2001. Tuesday. Sophomore year of high school. 8:03AM for us in the Central Standard Timezone. I was 15 years old, in Civics class, getting my desk ready for the class and talking to a classmate. The teacher ran in and turned on the television in the room. At the moment, I thought we were getting a school announcement. I learned at the following moments that the school had set up the TVs in the classroom to receive national news.
I saw the second plane impact the Tower on that screen. In that instant, I was no longer able to be an isolated kid in the South. I was made aware of the wider world beyond my little town, and I knew I was going to have to pay attention to it.
All I could think to do, however, was beg the teacher for their cell phone. I needed to call my father and ask questions. My mother was on a flight that morning, but I did not know where to. I needed to know she was safe. Turns out that she was on a different flight and had already landed, but for that time, I only knew that a plane had crashed into the Towers, and I didn’t know where my mother was.
Now, it’s 2022. I’m 36 years old. I have two children and the oldest is 6. I will be in a checkout line, and I will hear a younger person talking about the historic event as if it is just that: history. An event that catapulted the generation within it into the global setting and set the course of events that would follow for the next two decades.
I can’t scoff at these kids who talk about 9/11 with flippancy. Because to them, it really is history. They weren’t there. They didn’t have the moment of stark clarity that their little worlds were collapsing, and they’d have to accept that they were part of the global scene. When this happened, the Internet was only starting to hit its stride for the younger generations. We didn’t have computers in our pockets or the world at our beck and call. Today’s generation does. They can look up the events I’ve lived through and consider them as history, just like I do with Vietnam. (I’m a Cold War baby, so I consider that something I’ve lived through.)
When this day rolled around in the past, I would take long moments to think about the event. I’d try to consider the ramifications of the day as it applies to my life now.
Today, in 2022, I spent the Sunday working on my vehicles and backyard. The kids I would have scoffed at would’ve had it right. It’s history, now. I might have witnessed it, but I’m also middle-aged. My perspective is one of history, these days.
It’s something to think about. I’ll post a storytelling-related post soon. Stay safe out there, readers.
-JB Swift
Swift's Corner 