day was to update the web site of a small charter airline scheduled to fly that Friday. I added a note to the site stating that due to the World Trade Center disaster, flights may be cancelled or delayed, and to call and check your reservation first. As I posted the changes to the page, I wondered for a moment if that might be someone’s first notice of what had happened.
I was asleep when the first Tower was hit. It was my off day at school. My buddy called me up and said “a plane hit the WTC!” I thought about the collision that the Empire State Building suffered in the 1940’s and went back to sleep.
Soon after he called me up again and said “the second building got hit!” I then realized it wasn’t an accident. I stayed awake after that, my eyes on the tv. I only left to go to the campus center to see what everyone else was doing. They’d set up a tv there as well and dozens were watching.
A friend’s boyfriend worked in the first tower, about 20 stories up from the impact. Amazingly, he made it out.
On the day that it all happened, I worked for a Navy Base in Il. I was one of the DJ’s there and I had to work that day. I also worked with a public access television station in the same area and was suppossed to do editing with my friend and boss at the base that morning. Not having a working television or a working radio in the car, I was oblivious to what was happenening.
We got to the cable office and we found out that we were closed for the day for reasons not explained to us at the time. So, we decided to head to work at the Naval base a little early and get some paperwork done.
We got to the base and they were turning non-military personal away from the gates. The base was on lockdown. We knew then something was up. We finally got to somewhere were we could find out what was going on and was awestruck at the enormity of it all.
The thing that I can’t quite get through to a lot of people is how worried I was that the kids from the base that I had grown to know and like had become really scared. It was a palpable fear. I know when I left the base in Jan. of the next year, I had each one come and tell me how much of a comfort I was to them for being an adult that they could talk to about their fears and problems and how much they appreciated it.
It seems weird to some, but that was my proudest moment as an American.
Here’s a piece I put up someplace else. It’s written by Bob Greene and it’s in 2001. It said a lot to me then and it still does.
http://www.newerawrestling.com/NEWTV/viewtopic.php?t=4317
Peace,
Larry
The day it happened, I had a scheduled appointment at my dentist, and before that had gone to the MD for my annual physical (they’re in the same building). I got out of there at more or less 5 pm, not knowing anything yet (in France, it was 3 pm when the first tower was hit). I decided to buy some groceries at le local store. When I entered the store, the sound system was on an information channel, which was unusual. Little by little, my tired brain (I had worked in the morning that day, meaning I had to get up at 5am) slowly picked the pieces together: Terrorist attack…the World Trade Center… the Pentagon ? I went home, put the TV on, and couldn’t keep my eyes of it for at least two hours. Since then, I have been wary of going to the dentist again. 2001 was a very bad year for me (my father died that year), but september 11th made it worse, if possible.
When I was five, the cartoons I was watching were interupted for the Challenger report. When I told my mom what happened, she said ‘It’s just pretend.’ Then I said ‘No, it was on the news show.’ She ran into the TV room saw what happened, she turned off the TV and we both just cried.
On Semptember 11th, 2001 we were watching the Today’s show. My mom was getting ready for work, and me for class. My sister was half asleep on the counch. Matt Lauer was interveiwing someone, then said “I’m sorry to interupt but we have a situation at the World Trade Center.’ They transferred the feed over a for a few seconds, and the screen went black. I turned to mom and just stuttered. I muttered “Oh no!” She said ‘It’s probably nothing.’ Somehow, I knew. “I yelled oh god, not again.” At that very moment the feed came back. This day my mother thinks I was talking about a replay of the attack from the 90s. Really, it was because I knew for a second time, the world was going to šhìŧ and my own mother didn’t belive me.
I went to class anyway, expecting things to be cancelled. They were. Even though the county buses were being convert for use at the Pentagon, I stayed. I don’t know why. I’m still glad I did. I went to the club lounge, where my friends and I always used to hang out. I ran into my friend Amir. He was sitting alone by one of the computer. The first thing he said to me was ‘This is the worst fûçkìņg birthday I’ve ever had.’ “Brownie?” He looked at me oddly for a second, and for just a fraction of a second there and did what everyone should do on their birthday… he smiled.
