I've never blogged or even "journaled" about Sept. 11th; even on the day it happened. I really meant to, actually, I did jot down a quick paragraph in one of my classes that morning (being forced to by our history teacher). However, today was one of those CLOSE TO THE END OF PREGNANCY days, and so while on a drive with James, we shared about our memories that day....here it goes:
2001
---------------------------------------
Ashlyn: I woke up to get ready for school (7th Grade at Kahuku to be exact). My older brothers were at Seminary (yup, they were once active), and I guess my Dad returned from a walk or somewhere outside and told my Mom to turn on the news. Our neighbor had told my Dad he needed to watch the news because.......I didn't really understand what my Dad was quickly explaining as the channels flipped to the breaking news. I remember hearing "attacks", "airplane".....but 1. I didn't know WHERE/WHAT the World Trade Center was and 2. what the heck was a "terrorist"??? (blonde-teenager-i live in an island-bubble-moment: "Like a tourist?")
And then everyone in my house went quiet as we watched the images on screen playing over and over. My #1 image is of a black woman running out of a cloud of smoke covered in grey ash, crying & in shock. I remember seeing firemen running towards the chaos, the towers on fire, total strangers helping a nearby day-care center evacuate all the children, and the collapse.......all day, in all of my classes on repeat. None of my teachers cared about their lesson plans, even in my strict honors classes. Everyone was glued to the tv screen.
James: (as told by himself in 2 min) I think I was getting ready for school (Form 6? in NZ), everyone was gone already. I watched it at home on the news. And then yup, I went to school.
Me: And then what?
J: And then I went to school.
---------------------------------------
And that's our Sept. 11th flashback. Where were you?
hahahaha Oh James. I remember asking Jerome once what he remembers on September 11th, and he said, "I was at work concreting", and then I asked if he watched the news and he said, "nah, what channel was that on" <--- :-/
ReplyDeleteI was in 9th grade, getting ready to catch the bus to Kamehameha. MY parents were up awake in a flurry because my dad was getting calls left and right for orders since he's a fighter pilot for the national guard. We watched the 9/11 attacks in every single class at school that day, and we had a morning announcement over our school tv system. It was just scary. AND I remember my dad left a few days later to Saudi Arabia on special missions :-( Which he came back 6 months later and didn't wanna talk about it much, but we could tell it had taken a toll on him. And he ended up holding sacraments and book of mormon study sessions to a lot of the pilots and US fighter people out there cuz everyone was humbled during that time I suppose.