Remembering 9/11

This date has become one of those dates in our lives when people ask, "so where were you on 9/11?"

Like how everyone remembers where they were when JFK was shot. And its true it is a day that I will never forget, that day is very clear in my mind. And it was a day that changed my life forever.

I was living with my parents in C-Town, it was the summer after I graduated from WSC.

The morning started off like any other day, I was up at 6 a.m. went for a walk with Ang, then a run, went home had breakfast then took my nap.

Then the phone started ringing off the hook. I thought it was the fax machine that sometimes called our house so I tried to ignore it. After several obvious call backs I decided to pull my arse out of bed and answer it. It was my mom.

"What are you doing."

"Nothing, just fishing," trying to hide the fact that I had just woken up.

"Well turn on the T.V."

"OK, What channel?"

"It doesn't matter." She said with a little bit of frustration in her voice.

I turned it on and sat dumbfounded...for it was on every station. The look on my face was a look that kept repeating itself throughout the day. It was the look on everyone's face as they tried to come to grips with the loss of life and the fact that we had been attacked on our own soil.

I don't know what station I was watching, but I sat glued to it for the rest of the morning and throughout the rest of the day.

I had to work at the bar that night, and on the way I noticed people lined up outside Gas n' Shop to fill up with gas, there was such a sense of fear covering everyone for a few days following the attacks.

At the bar, it was like a ghost tavern. Usually it is slow when I first go in at 5 p.m. but that day it stayed slow, and it wasn't so much that there weren't any customers its just that those that did come in, ordered their beer, and sat staring at the TV. Its so strange that a lot of my memories are of people staring at somber images in a television screen.

For a few days it was almost like people were afraid to laugh.

There were stories of old men, lining up outside of Army, Navy & Marine recruiting offices, ready to sign up and punish whoever it was who did this to our country.

I was actually in line to join before the attacks and I then deftly got out of line after the attacks.

If it weren't for a phone call from my Aunt Jannie, who knows where I'd be. It all works out in the end, and as I always say, everything happens for a reason. I guess you can call me a coward, I'll take that.

Why did 9/11 happen to our country, I'm not going to answer that even if I knew the answer. But our country did change afterwards, If only we had better leadership at the helm who knows where we would've gone, I don't believe our journey after 9/11 is quite over.

So what do you remember about that day? (Leave a comment)