September 11, 2001
Part one of a two part series. My grandmother sent me a letter in which she enclosed the memories of people on the morning of Sept. 11. I thought I would record my memories as well. Why not?
I remember it well because I was driving to school my first year of law school. I had Civil Procedure that morning, and I had been listening to these lame Lord of the Rings tapes that my mother had bought at Costco. I had made it far enough through them that I felt I needed to finish them. So the radio was off and adults imitating the squeeky voices of hobbits filled my the interior of my Green Jetta. We generally didn’t watch TV in the mornings back then, so during breakfast I didn’t hear anything, and on my way to school I was listening to the Lord of the Rings…
I parked at the back of lot 57, which is the big mall parking lot at ASU. You take a bus from the lot to the school. As I got out of my car and went to the bus stop all the way at the back of the lot (it was advantageous to park at the back of the lot because you got to get on the bus first and therefore get a seat rather than stand), there was a kid who was talking obnoxiously loud into his cell phone about how much he was in support of Israel and how bad the terrorists were. I remember noting to myself how much of a dork that guy was. I distinctly remember thinking he was both a drama queen and that nobody was interested in his conversation with his phone.
To me it was just a normal day. I made it to school, got my books out of my locker and went to class with five minutes to spare. It was there I heard for the first time that one of the twin towers had collapsed. You can imagine my skepticism when I heard it, but when I learned that my fellow student was deadly serious, it was one of those moments where you feel scared and vulnerable for a few split seconds before the rational side wakes up and says "No Way!" to living in fear.
The teacher got to class and excused us for the day. Well, he gave us the option to have class or go home and follow the news. With such an option, it would have been unanimous either way. We went home and we all were glued to the TV for the rest of the day.