It's one year later. Where were you then? Where are you now? How have you changed?

Fast Company ^ | September 2002

[angkor]

I like to think the legacy of September 11th is a greater spirit of community across America and a resurgence of patriotism.

... and to eradicate the scummish Islamist evil that runs from the Philippines to Karachi to New Jersey.

[i_dont_chat]

I was home (working on the computer) with CNN news playing in the background. I heard the first broadcast, and I thought perhaps it was an accident, that a small plane had hit the first tower; my hubby and I stood transformed, watching when the second plane hit. We hugged and cried and I remember him saying, "They are trying to take down those towers!" Then as the towers collapsed one after the other, I feel to my knees and sobbed. He was already putting up our flag in the yard, when they announced the Pentagon being hit.

That night, I felt the need to get on the Internet and read all I could about the "first" bombing of the WTC in 1993. The truck-bomb which exploded in the basement parking lot, killing 6 people. I read the court findings, studied up on who all the major players were, etc. From what I read that night, 11 months ago, I became convinced that Iraq would eventually be tied-in with the 9/11 attacks. I am puzzled why it is taking so long for our government to take action against Iraq. I guess it has something to do with our dependence on oil.

How I have changed? I don't have as much faith in our leaders as I once had. I am more conservative. I believe that the FBI should be rebuilt from the ground up. I am more aware than ever what a great Country we live in. I am more aware of the sacrifices made by police, firemen, etc. And I have become disenchanted in the petty problems of men who get paid to play games (professional sports). Before 9/11 I had been taking freedom for granted and now I am trying to get my thinking adjusted and my priorities straight.

[muggs]

I was usually on FR early most mornings, but that morning I was checking on the progress of my apartments that were hit by a flash flood in July. I was doing my best to cope with the stress of the flood and having a very difficult time emotionally. I came home and checked my messages. There was a message from an employee telling me to turn on the tv. I turned on the tv before the second plane hit. I went back in the bedroom to tell my husband and turn on the tv in there for him to watch when the second plane hit. All I could do was hug my husband and cry.

Our son had taken the bus to work that morning and he called to ask me to come and pick him up. I wanted my husband to go with me as I didn't want to be alone. By the time we got there (downtown Cincinnati) the police had most of the streets shut down. My son had to walk to the end of the exit ramp and we picked him up there, got right back on the expressway and headed home. It was very strange seeing all the streets shut down here.

We had a vacation scheduled for Sept. 23 and didn't decide for sure that we would go until just a couple days before we were to fly out to CA. We weren't afraid to fly but I didn't want to be away from my son and mother. It was a very subdued vacation, not at all like most of the previous vacations.

Everybody put out American flags. Many of them are still out. I think that helped my son cope with what was happening, as he would come home from work each day and tell me how many flags he counted that day. He counted flags each day for several weeks.

[hellinahandcart]

After the second plane hit, I did the most irrational thing -- I took my car and filled the gas tank.

I can top that. I live in Manhattan, and my mother somehow got through on long-distance late that afternoon to tell me that, if I hadn't done so already, I should fill the bathtub up to the top with water, just in case there was another attack that caused a citywide power failure.

I told her, no need, I'd already bought sufficient bottled water, and that in any case if one more thing happened to the city that day I'd probably just go ahead and kill myself. :P

[muggs]

I told her, no need, I'd already bought sufficient bottled water, and that in any case if one more thing happened to the city that day I'd probably just go ahead and kill myself. :P

Remembering that day, that sounds perfectly rational to me. :)

[Northern Yankee]

I put a small fag up above my cubicle. It's still there, and It won't come down until after 9/11/02...

Wolfstar.... Keep the flag up forever!

I was getting ready to teach reading for my first graders when my colleague down the hall came running in and asked if I had heard about the WTC being hit by an airplane. I thought... "That's impossible...You don't fly an airplane into the WTC on a clear day. (I heard that the weather was gorgeous in NYC that day.) I tuned into the radio right away and heard the worst. Teaching that day was a blur, but our school blew it by not wanting anyone to say anything, either to staff or to the children. I thought, screw it, and I told the kids something did happen, and they will find out once they got home.

