Twenty three years ago, where were you?
From early afternoon, I was sat on the arm of the sofa.
Chris on the wicker chair,
We had started to fill a skip which sat in from of 59 Wynyard Road Sheffield. to watch the drama unfolding
The worst of world news
Today Kamala make short shrift of the lunatic clown
She looks every bit the disaster movie American President
Good in a crisis with pearls.
He’s always wanted his own lightsabre
Cute or what?
I will leave you with my lisping choir singing Star Wars
It feels like autumn , the twins are desperate to sit in front of the fire but still haven’t left the stars
Please honor among the 9/11 responders those despatchers who took the calls from those trapped on the upper floors and stayed with them until they were disconnected. My job required me to listen to those tapes and I salute those brave women who now live with the memories of those voices, as much veterans of the war on terrorism as any gun-toting man in uniform.
ReplyDeleteAnd a salute to you Beth who also had to witness those tapes
DeleteOur neighbor in New York was one of the fireman killed that day. His name was Michael Fodor. His company was stationed right next to the World Trade Center, so they were among the first in. I will never forget him; he and his wife were unbelievably kind to me at a very difficult time in my life. I think for many of us but especially those who lost a dear one that day it will always seem just like yesterday watching those towers fall.
ReplyDeleteHere on the other side of the world, I was asleep and my 6 year old had put the TV on to watch cartoons before school. He woke me up with the story and I thought it was an odd thing to put on kids TV.
ReplyDeleteI soon learned the truth
We stood on the dunes looking back at the city and watched the Towers fall in real time, not on TV. Billows of smoke, silent skies. Horrifying. Fear.
ReplyDeleteWe watched from our ( my) building on the Upper
ReplyDeleteWest Side
My mother cried from the roof and ripped her blouse in grief
Lee🗽❤️
Rural Ohio we watched in school on a tv on wheels as the children’s’ parents came to collect them one by one
DeleteKeith
Xx
My mother’s blouse was white with blue anchors
DeleteShe ripped it at the neck
Lee
This upset me the most
DeleteI presume you are a Jewish family Lee ?
My mother and father were practicing Jews
DeleteLee
We were at the Fishermens' Mission in Newlyn, Cornwall, having a cup of tea. The TV was on, up on the wall. I thought it was showing a film, then realised what was happening. I asked the staff to turn up the sound, everyone gathered around. Even thousands of miles away from New York we were all shocked into silence. On the drive back to St Ives you could tell from the way the drivers looked who knew and who didn't. The following morning, the beach was deserted, then I heard the church bells ringing. We ran to a service for locals and holidaymakers who knew the world would never be the same again.
ReplyDeleteI heard the initial news (live) on radio in car while driving to work in the AM. We had TV on at work all day....and it just became more tragic and shocking as the day went on.
ReplyDeleteThe kittens will inch down the stairs soon to enjoy a warm fire......not a doubt in my mind!
Susan M/ Calif
I had just come in from an early morning run. My husband had the TV on and he said, come here quick, this is awful. Then I saw the plane go into the second tower. We kept on watching all day in disbelief.. my daughter works downtown in one of the tall buildings and they were all sent home just in case we were targeted also Gigi
ReplyDeleteThe replies , as usual, are more important, moving and better written than the original post
DeleteI was in the kitchen with the TV news on when it happened. I was just about to leave for the gym.
ReplyDeleteAwe, poor kittens, wanting a warm and fuss but too scared to venture any further.
Have you removed the gate now John?
Jean.
The gate is removed.
DeleteI was horrified as I watched it, and then the second plane hit. Everyone I saw after that was shocked and talking about it.
ReplyDeleteI still think about those poor people who died, and feel for their families too. Also remember the brave men and women who tried to help and rescue them, many of them losing their lives too.
Jean.
Jean I’m letting everyone like you share …more powerful than anything anyone else can say
DeleteI was in class.
