I Remember Like it was Yesterday

Ten years ago, when I was the Meat Manager at Sam's Club in Murfreesboro, I always closed on Tuesdays. That means I didn't go to work until 11AM, maybe later. So, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I'm sitting at the computer, just playing around, with ESPN on the TV at the other end of the room. Back then SportsCenter ran in 2 hour loops, so by the second loop I'm only paying half-attention to it.

Until I heard them say "We will break into our programming with any news about this attack on our country". I jumped up in shock, grabbed the remote, and switched to CNN. There I saw my first views of the attack on the World Trade Center. I believe it was a close-up of the smoke coming from the side of the building. As I listened in horror to them talking about what had happened, the tower began to fall. They pulled back to show the entire scene. I called Monica and told her about it. We were using pre-pay cell phones back then, and I asked her if she had a refill card for later. I was getting worried that we may not be able to stay in touch, like maybe the landlines would go down.

Information was chaotic. There were reports of an explosion at the Pentagon. There was an unidentified plane flying toward Washington along the Potomac. There was information that said that, on any given day, as many as 10,000 people would be in the towers. On the way to work, I stopped and got more minutes for the phones. Everyone in the store was scared and angry. When I dropped one off for Monica, I told her to consider getting the kids home early. No one knew what was going on and what was going to happen.

It was empty at work. There were several management discussions on what to do and how to handle the rest of the day. One of the associates left upset because her father had left the day before for a meeting in New York. We all kinda just went sleep-walking through the day. Until about 5:30PM. Apparently word had gotten out that gas prices were jumping because of fear that there would be no Middle Eastern oil. We all got pulled out into the parking lot directing traffic to the gas station. Cars were backed up all through the parking lot and out onto the road. As packed as the pumps were, everybody was very calm and understanding with us. All expressed a desire for military action.

We must always remember how that day felt, the fear we went through, the shock and horror. I can best describe it with one more anecdote: I'll never forget how chilled I got when I was bringing DJ home. As we pulled into the driveway, he said he couldn't get the idea of those pilots with knives held on them flying right towards the buildings out of his head. He was 7. I felt like he had lost a piece of his childhood. And I was sad all over again.