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2002-08-23

It occured to me that there have been many books written about September 11th, 2001, but most of them are from the standpoint of people who have intimate knowledge of the damage done that day. I have no intimate knowledge of the damage done that day. The closest the tragedy came to me was a friend's uncle's niece was a flight attendant on one of the planes brought down that day by evil incarnate. I shudder to consider the last minutes of her life.

The emotion that overtook me on that day is overwhelming even now. As I write this, I struggle not to cry. Remembering the sheer emotion of that day is very hard for me. And I live in Marietta, Georgia, almost 900 miles from New York City. I have memories from that day that I want to put on paper, for some sort of preservation. So I have done so. And I have also collected the memories of others - those that were particularly poignant. Our country has never experienced anything like this before and hopefully will never do so again. Perhaps by collecting these memories here, I can help to prevent future occurances of this sort. Maybe.

For me, the day began simply enough. I was traveling with my job and spent the night of the 10th at my cousin's house in Walker County, Georgia. Very rural. I woke up that morning and got ready and left the house to drive to a school some distance away. It was dark when I left and dark when I got to the school. One of my biggest regrets about this day and one of my most vivid memories is of the pledge to the flag that morning in that school. I ignored it. I was sitting in a teachers' lounge by myself and heard the pledge over the intercom and completely ignored it.

I left that school and drove a few miles to Chickamauga City Schools. I visited the middle school and made an appointment to meet with the principal later that day. To kill some time, I drove over to the board of education and visited for a while. They fed me cookies and coffee and as I was enjoying this in their kitchen, my husband called me on my cell phone and told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. My first thought was "What a horrible accident." He told me he didn't know much more about it, but thought it was a small plane. I soon left the Board of Education and drove to the high school in Chickamauga and tried to get some news on the radio to see what had happened. All I could get was a sports talk program which seemed to be all about whether or not Michael Jordan would come back to basketball. No mention of the plane, or if there was, it was only in passing. I finished at the high school and drove to the elementary school to visit there. I left there quickly and went back to the middle school for my appointment. I was early, so I waited in the office for the principal. While I was there, the phone started going nuts and children were in and out of the office giving updates. It seemed that every television in the school was tuned to the events in New York and Washington. I kept trying to get my husband on the phone but could not get a signal in the school. Eventually a young boy came into the office and said that both Trade Towers had been hit by planes and the Pentagon was now a "Squareagon" as he put it. At that point, the only thought in my mind was that the world was ending. I met with the principal eventually and left. I had a few more appointments scheduled that day, so I went to the car to try and contact them. I called my husband and had the information about both towers being hit confirmed as well as information about the Pentagon. I called my office and talked with some close friends, just to put forth theories as to what had happened. At this point, the full impact of the tragedy had not hit me. I wanted to talk to my mother, so I called her and reached her on her cell phone on her way to Atlanta to have her car serviced. She did not have the radio on and had no idea what had happened. She was completely shocked and I was glad I reached her before she saw the overhead message signs on the interstate in Atlanta which had all been programmed to say "NATIONAL EMERGENCY - HARTSFIELD AIRPORT CLOSED". I cannot even begin to imagine what people who saw that and didn't know what had happened must have thought when they saw that sign.

I called my lunch appointment and said I was on my way. As I drove down the two-lane road out of Chickamauga to Highway 27, the full emotional impact of the events hit me. My father died when I was four and the emotional impact of that on me was muted by my age. Since then, a few close relatives and friends have died and their deaths have been difficult for me, but nothing has hit me so hard as I was hit on September 11th. One minute I was driving down the road and I was fine. The next minute, I was blind with tears and howling. Howling is truly the only word I can use to describe it. The pain was intense. I got to Highway 27 and all of a sudden, all I wanted was to be home. I am originally from Rome, Georgia, about 50 miles from Chickamauga, straight down Highway 27. When I got to 27, the only thing that I could think of was "HOME, HOME, I want to be HOME." And at that point, Home was Rome. Home was the house I grew up in. I turned right on the highway and headed towards Rome and away from my lunch appointment. I called her secretary and told her that I was no longer coming.

And thus my journey began. As I drove towards Rome, I kept trying to call my mother and husband on my cell phone - when I could get a signal - but when I could, I always got the "full cell" signal, meaning everyone in the area was on their cell phone. Finally I got through and my mother and her friend had gone to my house in Marietta and were staying there, so I decided to go to my house instead of home. It must have taken me three hours to get home that day - about an hour and a half more than necessary. Once I got home and saw the graphic pictures on television, it all became real to me. I hugged my mother, I hugged her friend, I hugged my husband. All I could do was watch television. I was glued to the set from that point on. The infamous "crawl" became my source of news.

We went to church that night - a special service for people who just felt the need to attend. Later we went to our hangout, Rafters, and played trivia and watched George Bush speak on television. People in the bar cheered and clapped at his speech. That was the first time I felt the togetherness that has been so prevalent since then. All events of the previous year were forgotten and people who had hated Bush 43 the day before were cheering him on.

Later, a good friend of ours came over and was telling us about a friend of his who worked in the Trade Center who he had not been able to contact. We worried about her together and just were grateful for being together. After he left, he called to say that her husband had called him and said she was fine, even though it had taken her eight hours to get home. Somehow, that made the end of the day somehow bearable.