I’m sure I watched that game, probably rushing from band practice back to my dorm room to make sure I didn’t miss the kickoff (it was the Giants at Denver, with the Broncos winning 31 to 20) as it was a Broncos game (and one of the few I’d be able to see that season), the first regular season game at Invesco, and I was coming off the start of my third week of college. However, I have no memory of it.
I remember it because my balls ached all day. I was getting really paranoid, thinking “what if I have cancer?” or something. The next day this neurosis seemed a trifle self-absorbed (and they haven’t hurt since).
I really don’t remember anything about that day but I can piece together what it must have been like. It was a Monday, so I went to work. It was also the second Monday of the month, so I had a school board meeting to cover that evening. My husband’s birthday is the 13th of September, so that probably took precedence in my non-work-related thoughts. We’d been in our house for about two-and-a-half months, so we were in that fun stage of new-homeownership. It’s strange to think about that time of my life now. It all seems like such an incredibly long time ago.
September 11, 2001 was MidTerm Grade Report day at the school I was teaching at. I probably spent September 10th finalizing grades.
I’d just gotten back from my honeymoon. The next morning was my first day back at work after the wedding. We got married on 9/1/01.
I spent Sept. 10, 2001 with Jeb Magruder of Watergate infamy. By the end of the day, I was sure it was the worst thing that I would have to deal with all week.
Tabby
I’ve just watched like four 9/11 documentaries back-to-back. It’s so depressing (though my respect for Giuliani is possibly greater than before). One of them just revealed that in July 2001, I shared The Strip in Vegas with Atta and his cohorts. I hadn’t been aware of this before, and it makes me feel kind of sick.
I don’t remember what I was doing the day before the attacks, but I do know that I went to bed at about 11pm - uncharacteristically early, as at that time my habit was to sit up into the wee small hours. The only reason I remember that five years on is because, if I have my timezones right, the first tower was struck within about ten minutes of me going to bed. On any other night I’d have known what was happening within minutes of it happening. Instead, I didn’t hear the news for more than 11 hours.
The attacks affected me profoundly for quite some time, and for about a month afterward I couldn’t sleep except during the day (instead spending my nights compulsively scanning and rescanning news sites). The eve of the attack was possibly the last good night’s sleep I had for months.
The only reason I know where I was on the 10th is because it was the first day of an auditing seminar that continued on Tuesday and Wednesday - I know it was in the Perimeter Mall area, because I drove there and back instead of taking MARTA - it was close to my apartment, so it was much easier to drive. But I know this because I know I drove Tuesday - not because I remember driving on Monday. That was just a typical day - introduce ourselves to the group and get started with whatever the topic was - and I honestly have no idea what the topic was of the seminar anymore.
Beyond that, it was a typical day, I’m sure. Since I was so close to home, I probably made it to the 6:00 Mass that evening, since that was during my very Catholic phase, when I was going to the evening Mass as often as I could. I know I went the next day, though.
Here’s some vividness for you - the 10th and early the 11th:
The week in which the 11th falls is new student orientation time at work so, during the day of the 10th I was making appointments for homesick new kids and I guess we had some events to take care of. My desk was very clean. I was debating whether or not to come back to campus after dinner because Seth Macfarlane was going to the artist lecturer for the newbies, but I didn’t end up doing it. What I did end up doing is playing a video of Queen of England’s coronation which we had purchased on a trip to London 6 years before but had never played. I was wearing a white v-neck t-shirt that was at least 10 years old then and some black leggings and singing "God Save the Queen"in a loud deep voice to amuse my son who was a toddler at the time. I went to bed early because I had a 7 am pregnancy test at the fertility center.
So, onto the early next morning. I got up super early for the test, put on a black t-shirt and brown and black striped pants. The lady there had taken my blood months earlier and we both recalled that I was so calm compared to the last time. I drove to work, where I was nice and early, got out of the car, looked up at the perfectly blue sky above the Industrial Design building and thought about what a lovely day it was. Nowadays, when someone comments on such a sky, I always say it’s a perfect day to fly into a sky scraper.
I don’t remember it at all. My husband remembers leaving work (he was working in Richmond, VA at the time), and seeing the biggest flock of birds he had ever seen…he said the flock stretched from about where he was, all the way to the horizon. He watched them approach for about 20 minutes, and he said that it seemed very eerie and unsettling to him.
It was a day that I had looked forward to for 6 months. I took delivery of the 2002 Chevy Tahoe that I had won on Jeopardy! I work for a not-for-profit organization. Spent part of the day with my boss looking at the work situation and tax angles, trying to figure if there was a way to donate the vehicle, and yet still get to drive occassionally.
