I was building a garden outside Dublin that day. When the clients daughter arrived out to say a plane had hit one of the towers of the trade centre. She had Sky and was watching the news at the time. Me, I processed it and thought a small Cessna sized plane was flying the city like occurred in Moscow and other cities in the previous few years, one landing in Red Square, had hit the building.
But I wasn't that bothered for I knew the size of those building and also knew that such a tiny thing wouldn't bother the building much at all.
Soon though more news came to me and I went in to see what was occurring. This was 2 o'clock our time.
That day, that evening, I went to the beach and looked out over the sea and sky.
But I wasn't that bothered for I knew the size of those building and also knew that such a tiny thing wouldn't bother the building much at all.
Soon though more news came to me and I went in to see what was occurring. This was 2 o'clock our time.
That day, that evening, I went to the beach and looked out over the sea and sky.
It is definitely one of those events where everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. Our channels have been full of tributes and reruns of that day and I just have to turn it off. The emotions are still raw 15 years later.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest it oscillated between jingoistic militarism bordering on the science fiction and mawkishness for a few years. So much so that the personal became obscured. You had the feeling that instead of the hug people needed they were being hectored into a pattern of thought that wasn't their own.
DeleteI was living in Utah, so things were happening even earlier in the day. My daughter was three and I was to get her to daycare, but I didn't want to get her up. I worked from home and let her sleep while watching the events unfold. It was a scary time.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's odd, but she's off to university. And a bit like us and the cold war, hasn't known a time when a background tint to her existence isn't coloured by that day.
DeleteI had a premonition that day that they would do more or less as they did. And in a way that's the worry I have right now with Trump. Bush was a catspaw for an ugly cohort that were stimied back when his father was POTUS who were now let loose.
This is a scary time too.
I remember it vividly. It's also my birthday.
ReplyDeleteVividly is the word right enough.
DeleteWe were pretty much on the 24 hour news cycle on television at that point, so we were inundated with those images - the same ones over and over. We sat glued to the chair hearing the same info over and over, hoping for new news about it. For those "where were you when" tragedies I think it was our (US) first since the media went in that direction. This time of year, the memorials have me on edge a little bit. While the need for remembering and honoring those 3,000 is important, I feel like those memories are often taken advantage of and those memorials can have ulterior motives.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I had been in NYC that summer visiting friends, and we went to the WTC. It was surreal watching it go down just a month later.
My district was on a multi-track schedule at that time, and I was still on break that day but going in to work as a colleague and I had traded days and I was teaching her class. I had moved back in with my parents that year to finish my Masters and that was the only reason I knew what had happened. My dad, who was retired by then, was out working in the yard early that morning and heard the breaking news on the radio. I was just finishing getting ready when he came inside, turned on the TV, and called me down. We were watching for just a minute or two when the 2nd plane hit. I had to leave for work shortly after, and there was of course sadness, but also fear being so close to another large city not knowing the span of the attack. A couple of those planes were LA bound. The start to the school day was weird, parents were scared, the kids who understood were scared, we were scared. I heard this week, that the kids entering high school as freshmen this year will be learning about it as history, something that happened before they were born.
At the time the 24 hour news was just getting into it's stride and we were still in the vein of the big evening news with things called NEWS FLASH breaking into normal programming to inform us of urgent occurings. We had you to understand that talking heads are but the useless gobshites with nothing to do for those few hours. For if they were in ANY way important to the occurrence THEY would be on the task team trying to solve it. But no, back then we didn't know the leading questions. "Mr Prof Peter van den Garb-Agebinn PhD (U of Idaho) do you think this was terrible". "Yes, Nancy Bigteeth-Faketits I do, but at the moment I have nothing more than gossip and a feel.
DeleteNow we know that nothing more useful will come out in the first few hours that can't wait.
I think that 24 hour thing made things far worse than it needed. Allowing large chunks of civil freedoms to be obliterated.
Big hugs btw.
I agree, there is no doubt that America's psyche was changed after that day and has slowly deteriorated, at least in part, due the coverage. And as you know, "we've" recently lost our ever-lovng minds!! :)
DeleteYou've hit the nail on the head with those first few hours. It's the jumping to conclusions while under pressure or just making stuff up even that ends up making things so much worse. The reporting after the police officer shootings recently is a perfect example of that. I'd rather watch dead air than listen to the drivel they come up with to try and kill time until the real story surfaces.
I think, to my mind anyway, that what happened that day compounded what was already going on. It was used to increase controls and impose measures that couldn't be even dreamt in the most hardened dictatorship.
DeletePublic safety is dangerous and insidious, and once taken out of the box is very hard to get back in. And it is never satisfied.