September 11th, 2001

[JudasIscariot]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 1:17pm

Can we just take some time away from everything and honor those who died, helped, struggled, and were effected by this day?

Feel free to share your stories and memories of the day. I know that I'll be at the vigil tonight around 9:00.

Also, just two songs about the event. The first is by Loudon Wainwright III, the father of Rufus.

So I started out on High Street, had to travel into town
Like some Orpheus descending through a turnstile underground
From Brooklyn Heights into Manhattan,
Which was were I had to be.
Now, you have to take the A train,
There's no more service on the C.

And when you are underwater, sometimes the mind plays tricks.
And there beneath the East River it felt like the River Styx
The first stop was Broadway Nassau
A few more passengers got in.
We all sat, no one was standing
There somewhere we'd never been.

They say Heaven's high above us
And Hell's not far below.
But in that subway tunnel
There was no sure way to go.

Chamber Street a closed ghost station, passing through we seemed to glide.
Like prisoners inside compartments on some house of horrors ride
The walls were tiled I hadn't noticed
They seemed so antiseptic, clean.
But we knew what we were under,
The lights were on, that seemed obscene.

And there I saw the three initials, W, T and then C.
I'd survived somehow was living, but somewhere I shouldn't be.
At the next stop the doors opened
And I emerged up above ground.
I was in another country:
Elysian fields, no, China Town.

They say Heaven's high above us
And Hell's not far below.
But standing on Canal Street
There was no sure way to know.

They say Heaven's high above us
And Hell's not far below.
But standing on Canal Street
There was no sure way to go

It's a beautiful song, if you ever get a chance to listen to it. The second one is by Jason Robert Brown, and it's a message that we all need to listen to.

Come to the water,
The water will flow.
Stand to the night,
See the light, let it grow.
Hold on, for hard winds
Are starting to blow –
Stand up, hold on
And swear you won’t let go.

Whatever I said doesn’t matter,
Whatever you said doesn’t hurt.
Whatever we meant
And whatever we did
Is lost in the water.
Whatever I felt I’ve forgotten,
Whatever I planned I released,
But come take my hand,
Come down to the water,
Come down to the water

Where people are coming together
And people are falling apart.
And no one can hide –
We’re caught in the tide
And punched in the heart.
And people are harder than diamonds.
People are stronger than knives.
We breathe and we burn
But we never return
For the rest of our lives,
For the rest of our lives.

(People are coming together.
People are coming together.)

Come down to the water,
Come down to the water
Where people are coming together
And people are falling apart.
We’re branded and blind,
And we try to rewind
To reset and restart,
And people are louder than fire
And people are stronger than knives.
We pick up the slack
But we’ll never go back
For the rest of our lives,
For the rest of our lives…

(People are coming together.
People are coming together.)

Come to the water,
The water will flow.
Stand to the night,
See the light, let it grow.
Hold on, for hard winds
Are starting to blow –
Stand up!
Hold on!
Stand up!
Hold on!

Stand up!
Hold on!
Stand up!


People are coming together,
People are coming together,
People are coming together,
All across the water!

Stand up, hold on,
Stand up, hold on,
Stand up, hold on…
And swear you won’t let go.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 3:32pm

amazing...you posted this over 2hrs ago and no one has posted...how soon they forget.

We were at home, and I received a call from a co-worker in Michigan who knew Steve's mother and sister lived in Manhattan.
She told me to turn on the TV set....I asked if she knew what time it was, and she yelled "turn on the damn tv".

I ent to the family room and watched in horror. And thn I went and woke up Steve to tell him his hometown had been attacked. We didn't reach his family until that night.....a truly horrible day for America.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 3:46pm

No one has forgotten. Some of us no longer wish to mark this date in public.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 3:54pm

??? Now that's about the silliest thing I have ever heard, but.....to each their own.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 3:56pm

That was unkind.

[Mistress Overdone]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:05pm

[The Ghost of Kringas]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:15pm

Well, there are also a variety of other threads about September 11th already, so perhaps the people who wanted to share something about that day shared their thoughts there.

