story908.xml
Title
story908.xml
911da story story
As usual, on September 11th, I got up and checked the news on CNN.com and the weather on The Weather Channel over breakfast and coffee ... it was just before 7:45 AM Central Time when I turned off the computer and TV to get ready for work ...
Driving to work, as usual I didn't have the radio on, singing along to a cassette tape instead. I felt amused because there was an older fellow driving a pick-up truck 25 mph on a street where traffic generally goes 45... it wasn't until later, that I realized he must have had the radio on in his truck and that was why he was driving so slow ...
I got to work, and learned what had happened. My department digitizes video so we have a TV for playback of VHS. I arrived at work in time to begin to absorb what had happened before watching the 2nd tower fall ...
My apartment is about 6 miles southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on the western edge of the most common arrival and departure corridor. It's totally normal to see planes in the sky. So, a day or two later when I heard a plane overhead, it was so weird to first not pay attention because planes are normal, and then remember that there were no planes flying ... but then, I remembered that it had been arranged for relief flights to leave from DFW that day. I decided to assume that that was the plane I'd heard, because any other alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
It was February 2002 before I stopped watching every plane, wondering if it was where it was supposed to be in the sky ... in that period between September and February, I started noticing planes on approach paths that seemed unusual. I would scrutinize each one, wondering if I was about to see some horror.
I suppose this sounds selfish, or self-absorbed, or something, but the hardest emotion for me to overcome has been guilt. I lost no people. I lost no property. No one I know directly lost either people or property. Even, I was able to learn the news and spend the day with friends, surrounded by sources of support. I felt so devastated, I felt such sorrow, I felt such fear. Yet, I felt unworthy to feel those things, because I'd been so personally untouched, learning about everything from the safe distance of some 1000+ miles.
I really feel that the US has changed, that people in the US have changed. There is a soberness underlying life that wasn't there before. Yet, at the same time, I feel like the US has finally begun to join the world -- a world where it's much more common to live in uncertainty than not, where political violence is known well, where comfort is treasured rather than viewed as a right. Will the world hate us less now that we've experienced this event?
10 months later, and I'm still in the process of understanding what it is to have experienced a life-changing, culture-changing, event. And I only saw the pictures ... I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who witnessed the event with their own eyes, ears, with their own senses.
Driving to work, as usual I didn't have the radio on, singing along to a cassette tape instead. I felt amused because there was an older fellow driving a pick-up truck 25 mph on a street where traffic generally goes 45... it wasn't until later, that I realized he must have had the radio on in his truck and that was why he was driving so slow ...
I got to work, and learned what had happened. My department digitizes video so we have a TV for playback of VHS. I arrived at work in time to begin to absorb what had happened before watching the 2nd tower fall ...
My apartment is about 6 miles southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on the western edge of the most common arrival and departure corridor. It's totally normal to see planes in the sky. So, a day or two later when I heard a plane overhead, it was so weird to first not pay attention because planes are normal, and then remember that there were no planes flying ... but then, I remembered that it had been arranged for relief flights to leave from DFW that day. I decided to assume that that was the plane I'd heard, because any other alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
It was February 2002 before I stopped watching every plane, wondering if it was where it was supposed to be in the sky ... in that period between September and February, I started noticing planes on approach paths that seemed unusual. I would scrutinize each one, wondering if I was about to see some horror.
I suppose this sounds selfish, or self-absorbed, or something, but the hardest emotion for me to overcome has been guilt. I lost no people. I lost no property. No one I know directly lost either people or property. Even, I was able to learn the news and spend the day with friends, surrounded by sources of support. I felt so devastated, I felt such sorrow, I felt such fear. Yet, I felt unworthy to feel those things, because I'd been so personally untouched, learning about everything from the safe distance of some 1000+ miles.
I really feel that the US has changed, that people in the US have changed. There is a soberness underlying life that wasn't there before. Yet, at the same time, I feel like the US has finally begun to join the world -- a world where it's much more common to live in uncertainty than not, where political violence is known well, where comfort is treasured rather than viewed as a right. Will the world hate us less now that we've experienced this event?
10 months later, and I'm still in the process of understanding what it is to have experienced a life-changing, culture-changing, event. And I only saw the pictures ... I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who witnessed the event with their own eyes, ears, with their own senses.
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Created by Author
yes
Described by Author
no
Date Entered
2002-07-18
Collection
Citation
“story908.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed October 1, 2026, https://911.dev.chnm.gmu.edu/items/16508/.