They say that you remember what you were doing when you heard the news of the most tragic of events. The classic example of this was the assassination of John Kennedy.
In November 1963, my father was a freshman at Morrisville (New York) State College, in the Animal Husbandry program. It seems that the curriculum included having to milk cows for a week or two at the college's farm. So, my father was milking cows when he received the news. That's all I know, really.
My mother was credit manager in the rather tiny credit office of the Grant's department store in Cortland at the time. She saw the television coverage on account of the fact that Grant's sold televisions. I cannot recall for certain if I had previously known, but I just asked her about it for this article.
Though I am only 26 years old, I have two such moments.
In 1986, I was young-- and so was the utilization of Earth orbit. Shuttle launches were a big deal for elementary school students, and we frequently watched them live. As it happens, I was not watching that particular launch. My third-grade class was at lunch when the Challenger exploded-- but we were not told. When we filed back into the classroom, though, the radio was on, and that was when I learned of the disaster.
On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, I had been in microbiology lab at RIT* since 8 o'clock. When Dr. Lodge told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I pictured a Cessna-- much like the plane on the White House lawn. Further news revealed that nothing could be farther from the truth. After class, I went to RIT's heavily TV-laden Crossroads Cafe, and stayed there for a good long while. As the President was moved around the country. I saw the footage of the towers collapsing. And like most Americans, I was glued to the news coverage for quite some time afterward.
And that's what I was doing, two years ago, today.
* Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology
Update: John links with 'Where was I?'
Posted by Mitch at September 11, 2003 10:36 PM2 years ago on Sept. 11 i woke up at 10 am. loged onto my computer loged into jumpgate beta and first saw someone saying that a plane hit the WTC. i thought it was a joke at first till i decided to turn the news on and then proceded to watch the second plane hit. and as most people i spent the rest of the day watching the news.
Posted by: Brandon at September 14, 2003 09:45 PMI was at home play a computer game and then the phone starting ringing.
Posted by: dave at December 6, 2003 12:23 PM