[UPDATE: I keep updating this post because every time I look back at it, the intro has already become dated. I don’t have kids, but I can say of the world: it grows up so fast! Or regresses. Either way, it changes. And some of my readers weren’t even born when this all happened. (My 9-year-old nephew recently told me, “I’m a Shrimper!”) I’ll stop messing with this post and just note to you that it’s now from several years ago, an update to the original written in 2011.]
So, today’s post was going to be about an airline toilet.
And then I saw Facebook and remembered what day it was, and so, yeah. I hope you don’t think it’s cheating that I’m reposting this instead. I thought it would be cool to post it with a fresh, clean comments field for new ones.
It’s from 3 years ago.
How did 2011 already become 3 years ago?
I guess the same way 2001 became 13 years ago. 2 notes about the passing of time:
1) The longer ago it is, the more shocking it seems. Why is that? Is it because the memories feel just as clear? That it’s already so long ago but feels like yesterday?
2) I find it fascinating that there are now adults in the work force who were on their way to school to build things with popsicle sticks when 9/11 happened. I wonder what their memories are like. More clear than mine? Totally conflated with a bunch of other days? I’d have to talk to an early-20-something to find out, I guess. Maybe I’ll pull one over in the coffee shop. They’re unmistakable – they all talk like Lena Dunham now.
Anyway, here’s the post, and I’d love to hear your memories in the comments.
For emphasis, IN BOLD: READ AND THEN LEAVE YOUR OWN “WHERE I WAS” IN THE COMMENTS.
Encore post
For months after September 11th, strangers in New York talked to each other.
If you were in a restaurant or a doctor’s waiting room or on the subway, you’d inevitably overhear someone talking about the attack. And you’d join in.
You’d ask where they were that day, and tell them where you were.
The people with the real stories are the ones who got out of the towers, got other people out of the towers, were supposed to be in the towers, or lost someone in the towers. I wasn’t one of those people. But I still remember the day.
Here are the parts I remember best:
Waking up.
Was still asleep when the phone rang, at around 9 am. It was my friend Allison*, who asked, “Are you watching this?” Got annoyed and wondered why she thought I’d be watching the same thing she was. Found that presumptuous. Turned on TV, saw big, smoking hole in the World Trade Center, and felt sheepish. Went up to roof to check out the smoke pouring from the South Tower. Came back down and watched the 2nd plane hit, on TV. Allison called again. She thought we should leave the downtown area. I agreed.
Walking uptown.
Put on sneakers and met Allison on the corner. Bought a bottle of water and some granola bars for the walk uptown. It was only a 1-hour walk to my parents’ place on the Upper West Side, but when survival mode kicks in, you buy water and granola bars. ** Merged into flow of shell-shocked people, all making their way uptown. There were no cars. Just a mass of people filling the street, moving in one direction. Power-walked while Allison struggled to keep up, because her sneaker was chafing. Tried to be patient while she stopped every two blocks to pull up her sock, and then when she had to find a deli and buy bandaids. Was in a hurry to get to safety, and, while we’re being honest, to get some exercise. This was my workout. Before everything happened, I’d planned to go for a run.
Passing that guy.
On the way up Sixth Avenue, we passed people clustered around parked cars with open doors, blaring news from their radios. We passed people who were sobbing, dazed, bleeding, and/or desperately trying to get a signal on their cell phones. We passed a man who sat on the steps of a church, watching all these people go by. He was grinning from ear to ear, like it was birthday, and masturbating.***
The weird mood on the Upper West Side
Once we reached 60th Street, it started to feel like a different planet. People were milling around casually. Pushing strollers. Having breakfast outside. Going for a jog. “How callous,” I thought, wishing I could go for a jog. A group stood in front of a window with a TV in it, watching the smoking towers and and chatting sociably, as though they were watching the Playoffs.
All day at my parents’.
Parted ways with Allison when we got to my parents’ street. She was going further uptown, to be with a guy who wasn’t very nice to her. For about the fifth time, I tried calling my boyfriend, the guy who wasn’t very nice to me. His wife answered. I hung up. Sat in the kitchen with my mom and sister and watched the TV coverage on an infinite loop: Plane 1 hitting, plane 2 hitting, billowing smoke, freaked out people, collapsing towers, Rudy Giuliani with a mask over his mouth, George Bush reading to children. Plane 1, plane 2, smoke, people, collapsing towers. Giuliani, Bush.
