It has been five years - five years - since the attacks on our country that occurred on September 11th, 2001. In some respects it feels like it shouldn’t be that long ago, while in others it feels like it has been an eternity.
You will find looking through the archives that immediately following the events of that day, I didn’t really write much about them. Looking back, while I wrote about the events following the attacks - two wars, curtailing of civil liberties, political posturing, etc. - what actually happened on that day and how it impacted me was a bit too difficult to relive at the time. I wish to do that now, five years in.
I will start a bit earlier, in the latter half of July, 2001, however.
Glenna and I had just been married in a small ceremony held at a winery and vineyard in Washington State, presided over by a Justice of the Peace. We were surrounded by our friends and family - even a couple of awesome coworkers who have since tied the knot as well. The next day, we took off for a two week honeymoon in Florida, which we both greatly enjoyed.
Upon coming back home, though, we had to quickly get busy - we were getting ready to move to a small suburb east of Los Angeles, and had less than a month to get everything ready. We had to pack, make arrangements with movers, ensure that we had a place to live once we arrived, spend some time with our families before we left, etc. We had exhausted our time off with wedding stuff, so we had to fit all of this into our normal schedules. We were rather stressed, but excited.
On September 1st, we said goodbye to our familities and made the long drive from southeastern Washington State to southern California. It was an emotional time, but we were both looking forward to what lay ahead. California has long been a place to strike out on your own, seeking independence and opportunity. Life where we both grew up was stagnant. Unchanging. The type of place where people grow up and die without ever actually doing anything.
But it was also secure. Glenna didn’t have a job waiting for her when we arrived, so money in our new home town was tight. The apartment we had was much older and not nearly as nice as the one we had lived in before, despite costing twice as much. Traffic was horrendous (compared to Tri-Cities standards), and every day upon coming home from work I nearly passed out from exhaustion. For her part Glenna didn’t have a car - which makes living near Los Angeles very inconvenient - and the nights of staying up alone watching infomercials quickly began to take its toll. Perhaps worst of all, we both missed our families greatly, as we had always been very close.
September 11, 2001. It was less than two weeks since we had arrived. Our main priority at that time was to get a second income as quickly as possible, as California’s cost of living was quite a bit higher than we were used to. That morning, I drove Glenna to a temp agency, where she would be tested and (hopefully) placed in some sort of clerical position. I then started on my 35 mile or so commute to work.
Some time shortly after turning off of the 210 freeway, heading south on the 605, I decided that I wanted to listen to some music. At that time I didn’t know the local stations, so I moved up and down the FM spectrum until I came upon Howard Stern. I really don’t care a bit for Stern, but before moving on I paused - this broadcast was different. They were talking about two planes which had crashed into the World Trade Center buildings in New York. I recall there having been something about another two planes, one going down in Pennsylvania and the other crashing into the Pentagon. It was a bit surreal, but I didn’t really believe it - I figured it was some sort of joke. Stern and his guest hosts sounded pretty serious (though a bit histrionic, with talk of glass parking lots and such), but I assumed that it was an act. I even stopped off for something quick to eat at a McDonald’s near work on my way in, thinking nothing had actually happened.
There was nobody in my office when I arrived. Just to verify my suspicions, I opened a web browser up on a few news sites (CNN, etc). It wasn’t a joke at all - the attacks did occur. I was stunned. I sat there for an hour or so, listening to a webcast and reading news as it came in. At some point, one of the company’s founders sent out an email telling anyone who came in that morning that they could go home if they wanted to - so I did.
As I recall, things were very confused that day. On the way home, I found the local NPR affiliate (KPCC, which I still listen to often) and listened to updated. At that time, nobody really knew how many people had died - there were some estimates as high as 50,000. While flights had been grounded, there were several planes that were still unaccounted for - it took some time before we knew how many people had died in the attacks. We sat glued to the TV all that night. In fact, I was pretty much stuck in front of it from then until the end of major hostilities in Afghanistan, weeks later.
The initial days were filled with shock, rage, sadness and tremendous anxiety. We had just moved to the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the country - the perfect place for a secondary strike. I worked less than 6 miles from downtown Los Angeles. While it’s unlikely that someone would intentionally attack a run down and poor area in east L.A., it still lay in the forefront of my mind. These were the days of duct tape, color coded warnings, anthrax, phoned in bomb threats and cancelled flights. They were also the days of little plastic flags, flowers, ribbons, blood donations, people driving across the country to help search for survivors, and even Democrats and Republicans forgoing their incessant partisanship - though that would not last for long.
This one event has pretty much defined this decade thus far. It is the root of two wars, the curtailing of civil liberties, the politicization of grief (just turn on the TV today for a taste of that, if you can stomach it), largely cosmetic airline security changes, follow-up attacks - some thwarted, some successful - across the globe, newly formed Democracies created - and constantly threatened, etc. No matter how you view the events of that day or what happened thereafter, there’s no denying that it has reshaped our future in ways that we may even yet not know.
UPDATE: CR posts his rather concise thoughts on the 9/11 anniversary.
