I hope you’ll never forget
Everyone who was old enough to develop memories at the time can likely tell you with great detail and emotion exactly where they were and what they were doing and feeling on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
It was the first universally significant event in my lifetime that would impact the world in such a lasting way. Of course I remember how my own little world changed after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine shootings, the O.J. trial, the election of our country’s first black president, and so many other history-making events.
But that late summer day 18 years ago? That one was a gobsmacked curve ball. That one has stuck with me with same way it’s stuck with everyone else who watched it happen on live television with levels of beforeunknown anxiety, worry and fear rampaging through their thoughts.
I remember standing in the lobby of the student center at Floyd College in Rome, watching a news broadcast as the second plane crashed into the second tower. I remember wondering how the network had gotten that footage and superimposed it behind the on-site reporter before the reality of the situation sank in and I realized what I had actually just seen.
I remember looking around, slack-jawed and half-dumb, hoping someone else had saw the screen differently, knowing though not yet comprehending what a second airplane flown into those building must mean.
I remember our professor trying to conduct the next class before news of the third crash in Pennsylvania sent two students with family in that area rushing from the room with cell phones in hand. Classes were canceled the rest of the day.
I remember gathering with my bewildered peers in the student newspaper office as we sat silently trying to wrap
our minds around the situation, trying to understand how the world was about to change and what that meant in our lives.
I remember a couple of weeks later on a weekend trip to the Smoky Mountains with my folks, picking up a copy of “Newsweek” with a not-yet-iconic image of the smoking towers pre-collapse. I remember wondering if this might be the last peaceful respite away from the daily world we might have. Even now that fear nags at me. I remember in the weeks and months that followed how patriotism and love of your fellow countrymen was all the rage. Charitable givings, good will and positive vibes reigned supreme and America was going to come out on top no matter what.
It’s been almost exactly half my life ago, but in our current state of divisiveness, domestic terrorism and political non-action, you wonder what happened to all that red, white and blue muscle. You wonder when total victory for one side or the other became more important than winning in some way for all our neighbors?
More than that you might wonder why it takes tragedy or destruction to bring a people together and why that empowered sense of unity never seems to last as long as the cheap bumper stickers marking the nightmare that are plastered to every fifth bumper.
I can’t offer any explanations, at least none that I would myself find satisfactory, but my hope is that on Sept. 11 especially, but also other times too, that Americans take a moment to reflect on their feelings from that infamous day and the way the country changed in the wake of those events.
I hope you you’ll never forget.