Being bored, going downtown, feeling kind of inappropriate
By evening, my sister and I were restless. There was no new information on TV. Left Mom and Dad’s place together and walked downtown to The Red Cat, where we’d been invited to hang out. It was closed, but the chef had cooked dinner for a small group of friends. (Among them was the guy who would become my husband. He didn’t know this. He was there with a girlfriend.) Felt strange being at a sort-of party, but everyone wanted to be around other humans. And booze. The food was gone when we got there. We were hungry. Went in search of dinner in the East Village, the only place we could think of that would have restaurants open. The rest of downtown was deserted, but the East Village doesn’t follow the crowd. It’s too indy. People were somber, but they were out. On Avenue A, we found a bad Thai place and ordered bad pad thai. Marian went back up to our parents’, and I went home.
The stench.
The air reeked of burnt…everything. That smell would linger for weeks. Kept the windows closed so the fumes wouldn’t get in, and turned on the TV. Watched plane 1, plane 2, smoke, people, collapsing towers. Giuliani, Bush. Dialed married boyfriend and hung up on his wife. Went to bed. You?
What were you doing on 9/11/2001?
Were you in NYC? Were you dazed? Freaked? In denial? Did you see a man whacking it in public?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
*Friend’s name changed to save me the trouble of asking friend if she minds me using her name. **UPDATE: Friend just read post and reminded me that we also had wet bandanas. In case we had to walk through a fire, I guess. Or in case the dust cloud caught up with us. ***UPDATE 2: Friend also reminded me we’ve always referred to the guy on the steps as the Masturbating Bum. I didn’t want to say bum, but now I do. Because that’s the truth. The masturbator was a bum. ****UPDATE 3: Now reconsidering the term “bum” once again. Doesn’t feel very woke. I’ll just say the masturbator’s reaction to tragedy and to being surrounded by many (sighted) humans was highly inappropriate!
I was on my way to work but instead of taking the Path train to the World Trade Center like I had been doing for months, I took New Jersey Transit instead. I had decided a week before that I couldn’t stand getting up so early to take that train and I would pay the extra cash for more sleep. I thank God that I made that decision. I didn’t know anything was amiss until I got to work. No one in my office did any work because we were glued to the television. I kept trying to reach my mother because she didn’t know I wasn’t taking the Path train anymore and thought I was trapped. When I finally reached her, the sound that came out of my mother’s mouth was one I pray I never hear ever again.
I was newly 16, and newly moved to the US. My family had moved to South Texas from Mexico on August 5th. Everything here was new, and the culture shock of being a high school sophomore in a new country was just starting to hit me. I was sitting in French class when a Spanish teacher walked in and whispered to Mr. Vasquez, then they both walked out of the classroom. The school went on lockdown for the rest of the day and everyone was prohibited from using radios, tvs or computers to watch the news.
After school I sat in our new apartment watching the replay on the news over and over with my Mom and sister and crying. Crying for the people who were suffering, knowing their lives would never be the same, and just trying to understand how anything like this could happen. I can still recall those feelings every year.
That’s crazy that your school kept you all in the dark!
South Texas is a strange place. There’s also a Navy base in that town, and that day nobody knew what or where could be a target for something similar.
I was 19, and 5 months pregnant with my first child. I was alone, and sat in front of the TV all day watching the towers fall over and over… it was my little brother’s 17th birthday. We lived in Sacramento at the time, so we were scared that maybe we’d be next – maybe the whole country would be. I remember wondering ‘what kind of world am I bringing this little baby into?’ I knew I was going o be a single parent, and the thought of our country being attacked scared me so much! Fast forward: my son is now 12, and in the years since, I’ve made sure to try to make the world a better place for him, and for all of us. Individually, it might not seem like much, but if everyone works together, we will change things! 🙂
I’m sure you shared that sentiment with just about every expecting parent on the planet (with access to news) that day. Amazing to think of the kids born then or after, with no sense of life before 9-11.
I was never as relieved as when you, Laura, walked in the door to our apartment. Well – maybe it equaled the time you appeared after being lost in the San Juan airport at the age of three. As you noted, Marian was home the morning of 9/11, having come back two days earlier from Morocco. I wasn’t worried about Dad; he was safe in his midtown office. A close friend joined us. We were glued to the TV until we decided to walk down Broadway and get something to eat, joining a lot of others wandering around rather aimlessly. Computers, phones, other communication were not working in many places. It took time for the horror to sink in, and others have expressed it better than I can, but I can’t forget the blank, stunned faces of people walking North on Broadway and the contrast of others, including myself and my family, who decided to have lunch. I felt we should have done something to show we cared, but we ate lunch.. Maybe not quite so blasé as that suggests, but close.
