story10661.xml
Title
story10661.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2004-06-20
911DA Story: Story
On the morning of September 11, 2001 i had decided to go to school early, to practice my Violin. I was in the 6th grade and had just begun playing and was ready to learn all that i could about it. There were other kids there adn we were all practicing and goofing off and having fun, when some one came on the intercom and the droning of instraments stopped to listen, "teachers please turn on your TV's..." the drone kicked back up again and covored the rest of the message, it wasnt for us we didnt care. at 9:30 the bell rang and every one started to drift off to there first class. Conviniently my first class was Strings there on the stage so i didnt have to go any where, so i just continued to play untill my friend Tori got there. We made a little plan, she would open the curtains and i would play, it would be like a formal little concert for no one. So laughing the curtains opened as i played "ode to joy" when the curtains got about 3/4 of the way open, i could see that the nearest TV in the cafeteria was turned on. I looked more closley and saw one of the twin towers burning and then it switched to both of them burning, and then i saw a picture of a plane crashing into the second building. I stoped my song and just about dropped my violin. Tori was looking at me like "what the heck is rong?" and i ran down to the edge of the stage and jumped down and sat at a table and looked, i asked my teacher what happend and he said that a plane crashed into them. I asked why and he just looked at me. Then i remembered the intercom message, THIS is why they wanted the TV's on so eveyr one could see. In the next class they wouldnt let us watch the tv becasue they were afraid wed get to scared, in fact we all were, we were only in the 6th grade a bunch of 11-12 year olds, and my friend Alyssa was crying because her aunt worked at the school right next to the buildings, i told her it was ok and she told me that her aunt had a back problem (i think thats what it was) and couldnt run. That hole day, so many students went home, that they ran out of student aides to go and get the kids, alot of them were being called down over intercom or telephone, and every time the phone rang or the intercom beeped Alyssa would close her eyes in hopes it wouldnt be her, if it was her going home it ment her aunt was in trouble. at the time there were 1200 students in my middle school, by the end of the day about 500 were left in class. Neither me nor alyssa went home that day, not early at least.
When i got home, my little brother who was sitting at the table with my grandma doing his homework said "oh wow the twin toweres were crashed did you see?" and i was like "duh" and just went to the couch and turned on the tv and watched. I have a HUGE family who is all from the new jersey/new york area, and we all knew that some one we were related to was going to be in the towers so i watched the footage i hadent see before of the towers crumbling to the ground. No more twin towers. I remembered the last time i went up to visit new jersey, and we landed in newark air port and i looked out the window and saw the towers and smiled. On our trip to new york durring my stay up there, we went to the empire state building, i took like 20 pictures of the twin towers.
Remembering this i went to school september 12 with all of them and gave about 10 of them away to friends and techers, the others i left in my lunch box pocket. Later i realized, that they were stolen and that made me very angry after all that hate and some one could still steal all i had left of those buildings.
When i got home that wednesday i started to get ready to go to my cheerleading practice. The phone rang and my disabled grandfather who was sitting on the couch watching tv picked it up just as i was passing through the living room. I heard the click of the telephone from the kitchen and me and my grandmother went in. "who was it i asked," he was crying. my grandma asked again "frank who was it? whats rong?" he just looked at us and all he could say was, "Pat... hes missing."
I was racking my brain, who was pat, pat, how was i related to him, i couldnt remember. i asked my grandma and was told he was my fathers cousin, then i remembered all the storys that i was told about whne him and my dad were little. adn i started to cry, he was missing and later i found out no one we were related to worked at the WTC but that Pat a Navy man, was stationed at the Pentigon. I went to cheerleading and cryed durring break, and tried to laugh durring practice, but it was hard. The week went by and as the 8th grade tv production class made video after video, of pictures from new york, and the pensilvania feild, and about the hero's on the plane that crashed there.. and about hte pentigon. I cryed more that week in school then i ever had in my life, i couldnt watch those video's with out crying, and i had taken it habit to just turn my back on them.
I remember one day durring that week i was walking to my bus stop and i heard a plane and knowing that htye werent sopose to be in the air i looked up to see a low flying plane fly over me, i knew nothing of air force jets, so i coulndt tell weather it was sopose to be there or not. I just ran. Was it going to crash and was i going to die? Planes werent sopose to be in the air! why was it?
the local newspaper featured my grandpa. He told thme how our hole family had a little system to say what was up about my cousin, Pat and if he was found, his wife stephanie who was pregnate at the time with there 1st child would call Pats mom, who would call some one who would call some one, who would call us. The paper thought this was clever and it was.
On the saturday following the attacks i was helping clean up after dinner, when the phone rang, I picked it up thinking it was one of my friends, "hello?" no one answered, "hello? any one there?" Then i heard my aunts voice, "Colleen, is yoru fahter there?" i told her yes and to hold on, I handed the phone to my dad and said, "aunt patty, she sounds sick," and the color faded from my dads face but he smiled and took the phone. i wennt strait to the couch in the other room and sat down. No one had to tell me what happend i knew by the tone of my aunts voice, they found pat, and he wasnt alive. I remember hearing my grandma shrik and start to cry. My cousin was in the Navy controll room, when the plane hit, he was with a few other people and his friend who was standing next to him, was the only one in the room to live, but with 42% of his body burnt. I was confused how he could live by my cousin could not. they were standing next to eachother.
