Atomic Playboy
Lifer
- Feb 6, 2007
- 16,432
- 1
- 81
It was the second week of my freshman year at college. I woke up to the morning radio show host saying New York had been bombed. I was groggy, so I didn't register this statement at first, figuring it was just some sort of weird shock jock humor. When music failed to start and the talking heads continued to say we were under attack, the reality gradually dawned on me. I turned off the radio, popped out of bed, and attempted to wake my roommate ("dude, the news is saying that New York just got bombed by terrorists" was greeted with a friendly grunt, which, though it lacked any specific English words, was clearly identifiable as "if you attempt to interrupt my sleep again, I will murder you with axes"). Failing in that, I got dressed and headed down to the common area. A handful of students were huddled around the TV, watching the disaster unfold on CNN. Facts started becoming more clear; we weren't bombed, planes had crashed into the World Trade Center buildings. Footage was coming in from the crash near the Pentagon as well. I turned and set off for class.
My only class that day was art history (what, I was a freshman). I arrived to find the projector displaying CNN across the entire front of the room. Our professor, a New York native, barely holding back tears, told us that class was cancelled for the day, but we were welcome to stay and watch CNN. I left. I walked around campus in a daze, not sure what to make of it all. I ended up back in the common area of the dorms, plopped in front of the TV as the tapes replayed the second plane hitting the tower again and again and again and again... More and more students congregated, but no one said a word. All eyes were glued to the television, as though what we were watching were some elaborate hoax perpetrated on us by people in the EST time zone, jealous of the fact that we got to sleep in 3 hours later than them. My roommate appeared ("dude, did you hear we got attacked?"); a few nodding heads and hushed "dude"s were enough of a reply to silence him.
In the wake of 9/11, my school through together a hastily organized, yet surprisingly well run, day of lectures, question and answer sessions, roundtables and panels to discuss the events in a personal and global sense. Classes were cancelled on Friday so students could attend these discussions. The general feeling was not one of anger so much as curiosity; why had we been attacked? There were no calls for vengeance so much as postulations on how we could improve our relations with the middle east so as to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. It wasn't capitulating to terrorist demands; it was refusing to give in to the terror that seemed to grip so many people. The biggest fear seemed to be the idea that this event would precipitate the bells of war (ivory tower liberal college hippies can be surprisingly clairvoyant if you take their bongs away).
What I will remember most about 9/11 was the eery silence. I remember going down to the campus Rose Garden. It was deserted, everyone glued to their televisions or stuck in class with professors who were too hard-nosed to let a simple National tragedy prevent them from getting in a good lecture. I sat on the wall, feet hanging over emptiness, staring out on a city that had nothing to fear from terrorists. The silence, as they say, was deafening. It was as though nature herself had shut up to observe a moment of silence; no birds sang, no wind stirred, no woodland critters stirred in the brush. The sky, for the first time that I can recall, was empty. I sat in silence, pondering the meaning of it all, and arriving at absolutely no conclusion. I knew I was living through one of those times that people would be speaking of for years to come (where were you when Kennedy was shot), but I was so far removed that the event didn't even seem real. I felt utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I sat in that silence, content simply to be, to let the silence wash over me and express what words never could.
My only class that day was art history (what, I was a freshman). I arrived to find the projector displaying CNN across the entire front of the room. Our professor, a New York native, barely holding back tears, told us that class was cancelled for the day, but we were welcome to stay and watch CNN. I left. I walked around campus in a daze, not sure what to make of it all. I ended up back in the common area of the dorms, plopped in front of the TV as the tapes replayed the second plane hitting the tower again and again and again and again... More and more students congregated, but no one said a word. All eyes were glued to the television, as though what we were watching were some elaborate hoax perpetrated on us by people in the EST time zone, jealous of the fact that we got to sleep in 3 hours later than them. My roommate appeared ("dude, did you hear we got attacked?"); a few nodding heads and hushed "dude"s were enough of a reply to silence him.
In the wake of 9/11, my school through together a hastily organized, yet surprisingly well run, day of lectures, question and answer sessions, roundtables and panels to discuss the events in a personal and global sense. Classes were cancelled on Friday so students could attend these discussions. The general feeling was not one of anger so much as curiosity; why had we been attacked? There were no calls for vengeance so much as postulations on how we could improve our relations with the middle east so as to prevent tragedies like this from happening again. It wasn't capitulating to terrorist demands; it was refusing to give in to the terror that seemed to grip so many people. The biggest fear seemed to be the idea that this event would precipitate the bells of war (ivory tower liberal college hippies can be surprisingly clairvoyant if you take their bongs away).
What I will remember most about 9/11 was the eery silence. I remember going down to the campus Rose Garden. It was deserted, everyone glued to their televisions or stuck in class with professors who were too hard-nosed to let a simple National tragedy prevent them from getting in a good lecture. I sat on the wall, feet hanging over emptiness, staring out on a city that had nothing to fear from terrorists. The silence, as they say, was deafening. It was as though nature herself had shut up to observe a moment of silence; no birds sang, no wind stirred, no woodland critters stirred in the brush. The sky, for the first time that I can recall, was empty. I sat in silence, pondering the meaning of it all, and arriving at absolutely no conclusion. I knew I was living through one of those times that people would be speaking of for years to come (where were you when Kennedy was shot), but I was so far removed that the event didn't even seem real. I felt utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I sat in that silence, content simply to be, to let the silence wash over me and express what words never could.
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