World Events

9/11/2014

The older we get, the more we experience world-shattering events. Events that are etched in your memory for all time.  I suspect that older people who lived during World War II could tell you that date that the war ended and exactly where they were on that day.

I wasn't born when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  But obviously, my parents and grandparents remembered how terrifying that bombing was and how many lives were lost.  On a vacation to Hawaii, Jeff and I went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  When you go to the Memorial, you maybe on vacation, but all the joy was gone that day as we boated around the bay.  We saw that even though the event was many years ago, oil still sits on the water.

My first experience with a world shattering event came with the assassination of JFK.  I was in ninth grade, social studies class.  The announcement came from the office over the speakers installed in each classroom, that JFK had been assassination and died.  Even though as a 13 year old, who more interested in the Beatles than world news, knew that I would also remember where I was - go forward all these years - and I still do.

Most of the students at my school walked rather than rode on buses.  I remember the walk home in the middle of the day.  My parents were home and glued to the television.  As a teenager, I watched the news once, but unlike my parents didn't want to sit through a continuous loop of the news - the same news.  My parents bought Life Magazine after JFK's death, and it sits in plastic in a drawer.  It's not taking up any room and every now and then I take the magazine out, not to look again at pictures of the funeral, etc., more to look at the ads for cars, appliances, things like that.  When you are in 2014, the price of a car back then now looks like petty cash to most of us now.

I've lived to see Space Shuttles blow up and men walk on the moon.  I worked at Marriott when Hurricane Katrina swept through the south.  I was in the benefits department and for months after the hurricane, we sorted through applications of hotels' employees who were in need.  It was a sobering time when you realized that a lot of those people lost everything they owned.  Jeff and I went to New Orleans a few years back and took the Katrina tour.  As you drive by homes, now vacant, you can still see the high watermark on the houses.  I'm glad I took the tour but know that I won't feel the need to do it again.

Then there is today - 9/11/11.  I remember where I was that morning.  I had come to work early as I usually did.  While sitting at my desk, I soon heard sounds of distress coming through the halls and from my co-workers.  We stood in a conference room and watched the towers collapse over and over again.  Marriott sent us all home that morning, and I remember I was concerned that the interstate might be backed up, so I drove home the back way, through neighborhoods.  There wasn't a sound anywhere.  It felt like the world had just ended, and in some ways it had, because nothing would ever be the same.

When I got home, Jeff and I called the boys and told them that if the situation in D.C., worsened, we were going to drive to my brother's house in Illinois.  We also told them that if they had to leave their homes, don't wait for us - just go - we'll find you.  I remember how sobering it was to have to make action plans in our minds, luckily plans we didn't have to use.  The best advice we had for the boys was to drive west if things worsened here.  Thank heavens it didn't.  But I know that for the remainder of our lives, Jeff and I will know exactly where we were when the towers went down.

It was a very sad day for America and one that needs remembering.

P