nmah5312.xml

nmah5312.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-11-28

I am a public school teacher, and that year I was teaching first grade. We had a half-day of school already scheduled, with staff development in the afternoon for the teachers. Because of the half-day, I was leading my class to lunch at 10:15 when one of my closest teacher-friends was taking her class to the bathroom. She grabbed me, leaned in very close, and said in a soft voice so the kids wouldn't hear, "Did you hear there's been a bombing?" I instantly thought of my own children, at the junior high and high school in our little North Carolina community and felt a tiny flash of concern. "Where?" I asked.

"I don't know exactly. They have the TV on in the library. They said something about the World Trade Center or the Pentagon."

I actually felt relief that it wasn't local - my children were safe. But I knew it had to be something big. As soon as I dropped my class off in the cafeteria, I rushed to the library. There, the library assistant and a teacher's assistant were watching. The library assistant made a dumb remark about how she wished Hilary Clinton had been blown up, too. That made me very angry. What a stupid thing to say. No one should even jokingly wish that on anyone.

Gradually, in the few minutes I had to watch, I realized planes were flown into the buildings - and of course this was deliberate. This was obviously intended to be an attack on our country. That much I grasped.

I had to get back to my class, and as I rushed into the cafeteria I told my assistant and the other first grade teachers what had happened. Working in an elementary school, especially with the younger grades, is like being in a cave. We had to carry on as if nothing were happening, and we could not listen to a radio or have a TV on.

Once the kids went home, we went into the library for our staff development. The principal had turned off the TV there, so I still had no more information than I'd had before. We had a new computer lab, and someone from the computer company was coming to show us how to use the new system. Only the computers weren't working. The company representative was half an hour late, and we had to sit and wait for her. I just wanted to go home and find out what was going on. The principal mentioned the situation only once and said they didn't want to cancel the staff development because this woman was on her way, and we would be required to make up the staff development at another time. I briefly flirted with the idea of getting up and going home regardless of the consequences. I had an inkling that our country was being attacked and I was being forced to stay at work.

When the computer lady arrived, because the computers were not working, we were actually forced to sit through a three-hour talk on what they would do once they were working. She read the manual out loud to us. I was seething with anger.

Within minutes of rushing home and at last being able to turn on the TV, I was livid. Enraged. Only then could I grasp the magnitude and horror of what had happened. I'd been forced to sit through a pointless, idiotic waste of time while my country was under attack!! I am still angry about that to this day. I kept saying to my children, "This is the biggest thing since Pearl Harbor and I had to sit there listening to someone reading a computer operating manual!!"

I sat in horror in front of the television set until I could stay up no longer. I don't remember dinner that night. The greatest shock was when a heard about the people jumping out of the buildings. It is painful to remember any of this even now. It brings tears to my eyes. The entire event is very painful. I also remember sitting there thinking, "They hate us. Why? These people must hate us very much to do this to us." That was very painful too. It was all personal.

For the next several days, I turned on the TV as soon as I got up in the morning and watched till I had to leave for work, then I did the reverse as soon as I got home. On went the TV, with me in front of it, till bedtime. On Sept. 12, one of my little first grade boys drew a picture of a plane flying into the twin towers. I made a Xerox copy of his picture.

About three days after the event, my sons came in the living room to find me sobbing my eyes out. After that I decided I just couldn't watch anymore, even though I felt it was my duty to be informed. It is making me cry to write this.

We only had a small flag, but we put it up on our mailbox. I was very sorry I'd never bought a big flag, because of course after 9/11 you couldn't get one for love or money. When the Raleigh News and Observer printed a flag on a full sheet of newsprint, we taped it to our door. We kept flags up for a full year. I had never displayed a flag before.