It would be NICE if I could end the store right there. The next day we had school, I was walking with Amir and some other friends to go to lunch when I heard someone shout “That’s the guy… he was probably in on it.” Amir almost lost it. Those guys were ášš hats. They didn’t really know Amir, or about the risks his family took getting here or the worse stuff that would have happened if they stayed in Iran. They didn’t know about his endless quest to find a Shirt Tales lunchbox or how he claims this guy approached him to star as Mario in a pørņ remake of Super Mario Brothers the movie. Or any of the millions of other real bizarre things that only really good friends know about each. (Canned yams.) When my cousin first met him he thought Amir was Santa. (Actually, considering the red jacket he wearing at the time I can see how and seven year old might think that.) The worst part is that these were the same students that on September 10th asked Amir if he (and our club) would willing to help with the intercampus club car wash.
Anyway, that same year on Novemember 11th, we had a birthday party for Amir. Then we went back to celebrating it on the proper day. It didn’t realize it till yesterday, but that’s as much for the entire gaming group as it is for him. We need to know that just because a day was bad ONE year, doesn’t mean it’s bad forever. It was Amir’s day FIRST, and by dámņ, it always should be.
When Chris has to jump out of a building to die rather than being killed by fire…then he can crack all the jokes he wants.
Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where a fellow comedian became Jewish just so that he could tell Jewish jokes.
Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where a fellow comedian became Jewish just so that he could tell Jewish jokes.
Posted by Chris Grillo
Chris, I thought your first post on this topic was in poor taste, but not overtly malicious. I considered it a well-meaning, but far too clumsy, attempt to lighten the mood.
However, after reading the responses to your initial post (and the ones that have followed), you no longer have the luxury of claiming ignorance as to how your comments would affect people. If humor is what you need to get yourself, and only yourself, through the day, I’d say, ‘Whatever works.’ But if you cannot appreciate that your comments are affecting other people in an offensive way, if you are determined to just keep spouting off inappropriate comment after inappropriate comment with absolutely no consideration as to other peoples’ feelings, then you have a serious deficiency.
To many people, this is one of the most solemn, and sombre, events in recent history, and affects many people on a personal level as well as being members of this nation. If you can’t respect that, again, that’s your business. But at this point, you are not just making off-the-cuff remarks. More than what you’re saying, it’s the underlying attitude that your continuation of these types of comments reveals that is angering people. Because, knowing what type of reaction that your comments solicit, you are still making them. That means you are now, not unintentionally, but deliberately, demeaning and cheapening the significance of this disaster and people’s feelings toward it. And all this, for what I can only conclude as your need to validate your right to make these comments as being more important than the feelings of the people you insult by making them.
If the posts on this board don’t represent your feelings, then again, it’s not our perogative to force our conventions of grief onto you or anyone else. But respect is a two-way street. For this tragedy, if for no other event in your life, treat it, and the people who have been hurt by it, with dignity. I’m sure that neither you, nor anyone else, could agree that it deserves that.
I’m sure that neither you, nor anyone else, could agree that it deserves that.
Excuse me, “I’m sure that neither you, nor anyone else, could disagree that it deserves that.”
I was in the shower when it happened. I went downstairs and had breakfast in the capus cafeteria before my 10:00 class. As I left, I looked over at the little bar next door and noticed all the ladies were looking up at the TV. That was par for the course, so I didn’t think much of it.
At class, everyone was talking in hushed tones. I said, “What’s going on?” and someone said “Somebody flew a 747 into the World Trade Center.” And that exchange pretty much repeated as everyone came in. Our teacher, bless her heart, tried to go on with the class, but about half an hour in, she said, “You know what? None of us wants to be here right now.” So we all went to the student center just in time to see the footage of the last tower falling. And that was pretty much the worst morning of my life.