Later on, as I was putting my nine year old daughter to bed, she told me she was afraid to go to sleep. I told her God would protect her. She then said, "How come he didn't protect the others who died?" Some things can't be explained, but I assurred her that God was with them, and they are now with God.

I also told my son to come out and listen to the sky. The first time ever, since the beginnings of comercial aviation, that there were no planes flying. We went outside and listened, but all of a sudden heard a jet. We found out a day later that it was an Air Force Recon. jet patroling the northern United States.

[Old Professer]

Sitting in my kitchen, reading the newspaper; sitting in my dining room reading FR; my beards a bit longer; the world's still FOS

[unixfox]

I was right here and watching the tube as it all happened. Not to brag or anything but I actually got to break the first thread on F.R. about the crash. I still go back and read it, and it still makes me sad.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/520260/posts

[McLynnan]

I live in Manhattan, and my mother somehow got through on long-distance late that afternoon to tell me that, if I hadn't done so already, I should fill the bathtub up to the top with water, just in case there was another attack that caused a citywide power failure.

Now, I can see doing that. Nobody knew what might be coming next that day, and you were in the big middle of it. Did you have any instinct to run? There you were with something very real to fear, but I was sitting down in Central Texas acting looney! If I'd stopped to think I would have known Texaco wasn't going to run out of gas before the day was out, and terrorists were highly unlikely to have any interest in the area around Waco. I can't remember doing anything so idiotic before in my life. Possibly my defense mechanism kicked in and forced me away from the tv for a few minutes because it was all too horrific to watch.

[geege]

I was at work....I work for the phone company and had to stop incoming traffic into the NYC switches and only allow outgoing calls because of massive congestion.....I was crying when the first tower came down and told my manager that I needed a drink and wanted to get outta there because I felt my work place was a target................I never heard of osama or knew how these maniac's hated us so much.......I must have been living on cloud 9............

[Euro-American Scum]

I was home sick. Count on me to get the first cold of the flu season. Came down with it over the weekend, Sept 8-9. Called in sick to work on Monday and was marginal for Tuesday morning.

But Monday night I couldn't sleep. Normally -- even during times of illness -- I'm an early riser. Normal wake up time is 4:00 A.M. And that would have been the case, sick or well. But due to the lack of sleep, I rolled out around 6:15. And the events at the WTC were already unfolding.

I got in the car to go to the doctor, turned on the radio, and heard Hugh Hewitt (he was on during the morning back then) say "Ladies and gentlemen, Tower 2 has just collapsed." That was enough. I got in front of a TV and stayed there all day.

I'm only sorry I didn't pop a tape in the VCR to record the Fox News coverage that day. There's nothing like having a video record of events as they happened. And we'll never see that part of the coverage in its entirety again.

[BlazingArizona]

Here in the MST zone, I had already done my morning run, showered, and turned to CNN as usual while I toweled off before work (remember the "jobs" that many of us still had back then?). The first crash had occurred just a minute or two before. The hole looked deceptively small in the long-tange camera view, as though some dentist in a Bonanza had gotten horribly lost.

As soon as the second plane hit, I knew it was more than an accident. I was amazed to hear the CNN crew continuing to treat it as an accident for another fifteen minutes. I remember them chatting away about 'navigation errors at JFK'.

[muggs]

I started having some looney thoughts after 9-11 too. For the first time ever in my life I thought maybe I should try to gain a few pounds. I started thinking about what kind of funeral I would want and even told my husband what kind of music I wanted. He was more than a bit annoyed with me.

[Euro-American Scum]

I haven't stopped since, it's made me a damn crybaby....

That's all right. Get sad. Then get mad. Then get even.

[hellinahandcart]

Did you have any instinct to run?

Nah, it was more like "duck & cover & scream & pull all my hair out". We were pretty much locked down that day anyway.

But I still think gassing up the car during a national emergency isn't an irrational thing to do. If you want to indulge a flight instinct, you need gas in the car, why put it off...