ReplyDeleteI was a student at the University of Pittsburgh and was coming out of class. I went to the Department offices in the thirteenth floor in the Cathedral of Learning and everybody was crowded around a tiny tv in one of offices.
We thought it was a movie. Then the second plane hit and everybody screamed.
We had no idea what to do but then everybody got a message that we needed to leave. The other plane had hit the Pentagon, I think and they were afraid anybody in a high rise was in danger.
We could not find transportation to go back home. There were no buses, no taxis, no cars.
I got a ride with some guys who were going close to Monroeville, where I lived.
I got home exhausted. We did not have class the next day.
It feels like a bad dream now...
XOXO
I am another Pittsburgher. I worked downtown on the top floor of an office building; management said everyone had to leave. I had not driven that day but commuted by bus, so I hopped on a bus and proceeded to sit without moving for 30 minutes. A bunch of us decided to walk out of town. I remember every detail of that day, more clearly than my wedding day or any other big day in my life. One of my coworkers took a phone call from his best friend who told him his flight was under attack and the passengers had decided to tackle the terrorists. I still haven't felt strong enough to visit the memorial to those brave passengers.
DeleteNina
Nina ,
DeleteThank you
Wiser
DeleteThank you x
I worked in a school library and saw the news when I was in the breakroom. I ran back to the library to spread the awful news. We watched in horror...
ReplyDeleteWe sat , and watched
DeleteI was filling in for one of the secretaries at work when her boss came out and told me what had happened. His wife had called with the news. We watched on a small tv someone had in their office as the second plane hit the tower. I had to call one of our engineers out of a meeting as his mother had called - frantic that she couldn't couldn't reach his brother who worked in one of the towers. We learned later that he had an offsite mtg that day. And later learned that one of our ex employees was in the tower when the first attack happened. He managed to make it out of the building before the second plane hit. One of the few in his company that survived.
ReplyDeleteThe story is as raw as it was two decades ago
DeleteA friend was home after having surgery the previous day. I woke up when he called at around 6:30 a.m. Everyone knows that late night or pre 8 a.m. phone calls rarely mean good news. I didn’t want to believe him but turned on t.v. and saw second plane hit. So many unforgettable things…the people walking across bridges to get home. The many posted signs asking if anyone had seen a loved one who might have survived, The smoke and debris. People bleeding and crying. The first responders and seeing the priest’s body being carried away by distraught fire personnel.
ReplyDeleteIt all merges into one cinematic poster
DeleteMy son and DIL lived in NYC. Their friend took what ended up being the last subway downtown. She didn’t know what had happened being in the subway. When she came up the first thing she saw was a person that had just jumped. 🙏
ReplyDeleteWatching those that jumped godhowawful
DeleteI was on my property watching a crew take down a rotted dangerous tree. The company owner was operating a chain saw and he had a radio playing; he said the NYC towers are under attack. We all came inside to watch everything on my television. It was shocking and the tree work was rescheduled for another day.
ReplyDeleteAnother vignette
DeleteWe lived in Maryland. It was such a beautiful day across the East coast. The sky was blue with wisps of clouds and it was sunny. First thing that morning I drove my daughter to her prep school in Pennsylvania. It was the first day of her sophomore year in high school. I got home and turned on The Today Show. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric had a live view of the Towers and they were talking about how there must have been some horrible air traffic control accident. I was so confused. As they spoke, the second plane zoomed in and everyone knew immediately that we were under attack. My daughter was in her first class of the day--chemistry. The Head of School called everyone to the chapel, where he told them what had happened. Classes were canceled for the rest of the day. Big screen TVs were set up around the campus. Students there came from all over the world and some had parents who worked in New York and D.C. Later that day the atmosphere turned to fear because one of the planes was brought down in a rural area in Pennsylvania. The school was in a valley in the Pennsylvania mountains. Our house was quite near the presidential retreat, Camp David. Soon F-16s began to fly over our house every 15 minutes. I felt much safer with the planes guarding our area, but everything had changed.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Janie well written, well written x
DeleteI was a patient on a cardiac ward and this heartbreaking news was on the ward TV, all day and all night, and the next day.