Actually, James, when I wrote the joke it was neither an attempt to make me feel better nor aimed at all of us who have survived 9/11 with varying degrees of scars. As such, I would like to make two points:
1) When the joke first occurred to me, the humor was in the juxtoposition and not the subject or content of a serious topic, 9/11, with a joke that arose in that of the previous light-hearted rant about an event that frustrates and angers many, people who don’t follow the rules. (The spiel in question was more specifially aimed at those individuals who use the express lanes at checkout stands when they have “quite a few” more items in the basket then the maximum allowed/suggested.)
2) It’s funny ’cause it’s true comes to mind simply because people planned, carried out, and rejoiced when 9/11 happened. _Those are the people that are the subject of my “joke”._ If anyone should get mad or upset, it should be an Al Quaeda member because I’m putting forth a stereotype and dehumanizing them just like in depictions you would see of the Germans and especially the Japanese during WWII.
Everyone who found butterflies flitting about in your stomach or the thermostat turned up a notch because of my “joke” should remember that this wasn’t some natural disaster. This wasn’t some fluke. This wasn’t the wrath of God. This was people killing people. It will never be funny. I still have yet to hear a good Holocaust joke.
As a follow up, I have no problem with either Peter or Glenn removing any of my posts from this thread. Not only do I respect them both very much and appreciate all that they do for us, but also I would not take it personally or be hurt or offended. If I had known just how insensitive I came off, I would not have posted in the first place.
I’m not removing Chris Grillo’s posts because I always believe it’s better to talk things out than shut things down.
PAD
Steve – dunno if you’ll reread this thread, but I missed getting the tribute song you mention by an hour and a half.
And I’m a big KLF fan.
If you happen to see this, and have a copy… email me, eh?
I’m truly touched reading many of these posts. We do still need to talk about it. We’re still traumatized.
I was at home in DC. Just thinking of how beautiful it was outside and planning what I was going to get done that day when my father called to tell me about the plane.
God. I just wish it all never happened. I would give anything for it never to have happened.
Shawn
I had a dentist appointment that morning, so I was at home. I had Good Morning America on at the time, and was a bit startled when they mentioned a problem at the WTC and cut to the smoke.
They said that the initial reports were that a small plane had hit the tower. A tragedy, to be sure, but not a disaster.
They kept showing live pictures of the tower while speaking with various folks. One was a producer that lived in the area. She mentioned that she heard the noise and was surprised to see what happened, but that she thought it had been an airliner that had hit.
Then came the moment that everything hit home. It was a coupled audio and video moment that is truly frozen in my mind. The producer gasped and said:
“My God, another plane just flew by my window!”
In that split second, you could see the second plane come in and impact. That still gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes.
Why does this affect me, all the way out here in Indianapolis? Because it was still personal. I lived in Manhattan and Jersey City for three years. When I lived in Jersey, I took the PATH train in every morning right around the time the first plane hit.
My thoughts went to the hundreds of regulars we saw every day on that train. I wondered how many people I’d made incidental small talk with were dead. How about that guy that I bought coffee for? What about the woman who used to share her paper with the other people waiting for the train.
For all I know, each and every one of them is fine. I left the city seven years ago. This wasn’t a near miss.
But it was a real place to me populated with real people.
Thanks, PAD. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Just to show that I’m not the only one…
http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/muaddib/lt9113.html
Actually, James, when I wrote the joke it was neither an attempt to make me feel better nor aimed at all of us who have survived 9/11 with varying degrees of scars. … If I had known just how insensitive I came off, I would not have posted in the first place.
Posted by Chris Grillo
Thanks for those thoughts, Chris. I know it seems hard — Here we are, two years later, and we’re all still walking on egg shells. And meanwhile, we have a band of lunatics out there, laughing, not in spite of this tragedy, but because of it. I think that we all get a little sick from just the thought of it, and we’re looking for whatever outlet we can, be it humor or indignation at how other people get their outlet.
I’m also glad that your posts weren’t pulled. Censorship is only beneficial when it’s self-imposed.