story3500.xml

story3500.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I was on my way to work the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a typical morning; I was supposed to be there at 9 a.m. and was running just a couple of minutes late. I was surfing through the radio channels trying to find some music in the midst of the morning drive time talk and commercials when one of the stations announced that there had been some sort of plane crash into one of the twin towers of the Trade Center. I left the radio on that station in order to hear a news update on the crash. The dj was telling what he could glean from the wire reports when suddenly he announced that there had been a second plane crash into the other tower and that if we could get to a TV set, we should turn it on. I was just pulling into the parking lot at work when he made that announcement. I ran inside and ran into my boss's office because he usually had his TV on throughout the day. He was out of his office and the TV was off, so I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flipping through channels until I found a news channel. About that time, the radios back in the work areas had begun announcing the news and my boss came into his office to see what was going on. We watched, stunned, for a few minutes. It was pay week; we always got our paychecks on Thursday, although the paychecks were usually prepared on Monday. Moments after seeing the replay of the two planes crashing into the towers and hearing that there were other crashes, my boss gave us all our paychecks and told us to go immediately to the bank and cash them, not deposit them. We all left right away. At the bank, everyone moved in shocked silence as TVs in the lobby broadcast the images of the planes over and over.

I returned to work, where we spent most of the day alternately watching the TV and trying to concentrate on business. My 7-year-old son was in school in the northwestern part of Knoxville, just a few miles from Oak Ridge and the DOE facilities that could be a possible terrorist target. I wondered if I should leave work and go get him or if he would be safer where he was since our home was even closer to Oak Ridge than the school was. I wondered about my college-age daughter, who was in class at Pellissippi State, also not far from Oak Ridge. I had no way to get in touch with her to find out if she had heard the news and had left school to go home.

I remained at work until my regular time to go home and wondered if my son had been told at school what had happened. As I passed several gas stations full of people all lined up at the pumps in an apparent panic over a gas shortage, I realized that I needed gas and would have to go after I picked up my son. Having to wait at the pumps gave me the opening to find out what he knew about the day's events. I asked him if he knew why everyone was packed into the gas stations, if his teacher or anyone had said anything to him about what had happened. It turned out that NO ONE had told the children at his school anything! They had gone on with their day as if nothing had happened and had left it to the parents to tell their children. I tried to explain it to him as best I could, and of course, when we got home, we turned on the TV and he saw for himself what I was talking about. I remembered being in the 6th grade and watching on the classroom TV the Dallas procession in which John Kennedy was shot and killed. I couldn't believe that the school administrators and teachers had felt it would be better if the children didn't know what was happening.

Even though my son was only 7 at the time, he still felt the shock and outrage of the moment. In the days following when everyone was displaying their flags, he took a paper flag that our local newspaper had included in one of their editions and taped it to the living room wall. It was not an elegant display nor did it particularly complement the d?cor, but that flag is still taped to our wall and I would not take it down now for anything.

A year later, the emotional wounds are still easily re-opened. One of the radio stations this morning was broadcasting a reading of the names of all the people killed on September 11. I could not leave the radio tuned to that channel for long. It was too painful. I have a bumper sticker on my car showing the Statue of Liberty superimposed over an outline of the country with the words, "Never forget." I will not . . . ever.