ReplyDeleteWorking in a hospital. Nurse called me to break room to see what was going on, on the TV. I got to room the second plane hit. Pulled the TV out to the main desk. Another employee got off elevator asking what happening. He went and sat at unit desk calling relative over and over on cell phone with no response. His relative worked on the floor where the first plane struck he worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. Had senior management come get him from our unit and to go down to administration to be with his peers .He never reached his relative and no remains have yet to be identified for him. I knew this man for years and he never really got over this…..
ReplyDeleteIt was an absolutely beautiful day. I had just come back from walking my dog and turned on the tv as the 2nd plane hit. I remember thinking that if somehow my area was targeted, I was ready to die with no regrets and at peace. I had never had that thought before.
ReplyDeleteI watched the coverage on tv and cried for days and days.
I was a surgical nurse at a day surgery center on that tragic and horrible day. The patients, staff, and surgeons were glued to the one TV as the events unfolded. All were offered coffee, tea, cookies, and tissues as well as the choice of having their surgeries done or rescheduled. All chose to reschedule and those not yet in the building were phoned to say their procedures would be rescheduled.
ReplyDeleteUnforgettable and still heartbreaking.
Hugs!
Getting ready to go to work with the television on, heard it first then sat down and watched, I remember thinking "the world will never be the same". Went to the office, but did not accomplish much. Knew damn well that thousands of people would lose their lives that day, surreal and horrified are the only ways to describe it. We lived in Seattle then, our house overlooked the city and Elliot Bay and when I got home from the office that day and for at least 2 weeks there was a US Navy warship in the bay. You could also hear USAF fighters in the air over the city for the better part of two weeks. A lot of defense industry and US Naval facilities in the Seattle/Puget Sound area, the air patrols and warship were likely due to that.
ReplyDeleteYour comment reminded me that in my area we had the opposite - living in the city, we become immune to the noise of air traffic. But in the days following 9/11, it was eerily quiet as all air traffic was halted.
DeleteNina
Those light sabre chopsticks are TOO funny!
ReplyDeleteI was working at my desk in Indianapolis IN. I called my husband and then my adult son. All of my coworkers later crowded around televised scenes of horror in our common areas. I will never forget how I felt that day. - Jackie
ReplyDeleteI was five days postpartum and went to the hospital to check the baby's jaundice levels. Everyone was standing around the TV, there was a lot of space in the TV area that was utterly filled with such strong and deep reactions. This event affected my life for weeks if not months, and I'm pretty sure I also suffered from post partum depression. Everything was so bleak...
ReplyDeleteI too had a my first child, newborn, in a Moses basket at home. My husband called and told me about the first tower. I turned on the tv to see the plane go into the second tower. I was horrified for all those people there, and their loved ones. Even in FL I felt unsafe and scared of what the future would bring for this new life I had just brought into the world.
DeleteI was teaching 4th grade. We had our classroom TV on as we were studying current events. We saw the aftermath of the first plane and watched the second plane hit. I still remember trying to explain what was happening to those children while trying not to frighten them.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if cool weather will draw the twins down?
ReplyDeleteI worked third shift. I came home and went to bed. I woke up hearing my husband thundering up the stairs. I had been deeply asleep and before he even opened the door, I was wondering at my dream: 'why was that plane flying so low?'
Our bedroom was above the living room, and although I was not aware that I could hear the television, I must have been able to.
I was at home and my exhusband was flying. When he landed, I told him he needed to rent a car and drive home, now. He did.
ReplyDeleteI was teaching in Wellington, New Zealand, and our seniors watched it on a large screen TV. When I got home we had the TV on, and I got into the parish website for Holy Trinity Wall Street, which was close to 'underneath' the Twin Towers. They had to lead their preschoolers out with wet coverings over their faces and away to safety on the Saten Island ferry. They also updated regularly as they located staff and other people and so could tell their families they were safe. What a dreadful day. A lot of prayers and tears that day.
