"Remembering" Topic

I remember 25 years ago like it was yesterday. I was teaching World History to high school sophomores, and my volleyball team had a big conference volleyball match scheduled that evening against our conference rival. All day we were glued to television sets in our classrooms watching our world change. Kids and teachers were crying. Others were scared. Most were silent. I think that was the quietest day I have ever experienced in a large public high school. The match went on (astoundingly), but all I remember about it is the thoughts running through my mind as the national anthem played to begin the match. I don't remember anything about the actual match. My brother-in-law Eric had worked on the top floor of the north tower for Cantor-Fitzgerald, but he quit and moved to LA after the failed attempt to bring down the towers in 1993. He would have died that day if he had not quit a very lucrative job and moved. RIP to all the victims of that terrible day.

Twenty-five years ago I was living in Jefferson City, Missouri. I was home, for some reason, and saw it all unfold on TV. In the afternoon my wife left the house to tend to her ailing mother, who lived across town. She had to give it up and return to the house because all the roads were blocked by lines of cars heading to local filling stations to fill their gas tanks---just in case.