Perhaps people - especially a vast majority of people on this board who were in New York at the time - don't want to yet again talk about where they were or what they were doing. Perhaps they're off somewhere else remembering where they were or what they were doing.

I don't think anyone has forgotten, although I wouldn't judge someone who was trying to forget.

And none of what I've said was meant to be incendiary.

[elphiesmagic]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:19pm

"Perhaps people - especially a vast majority of people on this board who were in New York at the time - don't want to yet again talk about where they were or what they were doing."

Exactly. Some of us don't need to go over it again and again publically - the personal stories have been told and re-told and for some of us NYers, the time for "sharing" has long passed. Everyone grieves/remembers in their own way. I don't find that something to be judged at all.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:21pm

Here's a story from a totally Non-Newyorkian perspective.

I was in fourth grade, so I think I was about nine years old at the time. My teacher deemed our class to young to know about what had happened, but we didn't have to do any schoolwork-- we just watched "Charlotte's Web," and some guy came in to show our class a ball python. Kids kept getting pulled out of class and leaving, but I didn't even think about it.

On the bus, all the older kids were hinting that something terrible had happened, but they kept saying, "No, we're not allowed to tell the little kids." No matter how much I explained to them that I was not little, in fact, I was NINE, they still wouldn't tell me.

I got off the bus, and my mother and sister were standing at the bus stop looking sort of puffy-eyed and glum. We'd gotten a new car the day before, so somehow I felt sure that something bad had happened to the new car. Then, my mother said, "Someone crashed a plane into the World Trade Centre."

Here were my exact words: "What's a World Trade Centre? Did anyone on the plane get hurt?"

I just couldn't understand the whole situation. No matter how much I watched on the news, I couldn't grasp how enormous the whole situation was. Eventually, I just got really mad and ran upstairs and started crying. Everyone thought it was because I was so upset about the terrorist attacks, but it was really because no one would talk about anything but that and I was sick to death of it all.

I guess he fifth and sixth graders on my bus were right. I was too little to understand what had happened. When other kids my age share these poignant stories about what went through their minds, I don't have anything cool to share except for a story about how immature and totally uninformed I was.

Updated On: 9/11/08 at 04:21 PM

[Q]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:27pm

Elph - I had a reaction to a similar situation once (a Veteran's Day thread,) and posted this thread in response. There were many who rightfully took me to task for the arrogance and assumptions, and some of their thoughts could apply here.

And, it really is scary to look back on one's own idiocy, I must say.
DG gets taken to school.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:29pm

I just appreciate all the great art it inspired

[WestVillage]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:30pm

"When other kids my age share these poignant stories about what went through their minds, I don't have anything cool to share except for a story about how immature and totally uninformed I was."

I think saying you "don't have anything cool to share" is a very poor choice of words and is in really bad taste. There was nothing "cool" about what happened that day.

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:41pm

Updated On: 1/13/09 at 04:41 PM

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:48pm

Whoa, sorry about that!

What I meant by 'cool' is that it's considered 'cool' to share some kind of dramatic story-- in school, all of my teachers asked the class for their stories, all of them terribly emotional stories full of complex thought processes that nine year olds usually can't manage.

I almost feel like people think they have to make it sound like they had some sort of internal struggle. Obviously, adults and people who lived in the area of the attacks or knew someone in the area would have a truly emotional experience, but most children wouldn't have much more to share than 'we watched Charlotte's Web in school.' I feel like some people cheapen the experience by telling these heavily embellished stories of angst.

But then again, I might have been an uncommonly stupid fourth grader.

[elphiesmagic]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:49pm

For me, and a lot of people I know, the stories quickly became more about "this is what happened to ME, everyone look at ME and listen to MY story" than about sharing feelings. That's where the NYers I know stopped wanting to be in a "sharing" situation.

[shameless]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 4:56pm

Choosing not to comment on a thread does not mean you don't care, don't remember and aren't affected.