I remember being scared to walk uptown through Times Square. Everything in midtown seemed like a target. And I remember our lunch- I had chicken salad. Remember trying to explain to Dad that the towers were gone? He was following on the radio w no visual.
I live in Spain. Now. And 13 years ago today. My mom called. Weird to get a phone call from her on a week day. We’d usually just chat on Sundays. She told me to turn on the TV. To listen to the news. My mom can get paranoid about minor things sometimes so I just said, “Yeah, well, this evening I’ll turn on the news. I don’t see what the rush is right now.” But she insisted, saying something was very wrong, maybe our phone conversation would be cut, bombs in New York, gosh knows what she was saying, Twin Towers…
It sounded very strange (even for my mom).
So I did turn on the TV to see what was going on. And was totally freaked out. I couldn’t un-glue myself from the TV all day and well into the night. And watched more TV the following week than I ever had in my life. I felt frightened, worried, sad, confused, anguished. My kids were just 6 & 8 and didn’t really understand what was going on. I don’t know what I told them. I did cry a lot the following days.
Strange to think back on that time.
Exactly – I bet there were a lot of us who were told, “turn on the TV” and responded with “nah.”
Are you from Spain, or from here? I’ve heard from a lot of people, especially New Yorkers but Americans in general, that it was hard to be abroad during that time.
If people who were just having an ordinary day (not in the towers, not related to anyone in the towers, not supposed to go to the towers) don’t have as big of a story to tell, people who were in Houston, TX really don’t.
I was in eighth grade, and I didn’t find out what was really happening until I got to science class, where Mrs. Larson was staring at the TV (a huge box she had rolled out on a cart, with a VHS player on the lower shelf), with her hands on her mouth. I saw the first tower collapse over her shoulder (she was very petite), and she let out a sob, and no one in the class knew what to do. She hadn’t noticed us. Mrs. Larson told us we had to go home. At that time, my school was being remodeled, and I remember the hollow feeling all our feet made on the floors of the temporary buildings.
That was the first time I ever heard of the World Trade Center.
I don’t remember getting home, but I remember seeing the second tower collapse on TV from my living room, where I stood for what felt like the whole day.
For weeks, we were all terrified Houston would be blown up because of NASA, and we looked at the people who knew someone in the towers like they were from another planet. And Bush. Lot’s of Bush and NPR and car rides.
When my class went to D.C. later that school year, we saw the Pentagon covered in construction tarps. The trip was almost canceled because our parents were afraid.
I feel like everybody’s story from that day is big. It’s the details. I love yours, thanks for putting them here.
Carol Burnett is said to have originated the quote, “Comedy is tragedy plus time”. It takes tact and genuine comedic talent to make a very serious subject into something palatably entertaining, and you have achieved that beautifully here. In addition, you’ve more seriously brought us into the life of a person going about their ordinary day, only to be swept into an extraordinary day in American History. Great post.
I didn’t know that was Carol Burnett. I might’ve thought Woody Allen. Either way, thanks so much, Margi!
Was my daughter’s second day of preschool in Bayside, Queens. Was not able to take off for the first so was home and watched the first plane fly into the center right behing Mark Haines’ head on CNBC. The rest of the day is etched in my memory clearer than any other day. Even with the excessive amount of booze that followed ;)!
It’s crazy, the footage that was in progress when these things just happened right in the middle. I remember that.
I knew you’d find a way to incorporate a toilet into this post that was not supposed to be about toilets. It just goes to prove the first law of instantaneous transformation.
You’re right! I was resisting posting about toilets. I was “judging” it rather than “seeing” it. I see that now. Kewl.
I have a distinct memory having a brainstorming session with you regarding concepts for The Food Network, none if which were ever produced even though they were all brilliant, in a small park in Abington Square, several days, if not a few weeks, after September 11th. There was still that lingering stench in the air and I asked if we should be concerned about breathing it in. My recollection is that ever since seeing the film The Ice Storm I never again took for granted what I was inadvertently inhaling (I’m referring to a scene where one of the brothers gives a presentation to his class). For me this was clearly a life changing film.
I remember that! Was there something about couch potatoes?
I’m sure my answer to “should we be concerned” was, “nah.” But you better believe that since the Ice Storm, I’ve always closed the toilet when I flush. I agree, life changing.
Now, at Abingdon Square, all you breathe in is douche-wad. They’ve taken over the neighborhood. Those immediately-post-9/11 days were still fairly pre-Sex-And-The-City-Effect.