When I was younger, I never understood how adults could remember where they were on specific days. They could tell you where they were when the Challenger exploded, or when Kennedy, Lennon, or Princess Diana died. I get it now.
On September 11, 2001 I know exactly where I was. I know exactly the events of the day. I was in the beginning of my sophomore year at KSU. I was living in the basement of the AZD sorority house and had only been on a few dates with John. That morning I got up for Compository Writing 2. By the time I got upstairs for breakfast, the first plane had already hit the north tower. There we easily 30-40 of us crammed around one TV watching the details unfold. We watched live as the second plane hit the south tower around 8:00 Kansas time. We sat, somehow glued to the gruesome sights of both towers collapsing around 9:30. I watched a while longer and went to campus.
I got to class and the events of the morning were all people talked about. They guy I sat next to, I really wish I could remember his name, had actually not heard about the attacks. He immediately panicked, called his mom, and never came back to class......the rest of the semester. We were told several days later that his dad and his brother lost their lives that day.
By noon all of campus was closed as a precaution. KSU houses a nuclear reactor and there were fears that it could possibly be a target. I headed home and sat glued to the news the rest of the day.
Things for us returned to normal within a few days, not like the years it took others. I have been to Ground Zero and look forward to going to the memorial in October. I hate that this tragic event is one of the first specific, detailed events I have a vivid memory of. It will one day be in history books, and I will be able to tell my children where I was, on September 11, 2011.
