I was visiting some blogs this evening and getting a bit impatient with the predictability of today's subject matter when one of the blogs solicited comments by asking the question, "Where were you when you found out?".
It started me thinking about how I had gone to work about 6:30 am that morning (also a Tuesday) and, not long afterward, was sitting at my desk listening to NPR's Morning Edition when Bob Edwards mentioned, basically in passing, that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
I pictured a small Cessna, thought, "wow, how do you manage that?", and continued on with my morning's tasks.
Until a short while later when Bob Edwards told me that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.
At which point, I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was no coincidence.
Since my desk/office is upstairs in a quaint Victorian and the rest of my co-workers all work downstairs in a set-up that makes it virtually impossible for them to listen to radio news, I spent the rest of the morning hustling downstairs to give them updates: now they're saying a plane crashed into the Pentagon; one of the towers just collapsed; the other tower collapsed; a plane crashed in Pennsylvania . . .
One of my bosses suggested closing for the day but I didn't see what purpose that would serve. What were we going to do, go home and sit in front of the TV? So we stayed open and worked and I listened to the radio, while looking out the window at the gorgeous blue Colorado sky.
I have a vivid memory of looking at Aspen's Main Street, noting how the world really didn't look any different.
This evening, while thinking about all of this, I found NPR's Sep-11-2001 Morning Edition in the NPR archives and just spent the last couple of hours listening to it once again for the first time since that morning.
It's an interesting experience. I recommend it.
It started me thinking about how I had gone to work about 6:30 am that morning (also a Tuesday) and, not long afterward, was sitting at my desk listening to NPR's Morning Edition when Bob Edwards mentioned, basically in passing, that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
I pictured a small Cessna, thought, "wow, how do you manage that?", and continued on with my morning's tasks.
Until a short while later when Bob Edwards told me that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center.
At which point, I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was no coincidence.
Since my desk/office is upstairs in a quaint Victorian and the rest of my co-workers all work downstairs in a set-up that makes it virtually impossible for them to listen to radio news, I spent the rest of the morning hustling downstairs to give them updates: now they're saying a plane crashed into the Pentagon; one of the towers just collapsed; the other tower collapsed; a plane crashed in Pennsylvania . . .
One of my bosses suggested closing for the day but I didn't see what purpose that would serve. What were we going to do, go home and sit in front of the TV? So we stayed open and worked and I listened to the radio, while looking out the window at the gorgeous blue Colorado sky.
I have a vivid memory of looking at Aspen's Main Street, noting how the world really didn't look any different.
This evening, while thinking about all of this, I found NPR's Sep-11-2001 Morning Edition in the NPR archives and just spent the last couple of hours listening to it once again for the first time since that morning.
It's an interesting experience. I recommend it.
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