ReplyDeleteI was a new mom with a four week old babe in arms - wondering what kind of world I'd brought a child into. He's just turned 23 and my world is the better for it!
ReplyDeleteI remember someone phoned me and simply said "Turn on your TV". Like millions of others, I watched it all unfurl.
ReplyDeleteI was shopping and heard the news on the shop radio. Later, as I watched the news on tv my daughter took her first steps. It was a moment of very conflicting emotions.
ReplyDeleteIt was and is my eldest son's birthday, and I will never forget it. I was at home and saw it on tv. Horror and grief for all those involved.
ReplyDeleteWe were staying with friends in Spain, in a rural villa, we scrambles back to town to sit and watch everything, our 19 year old daughter was home alone and on the phone to us for most of the time. Getting back through the airport a few days latter was so surreal.
ReplyDeleteI remember my first thought was it must be a tragic accident - then the continuing horror unfolded. Evil did not, and will not win.
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get those light sabres? My son and DIL would LOVE them!
Hope the twins soon make it to the fireside, and peace reigns in the Gray household. xx
In UK, I was working in a bank ( cashier/teller) and a customer came in to say that terrible things were happening in US and it was on TV. We took it in turns to go to the rest room to watch the TV. I left at 3pm as I had to get my son from school, and we went home to carry on watching. I remember telling him it was history being made, and he said it seemed just like a film. ( he was 14) It seemed unreal.
ReplyDeleteI was on holiday in rural spain when we received a call to say, watch the TV. We hastened back to our spanish friends house to sit, enthralled, horified, angry and so many other emotions for many hours. A sad day.
ReplyDeleteI was at home in California. A daughter called and said to turn on the television. I sat with my dying cat in my arms. She was my favorite cat ever and her death has been entwined with all the other deaths of that day. It made the day personal and deep. I was overwhelmed with grief and shock.
ReplyDeleteweavinfool
You know, I worked phones at a call center for a mail order company, on third shift at the time. Two phone calls stood out to me. One was the night of the attack. I'd barely slept at all, and I thought that it would be a quiet night. It wasn't. The phones rang nonstop. I got one man from NYC who was livid that he'd paid express delivery charges, and his package was supposed to arrive that day, and hadn't. I said, "I'm sure that you've seen the television today. What has happened is beyond our control, and I have to tell you that I'm not sure when your package will actually arrive. It is going to take a while for things to get back to normal." There was a long pause. He finally said, "I guess I was just looking for some reassurance that things would get back to normal." And I said, "I know. It's okay."
ReplyDeleteAnother call came from a small restaurant close to Ground Zero. It stayed open to feed emergency personnel. There was a homeless man who was there every night, doing what he could to help first responders. Even weeks after, you could hear sirens in the background. The man speaking was a first responder. They had all decided to do something for the homeless man. They took up a collection to buy him warm boots, mittens, a coat, etc. He gave me the name of the Restaurant and the owner's name, who had agreed to accept and hold the package so that they could present it to the homeless man. The sweetness of it made me teary. We were much kinder in those chaotic days.
On that terrible day I was wallpepering my living room whilst listening to my iPod as I had covered the tv and radio. I had just put the last piece up when my daughter came in from work and said "Has World War 3 started?" I had bee completely oblivious to what had happened and watched the footage in a state of horror/disbelief. At the time I worked in the back office of a financial firm (but had taken a few days off to decorate) and one of our dealers was on the phone to someone in one of the Towers when it happened and the phone just went dead. Sadly they didn't make it ou). I get really angry when I hear people say it was a hoax!
ReplyDeleteI was at work (a very short-lived job in a vet's office) on 9/11. We couldn't believe what was happening. Hard to believe it's been so many years ago now. A terrible day in our history.
ReplyDeleteI was in hotel/conference center in the middle of nowhere. It was first day of a two day meeting, I with a dozen over 50years men. I was heavily pregnant with my twins at the time - few months later they died (for unknown reasons, two healthy babies with no explanation). But the death of twin towers is always shadowed in my mind by the death of my twins.
