I had a doctor’s appointment for 9am and got to the office a little early. A TV was on CNN in the waiting room and the first plane had just hit the north tower. People on the news were talking about whether it was a terrorist attack or an accident. Speculation was that it was a small plane and then others were saying a larger passenger plane. I remember thinking that it wasn’t over — that another plane was going to hit the other tower. I was having a physical done and it was taking a while and they were being especially slow. When they took me back for my blood to be drawn, the lab had an open door to a nurse’s station where another TV was on CNN. As I was sitting there watching it, the plane hit the South Tower.
After leaving the doctor’s office a little while later, I went to class but there were only about a half dozen people there — as opposed to the regular 30-ish. Word soon came from the university that school was closed for the day. Work that night passed by slowly and I was glued to NPR for the first of many times. I think they may have let us go home early, but I can’t remember.
Even though I was 700 miles away, 9/11 directly changed my life. Before that, I didn’t give a crap about politics of any kind or current events. That day completely changed that. I was vaguely Republican and then proceeded to become much more so until becoming much less so. What for me started out as justice, began to seem like vengeance and then like we were just repeating the same horrors on people completely unrelated to the event. So without 9/11 I might still be an apathetic conservative instead of a very concerned liberal.
I don’t go much for memorials in general. I have never watched them and have never felt inclined to. I think if we want to properly memorialize the event, we should do something about it. Like putting an end to the violence unleashed by the politicians who have used that day for political gain. Below the fold is a message from Dennis Kucinich that I think is worth reading.
