In Memoriam
President Franklin Roosevelt once declared December 7th as “a day that will live in infamy” after the Japanese attack against the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor. Even FDR couldn’t imagine what happened almost 60 years later on September 11th, 2001 in New York, Washington DC, and in a rural Pennsylvania field.
In the category of “What were you doing when….”, my grandparents talked about what they were doing when the announcement was made on the radio (remember, no TV back then) that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Grandmother was up and about cleaning the house and my Grandfather was asleep after working nights at Pullman Standard in Hammond. Grandmother woke him up to tell him Pearl Harbor was attacked. He knew he was going to get called back to the Army soon.
My mom tells me on November 22, 1963 she was in school and the principal came over the loudspeaker announcing the death of President John Kennedy and school was immediately dismissed. School was not open until after the funeral.
On September 11th, 2001 I was at work for an internet provider and trying to figure out why the internet was so slow, and nobody could get to news sites (CNN, Fox News, Drudge, etc.) I had no idea what had happened until a co-worker told me to set up the TV and turn on the news. Watching Matt Lauer describe what was happening as it happened - Towers collapsing, the Pentagon, United Flight 93. That day nothing happened. Phones didn’t ring. People didn’t come into the office. Everyone was just captivated by what occurred. Then the unusual happened - a customer came in and said there was a rumor going around town that gas stations were running out of gas. Having a pretty good idea who was responsible for the attacks, people panicked and soon gas lines of up to one mile long formed at every gas station in town. One gas station raised its price to $4.00 per gallon, when a few hours before the price of gas was about $1.40 to $1.50. All but one station ran out, and people were following tanker trucks. It was literally a scene out of “Mad Max”.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:17 am
There are those moments we never forget:
My mother-in-law called our house to tell us planes were crashing into buildings and to turn on the TV.
I was walking into Mrs. Gully’s Earth Space Science class at Pike High School and plopped down in my chair to see the endless replay cycle of the Challenger exploding.
I was home with my then 6-month old daughter laying in front of the TV waiting to watch the shuttle Columbia land. It never did.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I vaguely remember the Challenger disaster, which is sad. We didn’t have a tv in our classroom watching the takeoff of the shuttle and I think I only heard about it later. I was 8 when that happened.
I do, however, remember the Columbia shuttle. I was still living in DC at the time and I remember my roommates and I being transfixed by the news watching replays and attempted explanation of what had just happened.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:11 am
January 29th, 1986 - School was called off because the heating system failed. Was flipping channels on TV and saw the replay of Challenger exploding.
February 1st, 2003 - Was websurfing when I saw a black page that normally wasn’t. Seeing the link from there to most major news outlets, I found out the Columbia wasn’t coming home. Turned on the TV to all the news reports of debris hitting the ground across Texas.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I remember exactly what I was doing: I was a senior in high school (I don’t wanna hear anything from the old guys-you know who you are josh and mike) and ISTEP testing was happening. Since I had already passed mine, myself and the rest of my cohorts were in the auditorium (i think to hear some motivational speaker). We had just taken a break and were returning to the auditorium and I noticed the main viewscreen was down (it was NEVER down). So I asked a teacher walking by what was going on-she said “the president is going to make an announcement, I believe” And half jokingly i asked “what? are we going to war or something.” She stopped dead in her tracks and said, “Uhhhh….yeah, probably.” Naturally, i was a bit flummoxed at this so i left the auditorium and went out into the lobby where there was a tv…