Remembering

I find it interesting to hear where others were when they heard of the attacks on our country. Please feel free to post a comment with your story.
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I was on my way to drop Dayne off at daycare. I heard it on the radio. I only caught the tail end of the initial report and the bits and pieces I caught didn't make sense to me - - How could a plane land on top of the World Trade Center? I admit, I was not real familiar with the facts on the towers, but I thought "Wow, that'd take a lot of skill to land a jet on top of a building!" About 10 seconds later, it all started processing: they didn't LAND there, they CRASHED into the building. I dropped Dayne off at daycare, told the girls working and they turned on the t.v. to get some details. I went ahead and went on to work, at Affina for the Navy account. From second one of entering work that day, all hell broke loose. For reasons I am not real sure why, I needed to talk to Graden. He was still asleep so I had to wake him up to tell him. I told him we were being attacked. He didn't beleive me. I told him to turn on the t.v. Silence. Eerie silence. Graden is my rock so to hear him silent and just imagining him absorb this awful information was disturbing to me. Eventually we hung up and I had to move on with my day - although it would prove to be anything but a typical, boring day at Affina. For the next two weeks we were inundated with calls. People with a sudden interest in joining the Navy. What an awesome feeling that was; to know this is the country I am part of. One of the more memorable callers was a man who said, "I was there 40 years ago when you needed me; I am here for you today." He was a veteran of the Korean War. Amid all the articles were postings of peoples thoughts, stories, poems, etc. One of the most impactful to me was a poem called "The Day I Lost My Hyphen."

The Day I lost My Hyphen
Frantic, worried, wife didn't call, the day I lost my hyphen.
Plane fell many died, black, white, yellow the day I lost my hyphen.
No more African-American once the second plane hit, the day I lost myhyphen.
United in sorrow, pain, anger, courage, resolve and love of God, family and of my country.
Day of infamy, no my day to stand, my day of rebirth, no longer African-American but an American on the day I lost my hyphen.
— Reuben D. Eckels, 38, Wichita, Kansas

Over the next two weeks we had over 500% increase in call volume due to people expressing interest in helping this wonderful country. I worked 16 hour days trying to help in the way that I could.

HBO did a presentation on the events of 9/11, "In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01". With the exception of this year, I watch the video every year on the anniversary of 9/11. Every so often when I am cleaning out my old stuff, old photos, memorbilia, I find an article I saved re: the horrid events of September 11th. One of my friends, Erin Schmid, is an excellent writer. She was in school at the time and wrote a paper titled The Day with No Contrails. When I look in the sky and see contrails, I am grateful for the seemingly simple, common event of planes flying.

Where were you when you when the world stopped turning?