Where were you?
Like Mike at Unraveling Mysteries I woke up this morning remembering 9/11. Where was I?
I remember vividly sitting downstairs in my livingroom, putting the last touches on my resume for my final interview with the NBA in Secaucus, NJ. I was pretty psyched because the job was looking good, and the first interview had gone really well. I was out of work because of the tech bubble burst (another thing I share with Mike) and I had already landed a job with ETS, but this one sounded so much cooler so I asked to put off my start date at ETS.
“Oh My God!” I heard my wife scream. I went running upstairs and saw her sitting in bed, white as the sheets around her. I looked at the TV and saw smoke pouring from the tower. The first call I made was to my Aunt, who worked in NYC. Thankfully she was home sick and not working in the city (granted, she didn’t work near there anyway). Called my brother, a volunteer fireman in Syosset NY, who was itching to drive in and help out. They actually made his fire company stay put to backfill for all of the companies in Queens and Brooklyn that went in. So he’s cool.
Then the second plane hit, and the plane at the Pentagon, and the failed on crashing in PA.
Never have I felt so low, and so afraid. Bin Laden had done his job well.
So what did we do? We all reached out and supported one another. People went out of their way to be nice or to help, or to just support perfect strangers. For a little while, we were an idyllic society. For the first time, I was able to walk down the street in the City and people would look me in the eye and smile or just say Hi. You have to understand – that’s unheard of in NYC.
I wish we could have continued it.
So where were you?
September 11th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Nice post. I do remember people being most sensitive to others and more concerned with attitudes. Too bad it takes something like this to bring it out…
September 11th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Too bad it didn’t last either. It was really inspiring for a while there.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I was working in Austin on a contract at the time. I had gotten in the office really early since I didn’t really have anything better to do while I was there. I didn’t find out until the next person came into the office in my area. I remember being stunned and was glad I wasn’t in Houston. At the time, we didn’t know if there would be more targets to big cities so they evacuated downtown Houston as well.