ReplyDeleteThe hotel was really in the middle of nowhere. There was barely cell phone signal, and my hb called me and for the very first time ever he asked first if I was ok, not if the car was ok... Because it was a conference center, they had satellite dish and we saw the second plane crash live, the first we didn't of course. Our national/local tv channels didn't show it live, and I've been accused of lying when I say I saw it live. There were several dozens of (mostly men in) people in the lobby watching tv. "Is this the beginning of the third world war?" was asked several times.
So many things comes to my mind. Sadness is still the most overwhelming feeling. And being helpless? You see it happen and there's nothing you can do.
Ulvmor
Jenny and I went to the top of the World Trade Centre a few years before it was attacked. If you were in New York at the time, it must have been absolutely horrifying.
ReplyDeleteI was supply teaching up in St John's in Wybourn, John. My OH was working from home; I came in the kitchen door and he said - have you seen this? This being that huge plume of smoke rising from one of the Twin Towers.
ReplyDeleteI leant against the bookshelf just inside the door and felt the ground shift under my feet; a horrible feeling of watching history.
I was downstairs working on an upholstery project, my husband up on his office. I remember watching in disbelief, calling up to him " come down here quick something awful is happening". We just stood in silent horror.Kath x
ReplyDeleteI was part of a conference on grandparents raising grandchildren. Many of those grandchildren will have children of their own by now. Kamala is a real deal leader, pearls and all.
ReplyDeleteI have so many memories from that day. I remember the principal coming to tell us about a plane hitting one of the towers. He told us not to let the students know. This was during my planning period in the morning. As the day passed by, and teachers were able to gather around TVs the horror spread through the school. I remember the next day in class, I asked my students if they wanted to talk about what happened. I will never forget one girl's response, "I just want to have a normal lesson today." The class seemed to agree, so that's what we did. I also remember watching Bruce Springsteen sing "My City of Ruins" in a televised benefit a couple of days later. As I watched it, the tears flowed and flowed. Still, to this day, when I hear this song, I tear up. https://youtu.be/6WBWH4pj9v4?si=5ZD6Ca-xHcw9CnMS
ReplyDeleteWe knew nothing would ever be the same again.
ReplyDeleteHave a listen to Alan Jackson's song - Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning is you get a chance.
ReplyDeleteI set out a glass of water to be refilled every morning for 40 days "for the spirits of the dead to drink" (a ritual I've adapted from an Orthodox church to follow when the dead is someone I care about; it helps me grieve), and each time I thought of the innocent dead I also thought of the dead attackers and thought "You should be ashamed of yourselves."
ReplyDeleteThank you everyone for these moving and powerful accounts. It brings the horror of it all back again. I hope we don't go through this again in our life time.
ReplyDeleteWe must never forget.
DeleteMoments ago I saw a new post with news about Weaver, or perhaps it was just a lovely dream....
ReplyDelete-Mary
No news Mary but she’s still with us
DeleteThanks for responding
Deletexx -Mary
I lived in Manhattan at the time. I couldn't bring myself to go below Canal Street for weeks. It was all too horrifying.
ReplyDeleteYour take on the disaster would be facinating Steve but too painful I suspect
DeleteIn NZ we were asleep, and the phone rang, I had one by my bed so I answered it, it was for my flatmate -a friend had rung to let him know. Meanwhile my dear friend Spencer in NYC was driving in from Long Island to a 9:30 appointment in the WTC when his car started to play up and the traffic was terrible so he went home and caught the train, which probably saved his life. And a few years later my friend Rachel came to work for same company, and she was back in NZ because they were living a few blocks over in Battery Park. So I got lots of first hand accounts. And things we never hear about - being banned for a fortnight from their apartment and everyone coming back to the reek of their fridges and freezers as the power had been off, and the thing that gets me is all the illegal workers who got no state support and whose dead are not named or numbered amount those who are officially remembered. Rachel said in their building everyone gave generously to support their illegal janitor. At that same company, which made equipment for blind people, we had a visit from an American man whose blindness meant he was able to lead a group of people down the stairwell of one of the Towers in pitch darkness. Another kind of hero, such a humble man too.