We could not figure anything out. So I went to the Chevy dealer to pick up the rather large SUV. Too large for me. I traded down to a smaller Blazer and some cash.
Remember thinking the next day that I probably dodged a bullet getting a somewhat smaller SUV. Who knew what the effect of 9/11 would be on gas prices.
The weather was clear, and cooler. One of those September days that you look forward to all summer.
I spent all day of Sept. 10, 2001 helping to clean up my lab after some idiot had set off a fire extinguisher through the window. A layer of fine white dust had settled down over everything, and between all of the clutter in the lab and all of the delicate equipment, it was a real bitch to get everything clean.
I remember going home at the end of the day, having stayed extra late in order to accomplish all of the lab work I’d had scheduled for that day on top of cleaning (I was a grad student after all) thinking it was a really shitty way to start the week, but at least it could only get better from there.
Sept 10 my brother was visiting from out of state with his wife. Sept 11 was chaos at work (air freight). Through a twist of fate I flew right seat on a charter flight late Sept 11/12. Slept through most of the 12th since I’d been up 24 hrs.
The attacks occurred in the late evening Japan time. I had been planning our trip to Tokyo Disney Resort starting the next day. All day I was excited thinking about going to the Parks with my wife that I decided to leave work early to prepare packing. It was an excitement that turned somber later in the evening.
For what happened after, read http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2006/03/09/768.aspx about one-third down the page (Joe In Japan).
I remember that it was the day after my birthday, and my folks and I had just seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Also, I had gone into work on what was for me a non-work-day to drop off an e-ticket in a colleague’s mailbox because he was supposed to fly north to a conference on Sep. 11. All for nothing.
I also remember thinking that all we’d worried about that summer were Chandra Levy and shark attacks.
I distinctly remember my English teacher mentioning in his lecture about how Arab people are unfairly stereotyped to have a violent culture.
I was enrolled for my first semester of college during the fall of 2001. On Sept. 10, I had 4 lecture classes to attend: calculus, chemistry, English, and an introductory engineering course.
The day was rather routine for me at the time. After classes, I ate food at one of the campus restaurants, played guitar, surfed the net including the SDMB, did a little bit of homework, and watched part of the MNF game. I stayed up rather late since I did not have a class before 2pm on Tuesdays.
I did not wake up the following day until after the attacks occurred.
I had just woken up on a cruise ship that was out at sea, but heading for Castaway Cay. I had just experienced a very strange dream, which I insisted on sharing with my wife:
In the dream, I’m at my parent’s home, but its empty and the whole neighborhood has evacuated. There is 2 feet of snow outside, but I know I have to leave. I climb through it to the top of the street when I looked in the distance and saw three tornados coming towards me; one red, one white, and one blue.
The blue one hit a large flat grocery store/supermarket, and it blew out the windows and took out part of the roof before dissipating. The red one hit a tall apartment building and broke it in half before dissipating. And the white one was coming straight for me. In the dream I was already tired, so I fell backwards into the snow as the white tornado passed right over me, leaving me untouched.
I remember my wife making fun of me for sharing with her that dream.
The teacher said this out of the blue on the 10th?
No strong memories of the 10th, particularly, but on the 9th I remember listening to NPR in bed (Sunday morning) and hearing that the Taliban had infiltrated Ahmed Shah Masoud’s tent with a “reporter” who was actually a suicide bomber – the camera was the bomb. Because I was working in military intelligence at the time, I had been following the progress of several world conflicts, including the Taliban-vs.-Northern-Alliance war, and the murder of The Lion of Panjshir struck me as a bold but foolish move on the part of the Taliban. I remembered what they had done with the giant Buddha statues and wondered if their attack on Masoud was a precursor to something bigger. At the time, I thought it would be a good way to leave the Northern Alliance in disarray before the winter came, fragmenting alliances for a spring offensive. At the same time, I thought that the death of such a broadly-respected leader (who had been a cohort of bin Laden) was overly provocative, and might unify the tribes in their hatred for the Taliban, and that unless the Taliban wanted a war with the NA, they had erred greatly.
I remember going in on the 10th and asking some folks about it over lunch, and nobody seemed to think much of it. I couldn’t find any experts to sit down with and really dig into the subject, and it was outside my expertise, so I let it go. I went back to my work on long-range missiles and left the geopolitics to other agencies.
A month later, we (the military) were tearing our hair out trying to find a single unifying local leader to serve as a liaison with our invasion forces, so that we could align ourselves with the entire Northern Alliance at once instead of making patchwork and piecemeal treaties with tribal warlords. Masoud would have been ideal – and I’m positive that’s why he was murdered.