There are events in our lifetime that are so powerful that we can say exactly what we were doing when it happened. The day John Kennedy was assassinated, the day the Berlin Wall came down, and the day planes struck the towers at the World Trade Center.
Honesdale, Pennsylvania. At the time, my roommate, Amy and I worked nights from 6 PM to 6 AM. I usually pass out shortly after I get home as the previous 12 hours in the DVD factory were quite grueling. Though I had a bedroom to myself, I usually slept on the couch because it was comfortable and the TV was there. I would usually watch some prerecorded boxing fights I had on VHS or watch Rocky for the 756th time.
Shortly after I fell asleep, I felt my shoulder being tugged which obviously woke me up. Once my eyes came into focus I saw Amy crying. I nervously said, "What's wrong?" Why nervous? I never woke up to someone crying. She told me planes crashed into the Twin Towers. I couldn't process what she was saying. "What..?" "Terrorists crashed planes into the Twin Towers." I sat up in the couch with my back pressed against the back of it, my mind racing, trying to make sense of this. I eventually made my way over to Amy and gave her a hug then called my mother, who watches the news all day while she is working from home, to find out what the heck was going on.
"They crashed the planes into the towers. People are jumping out. Oh my god.." my mother told me. My mother was explaining to me how the news report came on that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers and the cameras were focused on the smoke rising from it then, "I was typing and at the corner of my eye I saw a plane hit the second tower!" Everything she was telling me filled me with sadness and fear. I thought a war was coming to shores. Now I could get political here, but I will not. That's for another time. Anyway, I called my job to find out if the factory would be open tonight and the person on the other end said, rather nastily, "Why wouldn't it be?!" You're probably thinking that she doesn't know what's happening. Well, that's next to impossible as the factory played a live radio station 24 hours a day. I hung up the phone in disgust. This would be the start of a trend in this area of Pennsylvania; it was a New York problem. That was the consensus with many people I ran into at the time. Thankfully, that trend did not last very long.
After I got off the phone I walked down the steps of the apartment onto main street. The sun seemed brighter than usual due to the fact that we keep the apartment dark during the day. I stood in the doorway looking at the people passing by. They seemed as if nothing was wrong. Perhaps they didn't know and maybe they didn't, because this was a time before smartphone apps and always being connected. Or... they did know, but regarded it as a New York problem which I mentioned before. The stupid side of me actually looked up into the distance thinking I would see the smoke from the burning towers. Honesdale is over 100 miles away from New York City.
That night Amy and I went into work without getting much sleep. We stayed up for a while. She spent most of the morning with her mother. I spent most of it looking at the news.
