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The Pink Suit.
September 13th, 2008
It was a stunning day. The sky was crystal blue, and the air was crisp enough you could tell fall was coming, but still warm enough to wear sandals. I was a senior at the State University, majoring in Political Science and Speech Communications. I had landed a Poli-Sci student’s dream job of working part time for our Senior U.S. Senator. I mostly responded to letters, answered the phone, and forwarded people to more experienced case workers for help. That morning I was getting ready for my first class of the day, an upper level one with the name of National Defense. It was an interesting class with my favorite professor. I was in a good mood though tired, having been up late talking to my new boyfriend. I turned on the Today Show to see what Katie had for me, and remember noting how much I loved her pink suit she had on. It was a perfect color, bright without being Pepto, and a classic cut. She inspired me to wear my own pink suit to work later that day, I laid it out, and put on capris to hike across campus. I sat down on the foot of my bed to fasten my sandals when they broke in on the fluff piece they had been covering.
A plane had hit the World Trade Center moments ago. They started showing live coverage and Katie Couric was talking in the background. I remember being concerned, but my thoughts echoed hers…..what a terrible mistake. Was an overworked air traffic control tower operator to blame? I was sad, but kept getting ready for class.
Then I heard Katie Couric gasp. I glanced up just in time to see…and wish that I had not looked. The second plane. The second tower. I had to leave for class just as I heard them say what I was already thinking. This had to be the work of terrorists. I heard students laughing all over campus–they had not heard yet.
The Political Science department was another story. Ever on top of current events, my peers had seen it all from the ancient tv in the graduate lounge (the PoliTiki Lounge). We all sat silently waiting for class to start, someone’s radio blaring in the background, burning through my ears into my brain. People were jumping to their certain deaths. The tower fell. Rescue workers rushing in. The second tower fell. My professor sent us home and told us today’s assignment was to witness history. I walked back to my apartment thinking how cruel it was for the sky to be so beautiful.
When I got back to my college owned apartment I turned back on Katie Couric just in time to see her interviewing that bald guy from MSNBC, you know– the finance guy. He was covered in ash and soot and you could tell he was shaking. Katie had changed out of her lovely pink suit and was wearing a somber black one.
I hung my pink suit back in the closet and pulled on a navy blue shirt and drab skirt. I then went to work at the Federal Building, where I was searched by the security guards for the first time. All day, all week, all year I answered calls of outraged constituents. “Bomb them!” “Kill them!” “Revenge!” “They must pay!”.
My pink suit stayed in the closet for the rest of the year.
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I missed getting the below posted on 9/11, and contemplated saving it until next year, however I think it deserves to be shared now. The following is from The Neighbor and below that is a link for us all to watch. Please share your own memories in the comments section. Thanks.
I don’t know if you have a topic already for today, or if you’re interested in one, but I’ve attached some pics I took earlier this year from Ground Zero and the area if they can be of use. It really changes your perspective on the events seeing it in person.
The metal cross in the middle picture is from inside one of the towers and is exactly how it was found, in a cross shape. We were fortunate enough to have one of the foremen of the building site come talk to us and he told us the story. The glass case sitting on the cross contains two baseballs and he said the father of a son who was killed in the towers climbed the cross and put the baseballs on it as a tribute to his son. They are autographed by, I think he said, Mickey Mantle and someone else in that era. Very valuable. I asked how they kept people from stealing them and he said that if anyone ever tried to steal them, the police wouldn’t have to be involved because the city would hunt them down and kill them. Apparently, the WTC site and memorabilia, etc. is respected by everyone, including the thugs. The cross also served as a place of prayer and mass for the recovery workers throughout the months after the attack.
Thanks for sharing The Neighbor. I am not sure how I feel about us always hunting down the thugs. Can we live the rest of our lives shouting “Bomb Them!” “Kill them!” “Revenge!” “They must pay!”? I don’t know, I just know that it is time for us to stop being afraid. click here and turn up the volume
Filed under Soap box, lexapro lexplains it |4 Responses to “The Pink Suit.”
I distinctly remember how unexpectedly blue the sky was that day.
News of this disaster was received by me in the same way. I believe that Matt was the first to announce a plane had flown into one of the twin towers. A Today show assistant was an eye witness. They talked with her by phone while the screen was filled with the smoke pouring from the tower. Then the second plane hit while they were live on the screen.
We all knew as soon as the second plane hit we were under attack. I sat crying as the first tower fell soon followed by the second.
The tragedy unfolded to include the Washington crash and the one in Pennsylvania as well.
Of course, being a financial professional, I had to go to work as people were in a panic with the NYSE not opening which was unheard of. But a good bit of my morning was spent in the boardroom watching the tv with a few other employees.
One odd memory to still have is that President Bush was in Florida and was at an elementary school to read to children while it all happened. Seems they worked hard at getting him safely back to Washington not knowing how many other similar planes might be in the air.
There were good feelings that followed that day too though. I remember attending community prayer services on the grounds of our court house and the solidarity of purpose we all felt over the next several months.
Our government worked better then than at any time in my memory accomplishing many things by putting aside the partisanship and working with a unified purpose. If only they’d always come together with such earnest intent.
