story20758.xml

story20758.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2006-09-11

I was an 8th grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher in Union City, NJ. I was reviewing vocabulary words - can still recall some of those words today - constellation, astronomy - when one of the custodians came flying into my classroom telling me to put on the television because a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I was one of the few teachers in the building who had a TV that could receive TV signals and not just be used to play videos. I thought to myself, "Finally, someone will hook up all the wires and get this TV working," which I had been begging people to do the past week, but to no avail. Of course, I did not know how trivial that was at the time.

We watched the events, as a class, on TV. I can still remember that a few students were not able to handle what was on TV, so they asked if they could go to room 310 to be with a different teacher. Even after the second plane hit,
I was still trying to convince myself that it was all just a terrible accident.

When the students went to lunch, I sat in my room alone and tried to eat my lunch - a roast beef sandwich. I took a few bites before I realized that I could not eat and wanted to be with everyone else in the cafeteria.

Five years later, I am an 8th grade teacher in Fair Lawn, NJ. Today during lunch, I bit into my sandwich - and
realized that I, once again, had roast beef.

Tonight I stood in my backyard to view the "Tribute in Light," standing in the same place where I stood five years ago, as I watched how 'life as we knew it' had changed forever.