nmah49.xml

nmah49.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-07-02

My name is Darlene Haynes and at the time, I was 25 years old. I work at a grocery store called Tops Markets and was one of the few employees that came in at 4am everyday in order to make fresh products to be ready for sale that day. I was scheduled to leave work at 9am that morning, just a little 4 hour shift. I remember the first thing that I heard was that a plane had "accidentally" flown into one of the World Trade Center Towers. That was at about 8:55am. I punched out at 9, and headed the 12 minutes toward Oswego, the town I call home. My friend Jenn was with me, we just happened to have the same shift that day, and we turned on the radio as soon as we got into the car. It was all over the news on the radio that the tower had been hit. As we were driving home, we heard some comments about the burning building, that some people were jumping. As soon as we walked into our apartment, we heard that the other tower had been hit too. Now it was apparent that the first plane was not an accident. Both Jenn and I were worried so we got into the car and headed toward our parents. My mother was working at Price chopper and we stopped there so that I could talk to her. I needed too talk to her. Then we went across the river to Jenn's Dad's house and watched the rest of the attack on the pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. I just sat there in amazement. It was like this was a bad tv show that you couldn't turn off. It was the most horrible feeling that I've ever had. Helplessness had never felt that real and scary before.

My way of thinking about stuff has shifted a little. I am a little frigtened when the news says that we will have another terrorist attack soon, that one's on Memorial Day and that there's another on the 4th of July. I am a little apprehensive about watching the news, sometimes I skip any news entirely.
I'm also thinking about the actual things that I want to do with my life and starting to make them happen. There is too much of a chance that there will be a war sometime in the next few years, and that scares me. I want to spend everyday that I can woth my parents, my boyfriend, my niece and nephew - all the important people that I love. I want to get stuff done. No more sitting around letting precious time go by, get up and move. Tommorrow may be the last day that we feel secure or aren't at war, or aren't mourning a loved one. Have as much quality time as you can, for you and the people you love.

Everything. How can one part of that experience ever escape any of us? We all witnessed it, we all felt it, we all mourned for the lost,for the loved ones of those lost people. These types of tradgies scare your soul.

Yes, I went and got one and have flown it ever since.
I realized that the flag had slipped from my life since I got out of school, now its back and comforting once again.