My 9/11

We always said that Melba Clark was in charge of “alphanumeric prestidigitation.” That meant she was a phenomenal typist. And she was a favorite of everyone in the department, an attractive, outspoken Southern belle in her fifties with an engaging smile and a great sense of humor.

I was sitting at my desk in my office at work that morning, and Melba came in.

“A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

I think I laughed and said something stupid like, “Oops! How could somebody do that?” Then I added, “A plane hit the Empire State Building back in the forties, I think.” And that’s the last I thought about it until she came back in a few minutes later.

“Another plane hit the other tower.”

It wasn’t funny anymore. “What!?” My jaw dropped. Melba stood looking at me soberly. “This is terrorism!” I said.

I called Cindy right away and told her to turn on the TV. At work we tried to use the new technology called “the Internet” to see what was happening, but it was so overloaded with traffic, it kept crashing, and we couldn’t get any information that way.

At that point I left work and went home to watch the television with Cindy. I remember we were dependent on an antenna, and our reception was poor. But we started recording events on the VCR, thinking someday we would want to watch them again. We never wanted to watch them again.

By 9:37 am, the Pentagon had also been hit. The word “terrorism” seemed especially appropriate at that time. People were very frightened. What in the world was going on? What might be next? Was this the beginning of World War 3?

I remember seeing news video of people in a Muslim country rejoicing in the streets. It made me very angry.

I had a meeting at work, so I went back. I remember a colleague named Sarah was in the meeting, and she hadn’t heard about the attacks. “Both towers were hit,” I told her. “There must be thousands of people dead.”

At 11 that morning I went to chapel on campus, a required daily event back then. The university president got up to speak and began to fill in the students and the faculty and staff on what was happening. “Four planes have crashed in a series of terrorist attacks on America,” he said.

I corrected him in my brain. “No, only three. He got the details wrong.”

No, he hadn’t. By this time the heroes on Flight 77 had overtaken the hijackers and intentionally crashed the plane in a field in Pennsylvania, likely saving the Capitol Building from attack.

Those are most of my memories of that day. I remember feelings of shock and mourning and a slow-burning anger. I remember that for days we were glued to the TV, eating up every fragment of information we could access. We didn’t realize how obsessed we’d become until, in one of those “Oh, I’m a terrible parent!” moments, Jason, our four-year-old who had been watching the events with us, burst into tears and said, “I don’t want to watch those planes flying into those buildings anymore!” We had assumed he was too young to understand.

We turned the TV off.

Copyright 2023, Steven Nyle Skaggs

National September 11 Memorial and Museum. On my first trip to New York City, this was under construction, with high fences all around, covered with tarps to keep gawkers away. I was able to peek between a couple of the tarps and could not believe how huge the hole was where people were working. I later visited the site after its completion. Sobering, to say the least. I have not toured the adjacent museum, and I doubt that I ever will. I think it would bring back too many horrifying memories. Photo (cropped) by Paul Sableman. Creative Commons Licensing.

The Pentagon Memorial. When I visited this beautiful place of remembrance, I was moved to tears. Each “bench” stands for one victim of the 9/11 Pentagon attach. Benches that are angled toward the camera and away from the building represent victims who were in the Pentagon. Benches that are angled the opposite direction represent victims who were on Flight 77. The benches are arranged in order, each one with a name on it, from the youngest victim that day (Dana Falkenberg, 3) to the oldest (John Yamnicky Sr., 71) both of whom were on the plane. All those people. . . . (Photo is in the public domain.)