Thank you for a very thoughtful and personal post. Your words are profound and a reminder that each one of us alive on that day were profoundly affected by it.
On September 11, 2001, I was a seventh-grade math teacher and our academic team of teachers were without students; working in our classrooms. Our entire group of 150 students were out and about in their various music, PE, art, and careers classes. One team teacher had her classroom TV on as she worked…she spread the word quickly and our team of 6 gathered in my classroom. We watched, stunned, for the next 30 minutes as the tragedy unfolded and then talked about how we were going to take care of our children when they returned to us. Word spread among students as they moved in the hallways…their fear and confusion and, yes, anger, were palpable.
For the rest of the day, we each handled our students’ emotions as best we could. We answered honestly when our frightened 13 and 14-yr-olds asked if America would go to war, saying, “I don’t know.”.
A student in that first returning class had a family member who worked at the Pentagon. Her face was ashen with fear when she came into my classroom, tears streaming down her face. We talked, her fellow students consoled her, and we all hoped to soon hear word from her family that all was well (and it was). And, yes, the children talked about prayer and faith…the issue of separation of church/state was a non-issue that day.
That day, there were thousands of teachers across our country who were the first caregivers for hundreds of thousands of frightened and confused children. I believe that the majority of those teachers were noble and wise in their words and deeds as they attempted to counsel their students. In doing that, they had to suspend their own fear and grief until the last bell rang and the last child left for home. Then, and only then did they (we) allow ourselves to express our own personal fear and grief over the day’s events.
May God bless the innocent victims of hatred and fanaticism.
I was watching Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. Diane was the one who came on solemnly to explain what had happened after the first plane hit. My mom and I (getting a late start to our day…her for work…me for class) sat glued to the TV, then watched in horror as the second plane hit. Diane came on again. By then it was obviously a terrorist attack.
I remember wondering who could possibly be behind this. I remember thinking of the possibilities. Was it Iran…Iraq? Who did this? How many people must have been part of this? How did they get past security when I (of all people) am the one the security guards always hassle at airports? How could this be?
Then I remember feeling kinda numb. Mom was leaving for work and told me not to be late for class. “Oh shit! Class! It starts in ten minutes fifteen minutes from home.”
I put my shoes on and headed out the door. I listened to talk radio in my car on the way to my Comparative Politics class. I, too, had my favorite professor tell me that we weren’t having “class” that day, but that we were all welcome to sit and watch history on the classroom TV. I remember sitting in disbelief as over half of the class filed out to do God only knows what. The rest of us sat quietly watching the TV. Then we began asking questions. “Chuck,” our favorite professor, answered as best he could, but on that day most of his answers were “I don’t know,” “Hmmm,” and “Uh…” A usually brilliant, well-spoken man with a hint of sarcastic, dry humor was brought to nothing more than a stammer.
It was time to head to my next class with a professor with whom I still have a relationship some seven years later. The class…Public Relations Principles. You would have had to been in this class from the beginning of the semester (it had only been a few weeks) to understand how much everyone dreaded this class. She was hard-core. She meant business. She had come from corporate America with something to prove (or so we thought at the time). She was a bitch (though I’d later change my mind about her), and we all hated her class, because she belittled us on a daily basis.
Not that day. On that day, the bitchy prof with a corporate attitude sat at her desk tearfully watching the TV. She had friends in the World Trade Center…many friends (we later learned that all of them made it out safely…Thank God!). As a public relations professional who had been around the block, she had built relationships with many people across the country. And as someone who wasn’t from where we were all from (i.e. not from the most made fun of state in the union), she knew people all the way over in New York City. As we watched footage of people jumping out of windows, she simply got up, walked to the door, and said in a shaky, teary voice, “I can’t do this. Not today! You’re welcome to stay, but class is dismissed.”
We weren’t prepared for the day’s events, but what I remember most was seeing some of my professors as totally 100% human for the first time. There was a soft side…a humanistic side to the men and women who seemed dead-set against giving A’s. Those professors who seemed worlds apart…worlds away from where we were…they were right there with us on that day. I won’t go so far as to say that they were our friends. But on that day, they were our peers…our equals…they were as dumbfounded, perplexed, hurt, confused, scared and shaken as we all were.
What I remember most in the days that followed were all of the signs in our little college town. I’d say well over 90% of all business and restaurant signs said, “God Bless America.” I took pictures of lots of them and kept them. They are in a scrapbook somewhere. I’m not sure why I kept them, but at the time I remember thinking that at some point I’d have children of my own, and I’d show them how the community banded together in loyalty to our country and to our Creator. I’d show them that on the day when terrorists plotted against us, our country would not have its pride taken from it. We were the UNITED States of America. We showed why (and how) we were indeed united. We were united in both spirit and purpose. I also kept those memories (along with some major news clippings from the day’s events) thinking how when I was a kid I wished my mom had kept some of the Kennedy stuff from when she was a kid. There’s something about history that connects us to our future. A wise coach once told me, “You can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you’ve been.” I, for one, am both sentimental and visual, so in some small way, I hope the clippings and photos I saved will be of historical significance to my kids at some point in the future.