I wish many people would be more careful about what, when and where they post.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 5:04pm

I agree. Just because you choose not to post doesn't mean you haven't said a silent prayer for those we lost.

I wasn't in NY when it happened - but I live in DC about 1/4 mile from the Pentagon. Alot of my students at the time had parents who worked there and it was hard for us there too. I realize the loss was no where near the extent that it was at the WTC, but it was still a loss.

[JudasIscariot]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 5:14pm

Come on guys, I didn't create this thread to spark any fights or anything like that. That is completely the opposite of the message of this thread.

If you would like to share your story, please share. If you choose to mourn privately, I fully respect that.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 5:15pm

I didn't think you meant to start anything.......and you are right. It is opposite of what you were trying to do to argue about it.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 5:20pm

I felt the rumblings. I watched the towers go down, I walked over to see if I could help and was turned away by a cop who said;"There isn't a thing anyone can do right now". I prefer to remember that in silence and move on.

[The Grovers Corners Yenta]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 4:10pm

I actually flew yesterday on Sept 11. I got to the airport in San Jose and they were announcing a moment of silence to be held at 5:45 am. { Pacific time for the first bombing} It was very eery there. Security had been extra long and detailed as well. I flew from there to Dallas and that was an experience. Texas was waiting to be hit by the hurricane as well as observing 9/11. Everything seemed to be on hold. Dallas is a massive and very busy airport under usual circumstances. But yesterday, there seemed to be a pall cast over the whole place. My flight to Hartford was even delayed because of longer security checks. Someone once asked me how I could ever fly after what happened in 2001. I actually was scheduled to fly on September 12th 2001. I was grounded for a few days but made it out on a flight to San Jose a few days later. I don't give in to terrorists!

[Anakela]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 4:25pm

I actually was scheduled to fly on September 12th 2001.

Me too- Boston to LAX. Made it back to L.A. a few days later by flying Providence to LGA to Cincinnati to LAX; will never forget the sight of all of those National Guard troops at LGA that day.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 9/13/08 at 12:07pm

The following is an excerpt from the novel Sudden Moves by Charlotte Vale Allen There is a lot more but I'm only going to quote a small part.
"Was this how the end of the world began? Sirens wailing, masses of people fleeing from the vicinity of the towers, thick smoke erupting volcanically into the sky {Lucinda} was immobilized, unable to stop watching, mad thoughts, fear and grief tumbling about, colliding ricocheting off the hard inner surface of her skull; mixing, tangling, snarled. Too much to take in,to process. Untold numbers of dead on the airliners and inside those grievously wounded towers. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives vaporized in a holocast fed by jet fuel. Concrete reduced to powder, glass, papers, fragments of steel, pieces of the plane all flying through the air; debris raining down as everyone on the streets quickly moved away, some looking back over their shoulders(as if they,too, were caught in the cinematic mindset) as they headed north toward midtown or west toward the Hudson , frantic to escape, to find somewhere safe to stand and catch their breath while they tried to make sense of this. Blocks away, frozen faces gazed up at the jagged fire breathing maws of the newly made torn steel dragons. Hands over their mouths, eyes wide and unblinking at the sight of the ravaged monoliths, strangers clutched each other, sobbing. Eyes fixed on the towers people used their cell phones to call home, to say I'm okay, I love you, don't worry. Or exclaiming,Oh my god turn on the TV look what's happening! We're being attacked. We're at war...or something....

10:28. The north tower was suddenly coming down,in a great gusting roar and in only four or five seconds it, like its twin ,was gone. Vast plumes of smoke. On the streets, people were running for their lives as the pulvrized ruins, like an ocean, flooded outward. The tip of Manhattan was obscured by choking gray-black clouds. People emerged from the area, ghostly, coated in ash, walking like zombies. Their clothes torn, some people bleeding; everyone moving away,away. They had survived, after a fashion."

That day is burned into the being of those who experienced it in the first person or more distantly.
Never forgotton.



Updated On: 9/13/08 at 12:07 PM