[missycocopuffs]

I remember it was one of those clear, dry September days that just make you feel good to be alive. My beloved husband, his parents and I were heading to Canada to make wine (we live north of Detroit). We left the house at 9 am for a 10 am appointment. As we were crossing into Canada via the Windsor-Detroit tunnel at 9:30 or so after spending our ride chatting and laughing, the Canadian tunnel official informed us that we ought to turn our radio on because, as he said, "All hell was breaking loose in the U.S."

When we finally made sense of what was going on, we were already through the tunnel, so we continued on to the wine shop. Sandy, David, and Gerry at the wine shop were listening to the news when we arrived, the dread and fear and sadness registered on their faces. "My God, we cannot believe this...we are so sorry...," they said.

We made our wine and bottled up whatever we had made previously and left, solemn, heartbroken, and hungry, but instead of eating lunch in Canada as we usually do on these excursions, we queued at the bridge--the tunnel was already reported closed--hoping to get back home, listening all the while to radio reports as events unfolded.

After three hours of waiting at the bridge we crossed into Detroit, frightened, relieved, and still hungry. We stopped at a Coney joint for lunch near our home. There they had TVs and we saw those horrible images. What a jolt seeing actual images of the planes hitting, the towers collapsing; the radio reports couldn't convey the viceral impact of the video images.

At that point I just wanted to get home. My fifty-eight year old mother, who has travelled to far-flung places across the globe, was on her maiden visit to New York City after having passed through it on many overseas trips. They were camping at Liberty Park, directly across from Battery Park and the WTC, in her friend's RV.

We quickly ate and left so I could go home to check our answering machine. The light was blinking and I just started blubbering as I heard her wonderful, bright voice say, "We saw it...we are okay."

My mother and her friend cut short their trip and came home quickly through Canada. She said that it warmed her heart to see so many American flags flying side-by-side with that of Canada as they made their sad way home.

[Euro-American Scum]

I saw the second plane hit live on the TV over the treadmills. I screamed at the stupid CNN announcer who wondered if there was something wrong with Air Traffic Control, "Say the T word, it's terrorism!"

I literally could not watch CNN that day. I spent about five minutes channel surfing and all it took was to hear that puke Aaron Brown talk about not rushing to judgment and what could America possibly have done to precipitate such a heinous action. After that, I was with Fox News all day.

Maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and fly into the CNN building. (No such luck, but I can dream.)

[Wolfstar]

LOL (through the heartache): I thought the same thing about the UN building in New York. If they had to take out some symbol of all that's wrong with the planet, why not that odious place. Start tearing down some of the nascent world government apparatus.

[InvisibleChurch]

i was on my way to the car shop...i flipped to a radio station and heard two people talking about the win towers having fallen down... i thought was someone re-playing a newscast from years ago, but couldn't develop a frame of reference to attach it to
...my initial reaction was that i was never going to sell my house in NorthCarolina... for many months i was so ashamed for having thought that

[Hildy]

It was obviously early here on the West Coast and my cousin called and told us to put the TV on. When I saw what was happening, I turned to my husband and asked him the date. I told him to remember this day because it was the day the world changed.

After 9/11 like everyone, I rethought my life. I signed up to do a 3-day, 60 mile walk for breast cancer. This was something I would never, ever have thought of doing. Not only am I not a physical person, but I am not a group person. I rarely sign up for group activities like this. When I told everyone I was going to walk 60 miles, they all laughed. But I did it. I trained and I trained and I met other women and walked and walked more. on April 16th of this year I completed the 60 mile walk.

While on the walk, I had a spiritual awakening. I knew that if I could do the walk, I could do anything I put my mind to. I was tired of working in offices. I had been doing marketing and PR for the last 20 years. I was unhappy in my job. I decided that I would do something completely different with my life.

I had gone to a paint your own pottery store here in town and had a great time. People looked like they were having fun and it looked like a good business to be in.

Long story short, July 10th I opened up my store, MASTERPIECES, Paint Your Own in La Mesa, CA. I am having the time of my life. It is hard work, but so satisfying. I meet wonderful women and great kids. I'm learning things about myself I never imagined.

9/11 woke me up inside and made me realize that life is for living.