ReplyDeleteSo many stories.
I was in Florida. SO & I learned late as we were working nights. But went to work that night at the bookstore. The manager had grown up in NYC. He told me about watching the World Trade Center being built. People would come into the store, look around, walk out. Nobody was buying anything, even at the cafe. Nobody was talking much. Staff was sneaking back to look at a TV in the break room that was tuned to the news. We closed early because there were no sales to mention. Just people wandering around aimlessly as the staff.
ReplyDeleteI was at my job in Maryland, adjacent to Andrews Air Force Base. A co-worker came into the office to say that he heard on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We were all thinking that it was a terrible accident, until minutes later when another plane hit the second tower. My husband was at his Department of the Army job across the Potomac River in Virginia. He worked for the US Army to maintain military bases across the world and spent several days at the Pentagon each week. When the Pentagon was hit, I called him but received no answer. I phoned again and again, and he finally was able to call me back. Thankfully, he was at his office several miles away from the Pentagon. We were in Honduras when military action was taken against Afghanistan and the war began. Aside from all the death and destruction and upending of countless lives, I recall, with gratitude, the genuine support and good wishes from so many people around the world. Anne
ReplyDeleteI was standing and holding my exactly 6 month old firstborn, in the sitting room of my old house in the Sussex Downs. My mum was staying with me as my husband was in NY on business. I vividly recall that she walked into the room, holding a treat of two plates of M&S giant prawns with garlic mayonnaise, as I was staring at the tv; and the second plane hit. It seemed that the world had just gone dark, almost literally.
ReplyDeleteI’m known for being calm, steady, with the emotional sensitivity of concrete. But I had this visceral reaction to get to a ‘safe’ place, as if anywhere could be safe now. Within two hours, we had the trusty land rover packed up, trailer loaded with horses, dogs, cats (all the essentials!), and oddly a fish kettle. We drove North, ‘home’ to the sturdy old stone farmhouse in the Dales, where I was raised, as were generations of my family before me. It wasn’t logical, only emotional but…I guess we were running to our metaphorical cave. To this day, I have not been able to face either prawns, or garlic mayo. They make my stomach curdle, even the smell.
Wow. I’ve never laid this out before. Apologies for doing it now, here. And thank you, for the news on Weaver.
Mrs F
I read your blog occasionally and had to set you straight on Ms. Harris. I worked with her as an attorney in California when she was Attorney General. To say her job performance was sub par is an understatement. We attorneys started disbarment proceedings against her when she caught wind of what we were doing and filed to run for the senate. A sigh of relief ran through the office. Looks are deceiving.
ReplyDeleteI am always suspect when a person comments anonymously. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I did a lot of reading but found no evidence of this. But, the good news is that looks are not deceiving with tRUMP. He is exactly as he portrays himself, a clear and present danger to this country.
DeleteAnother vivid memory of 9/11. Trump standing before the world to crow that now Trump Tower was the tallest building in Manhattan.
DeleteHe is such a low-life prick.
DeleteI was asleep in Palm Springs, California, when my sister-in-law phoned and yelled, “Turn on the TV.” My mother was at her gym in Brooklyn having no idea what was happening. When she walked outside she said it was “snowing” black soot. She knew several people, including a good friend, who lost family members that day.
ReplyDeleteThe story broke on the late night news in Australia and was covered non-stop throughout the night. I didn’t sleep that night. The world changed forever.
ReplyDeleteI was heading to work when i heard the of first plane on the radio, second one by the time I got there. I am close to D.C. and soon the sky was full of fighter jets. My daughter was sent home from high school on foot and said she didn't know whose the planes were.
ReplyDelete