File it under “I should have known better” but I watched CNN this morning.
It didn’t take long for the CEO of Cantor-Fitzgerald to come on. He was talking about how he happened to not be in the building the morning of 9-11 and how he came back and tried to help. He desperately wanted to make sure his people made it out. In the end, the company lost 658 employees that day. One of them was Jake Jagoda. I knew him. He has become my face for the terrorist attacks. I can only imagine what this day must be like for the family and close friends of those who were killed.
In so many ways, the event seems like it happened yesterday. 5 years is just a quick blip on the radar of life. Yet the faces I saw on the news this morning reminded me how trying the last 5 years have been. Ari Fleischer and the president look like kids in the archive footage of their Sarasota school visit. These last 5 years have taken their toll on everyone.
I think of that day often. I had a classroom full of teenagers who were trying to make sense of what was happening. Many were genuinely scared for their own safety. Those kids are now approaching their mid 20s. Most have probably finished college and I’m sure a few are married and even have children of their own. Life has gone on.
24 hours after the last plane came down; I was fired from my teaching job. I’ll never understand how a young teacher could be let go based on a classroom evaluation done on 9-11. I can at least say I did the best I could that day and would not have handled it differently. As I tried to prepare the kids for the state standardized exam, they had very real, very genuine questions about why their world changed on some random Tuesday morning. I did my best to hold them together.
That day quickly evolved into a world-wide numbness. It was the day the earth stood still. The skies were empty and every television was tuned into the news. Those of us who know anyone in New York became frustrated with the lines being jammed. Little did we know many of the cell pones in the city relied on towers that once stood atop the World Trade Center.
A few weeks later, I was in DC for my first and only visit to the capital. Some idiot was sending anthrax in the mail to important people in our government. So for a few days, the capital was a ghost town. One place that did not fall silent that day was the Pentagon. Even then on that crisp October afternoon, hundreds of strangers were gathered around the charred center of military operations for the last remaining super-power. We stood there with our mouths agape wondering if we would ever feel safe again.
Just minutes ago, a plane was diverted to Dallas because someone lost their Blackberry. Whatever sense of security we had on September 10th, 2001 is gone forever. Even a false sense of security is better than none at all.
Broadway is dark tonight…a little bit weaker than is use to be.
It didn’t take long for the CEO of Cantor-Fitzgerald to come on. He was talking about how he happened to not be in the building the morning of 9-11 and how he came back and tried to help. He desperately wanted to make sure his people made it out. In the end, the company lost 658 employees that day. One of them was Jake Jagoda. I knew him. He has become my face for the terrorist attacks. I can only imagine what this day must be like for the family and close friends of those who were killed.
In so many ways, the event seems like it happened yesterday. 5 years is just a quick blip on the radar of life. Yet the faces I saw on the news this morning reminded me how trying the last 5 years have been. Ari Fleischer and the president look like kids in the archive footage of their Sarasota school visit. These last 5 years have taken their toll on everyone.
I think of that day often. I had a classroom full of teenagers who were trying to make sense of what was happening. Many were genuinely scared for their own safety. Those kids are now approaching their mid 20s. Most have probably finished college and I’m sure a few are married and even have children of their own. Life has gone on.
24 hours after the last plane came down; I was fired from my teaching job. I’ll never understand how a young teacher could be let go based on a classroom evaluation done on 9-11. I can at least say I did the best I could that day and would not have handled it differently. As I tried to prepare the kids for the state standardized exam, they had very real, very genuine questions about why their world changed on some random Tuesday morning. I did my best to hold them together.
That day quickly evolved into a world-wide numbness. It was the day the earth stood still. The skies were empty and every television was tuned into the news. Those of us who know anyone in New York became frustrated with the lines being jammed. Little did we know many of the cell pones in the city relied on towers that once stood atop the World Trade Center.
A few weeks later, I was in DC for my first and only visit to the capital. Some idiot was sending anthrax in the mail to important people in our government. So for a few days, the capital was a ghost town. One place that did not fall silent that day was the Pentagon. Even then on that crisp October afternoon, hundreds of strangers were gathered around the charred center of military operations for the last remaining super-power. We stood there with our mouths agape wondering if we would ever feel safe again.
Just minutes ago, a plane was diverted to Dallas because someone lost their Blackberry. Whatever sense of security we had on September 10th, 2001 is gone forever. Even a false sense of security is better than none at all.
Broadway is dark tonight…a little bit weaker than is use to be.
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