10 Years Ago Today....
It was the Fall after I graduated, and I was working a temp job in Madison. It involved sitting in a windowless room all day, taking staples out of forms, and putting them into piles. Usually to help alleve the boredom I would listen to music or NPR on my walkman. That Tuesday morning, the two other temps and I were having a rather pleasant conversation about how we liked Madison. Then somebody came in the room and told us about the Twin Towers. My first reaction was, "Well that had to be terrorism." Figuring a plane flying into one tower could have been an accident, but not both. One of the other temps, a man in his early 30's, got excited. He decided he was going to march by the Capitol and declare his support of the event. He lied to our supervisors saying he knew someone in New York, and left work early. Later when the supervisors found out the truth, we got an apology from the president of the company, and we never saw that other temp again.
We spent the better part of the day watching the footage on a TV that somebody set up in the main office. In the little bit of time I was working, I commented to the other temp, an older lady, about how the situation reminded me of the Kennedy assassination. She shot back, "How would YOU know? You weren't alive then!" (Did I mention this lady was as dumb as a box of rocks?)
Later that evening there was an ecumenical prayer service on Library Mall in Madison. A group of us of all different faiths: Catholic, protestant, Jewish, Muslim....all stood together and sang patriotic songs, and cried. I remember thinking "Now we're part of the rest of the world"....as the day before, an event like that, would be something I'd picture happening in some distant country.
Then I called my mother. She'd been looking at the pictures of our trip to New York City in 1993. We actually went to the top of one of the Twin Towers. At the time, my sister was nervous, because it hadn't been that much time since the bombing had happened. My father reassured my sister that because the bombing had happened once, it "wouldn't happen again."
Like most Americans, I initially was only marginally affected by 9/11. Everybody I knew in New York and D.C. were fine. I tend to see it as one of those milestones for me that my last bit of childhood was over. A few weeks later I moved away from Madison to a job and a community that were not a good fit.....and then the next 4 years after that, living with my parents and floating from temp job to temp job, until I finally got into teaching.
10 years later I'm a librarian again, a job title I haven't had officially since 2002. In my life, I feel like I'm getting a second chance.....that this time I have the chance to get it right. And I'm hoping the country does the same.
We spent the better part of the day watching the footage on a TV that somebody set up in the main office. In the little bit of time I was working, I commented to the other temp, an older lady, about how the situation reminded me of the Kennedy assassination. She shot back, "How would YOU know? You weren't alive then!" (Did I mention this lady was as dumb as a box of rocks?)
Later that evening there was an ecumenical prayer service on Library Mall in Madison. A group of us of all different faiths: Catholic, protestant, Jewish, Muslim....all stood together and sang patriotic songs, and cried. I remember thinking "Now we're part of the rest of the world"....as the day before, an event like that, would be something I'd picture happening in some distant country.
Then I called my mother. She'd been looking at the pictures of our trip to New York City in 1993. We actually went to the top of one of the Twin Towers. At the time, my sister was nervous, because it hadn't been that much time since the bombing had happened. My father reassured my sister that because the bombing had happened once, it "wouldn't happen again."
Like most Americans, I initially was only marginally affected by 9/11. Everybody I knew in New York and D.C. were fine. I tend to see it as one of those milestones for me that my last bit of childhood was over. A few weeks later I moved away from Madison to a job and a community that were not a good fit.....and then the next 4 years after that, living with my parents and floating from temp job to temp job, until I finally got into teaching.
10 years later I'm a librarian again, a job title I haven't had officially since 2002. In my life, I feel like I'm getting a second chance.....that this time I have the chance to get it right. And I'm hoping the country does the same.