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9/11 again

I can’t believe it’s been five years since September 11, 2001. But since it’s September 11, 2006, it must be.

I sometimes think about the events that happened on that day, and once again I’m a fuzzy-haired twelve-year-old who’s one of the taller kids in the seventh grade at his small Catholic school. But as much as I remember my emotional reactions, it’s been sort of difficult to separate them from the facts — the timeline, if you will, of what actually happened on that day.

Yesterday I uncovered my seventh grade class’s schedule. I actually was looking for it, and I knew exactly where to find it: in my old backpack that I used up until the end of seventh grade, with all of my stuff from that year still inside it. It’s interesting to see because it sort of offers a clue as to what I actually might have seen and heard as I watched the attacks unfold.

It started like a normal Tuesday. I was an active member of Where’s George? back then, and I would browse the site in the morning before school. Over the past few days I had been posting on the site’s forums announcing some weird holiday that applied someplace in the world — you know, like, “Happy Something Day in Somewhereland.” That morning, I did a little bit of research and ended up saying, “Happy Jinnah Day in Pakistan!”… not knowing who or what a Jinnah was, of course. It was all in fun.

My memory of the first sign that something was amiss is kind of dim, but it fits with the newly unearthed timeline. I now know that on that day, I had Miss Conover’s Literature class from 8:30 to 9:15. It was somewhere during that time — presumably after 8:46, when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center — when the history teacher next door, Mrs. Albert, came in and said something to Miss Conover that she didn’t want the class to hear. Now knowing that this must have happened within a half an hour of the first attack, I wondered how Mrs. Albert would have known so quickly, especially if she was teaching a class at the time. Then I remembered that she used to play the radio while her students were working. Or I think she did, anyway, if only for her own entertainment. It would make sense that she heard about it on the radio.

From 9:15 to 10:00 was P.E. I don’t really remember anything that happened during those 45 minutes, so I can assume that nobody in the class found anything out at that time. The coach might have known, but we students didn’t.

From 10:00 to 10:45 was Mrs. Ferruggia’s Religion class. That’s when a younger student or two came in with the news. If there were two (I don’t really remember, but there probably were), then one of them said “Mrs. So-and-So wanted you to know that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center,” or something to that effect. I thought it was just a small plane and that it was just a minor accident, but Mrs. Ferruggia got particularly worried. South Florida is the sixth borough, after all, and everyone who isn’t from New York at least knows someone who lives there. Mrs. Ferruggia was no exception; she told us that her daughter was in New York or the surrounding area. She got out her cell phone to call her daughter, and the classroom went abuzz with rumors of other attacks. I don’t know where they got the idea that the White House and the Capitol were bombed, but I remember hearing that.

Not long after that, my class and the other seventh grade were taken to the library to watch CNN on their relatively big TV. I distinctly remember seeing smoke billowing from the towers (or the remaining tower, I suppose), so we must have been there by 10:28 to see the other building fall. I seem to remember seeing that view of the dust and debris closing in on a street with people running away. It was very stressing, to put it mildly. No one knew what was going to happen next. The lady was going on about the whole thing, and then there was the Pentagon and the other plane that crashed in a field for some reason that we might not yet have known. I kept saying, “We’re all going to die.” I also remembered that on September 11, 1962, The Beatles recorded their first single, “Love Me Do,” the more common version with the session drummer. Your mind tends to go in strange directions when the world suddenly falls apart.

We stayed in the library through the next period (10:45-11:30) which, for my class, was supposed to be Math. Then we went to lunch. My copy of the schedule has a 15-minute gap between that period and lunch for some reason. I’m fairly positive that the period ended at 11:30 and that we went to lunch right then rather than doing nothing for 15 minutes.

After lunch, from 12:20 to 1:05, was Social Studies with Mrs. Albert. I don’t remember anything about that period, except that that was probably when she made the remark that September 11, 2001, would be our generation’s December 7, 1941, or November 22, 1963. I believe she was the first one to say that. She was right, of course, but anyone could have turned on the TV and come to the same conclusion.

Next, from 1:05 to 1:50, was English with Miss Bryant. I remember that we didn’t do any work that day. She had the TV on, and they were talking about President Bush being at an Air Force base in Louisiana. That was when my friend Sean and I began coping the best way we knew how: by drawing. Sean did a drawing of two people standing in front of the Pentagon with a chunk missing from one side. One of the people says, “How many sides does it have now?” As for me, I drew a child at a dinner table saying, “Mommy, daddy, today at school we saw this awesome movie where two planes turned the World Trade Center into dust, and another crashed into the Pentagon, and a wall collapsed and caught fire, and all flights in America were cancelled and the entire world was at a huge standstill!” Then the dad says, “That was no movie, son, that was the TV news.” Underneath that, I wrote: “September 11, 2001: A day that will forever live in infamy.” I glued my cartoon underneath Sean’s, and on that paper he wrote, “Political Cartoons, Bombing of the US by the Middle East, September 11, 2001.”

That’s all I remember about that day at school. I have a false memory of seeing the attacks unfold in Science class, but that’s based on my sister’s (or someone else’s) personal retelling of the day. Besides, I had Science in the afternoon.

Toward the beginning of 7th grade, my sister and I were going home with my sister’s friend Kelli. We would do our homework and then swim in the pool. On that day, the TV was on, and because the attacks had ended, it was time for the talking heads to go on and on with speculation about the causes and far-reaching implications of the disaster. When my mom came to pick us up, I asked her if she had heard, and she said that she had. Everybody had heard.

That evening, the local newspaper sent out an extra section — you know, as in, “Extra, extra, read all about it.” I took a look at it. On the front page, it featured a large photo of the twin towers going up in smoke. My dad saved it, I think, and I haven’t seen it since then.

That’s the last thing I remember of that horrible day, but it’s enough to remember. And the whole thing raises an interesting question: when such a serious event occurs, when and how do you tell the kids? Do you go out and say it? Do you couch it in soft language? Do you let them see the news coverage? A lot of teachers and parents had to make those tough decisions, and it influenced how we kids had our first impression of the attacks. I, personally, am amazed that I got to be a sort of witness to history. After all, some of the other teachers at school didn’t turn on their TVs, and the seventh grades were the only classes watching TV in the library. It was a unique experience — and one that I hope will remain unique forever.

How did you first hear about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001? Where were you and what were you doing? What was your initial reaction? How did you feel after that? Post a comment and let us know.

Here’s a photo essay featuring some rare scenes from 9/11.

One year ago: “Instead I was standing against a bookshelf, next to some of my friends, and behind my other classmates, thinking that we were all going to die.”
Two years ago: “Apparently you can’t have fun on that date any more.”
Three years ago: “I’m not usually the type to say stuff like this, but it was something we will never and can never forget.”