The morning of September 11th I drove my brother in law to work as I had done every weekday for the past couple of months. I’m a night owl so when I got home I laid down and took a nap.
When I awoke I turned the TV on, I’m a news junkie so as luck would have it I was tuned to CNN, which is my favorite source for American news. I’m sure most of you know how when you turn on an older TV it takes a few seconds for the tube to warm up but the sound comes on right away. The first thing I heard before the screen came on was “World Trade Center collapsed” And I’m like “Um……Huh?” I’m not ashamed to admit for the first few minutes before I figured out what had happened I was scared, I mean I knew the World Trade Center, I’d never been there but I knew about the bombings in 93 and I knew how big they were and to hear without any context that America had been attacked and that the World Trade Center towers were gone was enough to scare anyone. I mean I didn’t know what had happened were their bomber planes that had destroyed them, was the possibility of nuclear attack real? I live in Nova Scotia and the fallout from NYC or Washington could possibly head my way.
Once I figured out what had happened though I settled in and glued myself to the TV screen until I just couldn’t stay away any longer, only taking myself away from it to go pick up my brother in law, and even then I had the car radio tuned in to the news.
As I mentioned before I’m a news junkie, and while this may seem crass and vulgar to some one of my greatest regrets is missing September 11th, sleeping through it. If you think about that statement objectivly it makes sence, 9/11 is the biggest news story of my short lifetime, and to sleep through it is something I’ll never get over. I always wonder if I would have figured out it was a terrorist attack and if so how soon? 1st plane? 2nd plane? Somewhere in the middle? Would I have known the towers were going to collapse? And if not how would I have reacted? All of these things haunt me to this very day. I now have a standing rule with my family to either contact me or wake me up if some big news story happens again. I don’t care how tired, sick, or whatever I am, as long as I’m not dead let me know about it!