Ever scince my family has been very patriotic.
At Pats funeral, my grandpa stood up in the middle of the serman and yelled "GOD BLESS AMERICA!" and had the church full of navy captines and relitives of ours burst into laughter, its how Pat would have wanted it, happy.
THe fallowing March Pats wife stephanie, had there first child witch she named after the place they met, and her father. Alexzandria Patricia Dunn. She was baptized jsut as Pat would have wanted it too, out at sea, the place he love the most, on a ship he was on duty on at one time.
I never actually met Pat, but i remember him as an extra motivation when i play my violin, thats what i was doing when he died, so it must be worth my time.
When i got home, my little brother who was sitting at the table with my grandma doing his homework said "oh wow the twin toweres were crashed did you see?" and i was like "duh" and just went to the couch and turned on the tv and watched. I have a HUGE family who is all from the new jersey/new york area, and we all knew that some one we were related to was going to be in the towers so i watched the footage i hadent see before of the towers crumbling to the ground. No more twin towers. I remembered the last time i went up to visit new jersey, and we landed in newark air port and i looked out the window and saw the towers and smiled. On our trip to new york durring my stay up there, we went to the empire state building, i took like 20 pictures of the twin towers.
Remembering this i went to school september 12 with all of them and gave about 10 of them away to friends and techers, the others i left in my lunch box pocket. Later i realized, that they were stolen and that made me very angry after all that hate and some one could still steal all i had left of those buildings.
When i got home that wednesday i started to get ready to go to my cheerleading practice. The phone rang and my disabled grandfather who was sitting on the couch watching tv picked it up just as i was passing through the living room. I heard the click of the telephone from the kitchen and me and my grandmother went in. "who was it i asked," he was crying. my grandma asked again "frank who was it? whats rong?" he just looked at us and all he could say was, "Pat... hes missing."
I was racking my brain, who was pat, pat, how was i related to him, i couldnt remember. i asked my grandma and was told he was my fathers cousin, then i remembered all the storys that i was told about whne him and my dad were little. adn i started to cry, he was missing and later i found out no one we were related to worked at the WTC but that Pat a Navy man, was stationed at the Pentigon. I went to cheerleading and cryed durring break, and tried to laugh durring practice, but it was hard. The week went by and as the 8th grade tv production class made video after video, of pictures from new york, and the pensilvania feild, and about the hero's on the plane that crashed there.. and about hte pentigon. I cryed more that week in school then i ever had in my life, i couldnt watch those video's with out crying, and i had taken it habit to just turn my back on them.
I remember one day durring that week i was walking to my bus stop and i heard a plane and knowing that htye werent sopose to be in the air i looked up to see a low flying plane fly over me, i knew nothing of air force jets, so i coulndt tell weather it was sopose to be there or not. I just ran. Was it going to crash and was i going to die? Planes werent sopose to be in the air! why was it?
the local newspaper featured my grandpa. He told thme how our hole family had a little system to say what was up about my cousin, Pat and if he was found, his wife stephanie who was pregnate at the time with there 1st child would call Pats mom, who would call some one who would call some one, who would call us. The paper thought this was clever and it was.
On the saturday following the attacks i was helping clean up after dinner, when the phone rang, I picked it up thinking it was one of my friends, "hello?" no one answered, "hello? any one there?" Then i heard my aunts voice, "Colleen, is yoru fahter there?" i told her yes and to hold on, I handed the phone to my dad and said, "aunt patty, she sounds sick," and the color faded from my dads face but he smiled and took the phone. i wennt strait to the couch in the other room and sat down. No one had to tell me what happend i knew by the tone of my aunts voice, they found pat, and he wasnt alive. I remember hearing my grandma shrik and start to cry. My cousin was in the Navy controll room, when the plane hit, he was with a few other people and his friend who was standing next to him, was the only one in the room to live, but with 42% of his body burnt. I was confused how he could live by my cousin could not. they were standing next to eachother.
Ever scince my family has been very patriotic.
At Pats funeral, my grandpa stood up in the middle of the serman and yelled "GOD BLESS AMERICA!" and had the church full of navy captines and relitives of ours burst into laughter, its how Pat would have wanted it, happy.
THe fallowing March Pats wife stephanie, had there first child witch she named after the place they met, and her father. Alexzandria Patricia Dunn. She was baptized jsut as Pat would have wanted it too, out at sea, the place he love the most, on a ship he was on duty on at one time.
I never actually met Pat, but i remember him as an extra motivation when i play my violin, thats what i was doing when he died, so it must be worth my time.
Collection
Citation
“story10661.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/10062.