remembering 9/11

"Where were you...?"

Once upon a time the question was, "Where were you when you learned that Kennedy was shot?"
[I was in Miss Benninghoff's 6th-grade classroom, Barnard Elementary School, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The principal, Mr. Shepherd, came on the intercom around 1:45 p.m. to announce Kennedy's assassination. School was dismissed.]

Today? "Where were you when you heard about the WTC attack?"
I was on the smoking patio at work, about 9:30 a.m. I might have been the only person who had not witnessed the event on the morning news. When folks were talking about planes flying into buildings, I pictured a single-engine Cessna.
Back at my desk I went to a news website to learn the details.
I immediately emailed my wife, who was in Novouralsk, Russia at the time.
She'd already heard. The house-keeping staff at her hotel had constructed a small altar with lighted candles to honor the dead.
(This was when the whole world was with us, and W was acting magnanimously... it wouldn't last.)

Work was not cancelled, though the company put up a big-screen TV in the cafeteria to keep us informed.

Nine years later I'm watching college football.