nmah150.xml

nmah150.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-18

I was getting ready to move in to a new house on that morning. I was collecting some paint brushes when my father came in and told me that there had been an accident in NYC and a plane had hit a building. I was pretty shocked but thought there must have been some mistake in the coverage. An accident like that couldn't happen with all the modern technology in use today. I went to my parents place and got in just as the second plane hit. Like everyone else I knew that it wasn't an accident.
Needless to say I didn't get any work done on the house that day.
After a half hour of watching I called a friend who was at work and asked him "Have you heard what's going on out here?" He said they had heard rumors but wasn't sure how much was true and I explained to him that yes, it was true, and that the 1st tower of the WTC had just fallen. Other people at work called as they day when on wanting to get factual updates of what was happening. I couldn't blame them because the rumors they were getting were pretty wild. Sadly some of them, the second tower falling, were real.
There is a message board at work where the different shifts could put up important bits of information that the others needed to know. On that night I drew a US flag at half mast and added "NY, PA, DC 9-11-2001." It stayed on the board until November.
I used to think that every generation would have one moment of unification. For my parents it was where they were when Kennedy was assassinated. I thought for my generation it would be when Reagan was shot, then when the Challenger exploded, and know it's 9/11. I think three is enough for one generation.