story3112.xml

story3112.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I suppose the strangest thing about 9/11 is how I was told. I was in class when the planes actually struck. My teacher at the time was one of those teachers that hated if Cell Phones were on during class, so, we had no real link to the outside world, outside of that classroom. I went in late, I imagine, and fell asleep during the class, figuring the day would be no more exciting on some random weekday then it was any other random weekday.
I left the class with the knowledge that I had another one later on that day, and so, I was headed home for a power nap before my second class. At the time, I was on decent, but strained terms with one of my roomates, and it was she who I ran into on the way to my nap. She knew I'd been up almost all night doing homework, and so, when she told me that someone had flown a plane into the World Trade Centers, and it was all over the news, I automatically assumed that she was lying to me in order to get me all hyped up. (She did strange things like that.) I gave her some sort of automatic, tired responce, and as a retort, she just gave me the news channel number that she had been watching.
So, it was on that note that I went home, and turned on the TV, just to see if she was in fact right, and it was then, that I watched the first tower burn to the ground.
I think for a moment, I was in some sort of shock. Not because I'd ever been to the World Trade Centers, or knew anyone who worked at the World Trade Centers, but just because of the wildly askew versian of reality that this presented. It was like watching an action movie, where someone like Bruce Willis had just had to try and save the American way of life. Planes that took down whole skyscrapers of that magnitude in one fell swoop just weren't real.
What else could I do? I woke up my other two roomates, and did the only other thing I could thing of... made a pot of coffee. That seems to be the thing people do the most when they have nothing else to do, make a pot of coffee. So there I sat, with my little Boston mug (it was the closest thing I had to an I "heart" NY mug, so I used it), and I watched as the towers fell, and the journalists and experts speculated, and the damage was calculated, all in technicolor right before my very eyes.
Once everything was said and done, both towers had fallen, and the reruns of the damage was being shown, I left my apartment, and went to be around people, to prove that the people that I knew and loved hadn't been taken in any stray disasters. Those people, some I knew, most I didn't, were gathered in the Student Union, and there was a rallying group of new patriots that decided to give blood. They needed cars, and people, and someone would give you a ride if you wanted to go. So I went. It seemed like a good idea, what else was I going to do? Fly to New York and move the wreckage? Even if I could help there, would the planes even take me? The short answer was no. So I gave blood.
There were 7 or 8 of us, as I recall. And we waited from 2 in the afternoon, after treating ourselves to a hearty lunch from BK, to 10 at night. We left once to go get toys from the 711 near by, just for something to do, a pack of cards and one of those little magnetic checker sets. When we came back, the parking lot was being patrolled by cops, and no one else was being allowed in, so we parked across the street, and walked over. I was the last to give blood that day. They only took me because I didn't have a car, and I'd been waiting for 8 hours. I hadn't eaten much in the time between, so I ended up passing out right after they finished taking what they needed. We passed jokes about how at least I'd waited until the bag was filled...
The boy who had driven me to the bloodbank drove me home, I don't remember his name, and I don't think I could identify him by sight. He had to help me to the car because I was still a little woozy. He kept asking me if I was okay, and I remember feeling a bit better, even if the world was a few degrees off center.
I had done what I could.
I was fine.

Later on, I learned something that disgusted me. In the time that my friends (new and old) and I were in the Bloodbank, someone had called in a phony bomb threat, that was the reason the cops had been everywhere. They hadn't said sooner because they didn't want to start a panic. Confidentially, I didn't think that any one of us would have left, if even just to be defiant about the whole situation. "Sure, blow us up, we'll die as patriotic citizens damnit." Eat that, Phantom Bombers.

And a year passed, and here I am now. Almost exactly a year later from when I rallied and left with the group to go give blood. I think I'm going to make myself a pot of coffee, or take myself out to BK. In any event, that's my story, one of many, from September 11, 2001.

Loryanna
Art Education Major,
University of Central Florida.
September 11, 2002.