Ten years after
As I type this post on the night of Sept. 10, I know exactly what I was doing 10 years ago. I was at the newspaper working, waiting for the Monday night NFL game to end. Broncos receiver Ed McCaffrey broke his leg during the game. That was big news.
Twelve hours later, Ed McCaffrey's broken leg would become an afterthought.
A phone call woke me up on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Lori had already gone to work and knew I had worked late, so I couldn't fathom why she'd be calling so early (here in the Mountain time zone, the early events in New York were really early in Utah). But the caller wasn't Lori, it was my mother-in-law asking if she was home. Barely awake, I mumbled "Mom? Irene?" and told her Lori was at work. She figured that, but was calling to make sure we weren't flying anyplace this week because two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center.
That woke me up. I turned on the news to begin watching the horrific events of the day unfold. I called Lori and my mom to see if she was watching what was going on. I watched the towers collapse. I listened as stunned newscasters started relaying reports that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.
All this before 9:30 a.m. Aside from the horror I was witnessing, I had an odd thought -- I better put gas in the car before prices spike in a panic. I drove to Sam's Club and did a little shopping. The few people in the store seemed as dazed as I was.
I returned home and watched the coverage for the rest of the day. I had Tuesdays off back then, and though I called in to see if the newspaper needed help, I got to keep my day off. I don't think I made it out of the apartment the rest of the day. Lori eventually came home early -- no one was doing business this day.
The Onion put it best in a headline in their first issue after the attacks (pardon the language): "Holy Fucking Shit!" At some point, I should have just turned off the TV and given myself a break. Maybe because I'm a journalist, and maybe simply because it was impossible to turn away that day no matter how shocking all of this was, I didn't.
Besides the obvious horrors I witnessed on my TV screen that day, this is what I remember from watching that day.
-- The news scroll, such a staple at the bottom of the screen on news and sports channels, inauspiciously made its debut on Sept. 11. Probably because you can't take copy editing out of the copy editor, I couldn't help but notice spelling mistakes in the scroll.
-- At some point mid-afternoon, ABC aired video some guy on a bike had taken and was interviewing him. He had ridden to the remnants of World Trade Center and shot some footage -- the first footage taken at the sight -- of the remaining standing frame from the towers. For some reason, Peter Jennings (rest in peace) wasn't understanding what he was watching and asking some odd questions, and the guy finally declared something to the effect: "This is it, this is all that's left of the World Trade Center." Looking back, the newscasters might have been as freaked out as the rest of us, because Peter Jennings wasn't getting it.
-- Speaking of newscasters, one thing I kept noticing that morning was that Katie Couric looked hot. She was sporting this summery look that was too cute. Before that day, I had never really formed an opinion on Katie Couric's attractiveness. Why that morning? I can only think that the brain does odd things to defend itself from mental assaults. Watching everything that morning, was my brain trying to lessen the impact by suddenly deciding about how she looked? (FYI, later on, Paula Zahn looked good, too.)
-- At about 10 p.m. MDT, CNN aired video from Battery Park of the second plane hitting the south tower. This was the insanely close-up shot of the plane going in, and you didn't see it much in the days after, with the major news organizations realizing it was just too intense (just like videos of the jumpers never are aired or come after a warning). I think that's when I finally turned off Aaron Brown and CNN.
I crawled into bed and turned on the radio, hoping some sports talk would help me fall asleep, help me not think about everything I'd watched that day. But the only thing on sports radio was talk of terrorist attack. There was no place to escape. I don't remember specifically what I dreamed about that night, but I know the images of Sept. 11 crept into my mind after midnight, Sept. 12.
I was numb the rest of the week. Work was odd -- so many sporting events were canceled that there wasn't really much to do. I got to leave work early that Saturday night because no college football was played that day, and our usual 70-column Sunday section had been dropped to fewer than 30. No sports were being televised either, but ESPN did make me smile that Saturday night. The network, without anything else to televise, aired the NBA specials recapping the 1997 and 1998 NBA championships, in which the Bulls defeated the Jazz. Watching Michael Jordan play through the flu in one game and shoot over Bryon Russell to win the '98 title cheered me up, especially in an office full of Jazz fans.
I left work that Saturday and met Lori and some of her friends at Port O' Call, a bar in downtown Salt Lake City. It was a little crowded, but not overflowing. I drank a few beers, and we met a guy who also moved to Utah from Madison and talked with him for a while. For about 25 minutes -- for the first 25 minutes all week -- I had not thought about what had transpired the Tuesday before. My brain, filled with images of smoke, the CNN logo, debris, planes, misspelled news scrolls, explosions and sadness, finally took a break.
Twelve hours later, Ed McCaffrey's broken leg would become an afterthought.
A phone call woke me up on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Lori had already gone to work and knew I had worked late, so I couldn't fathom why she'd be calling so early (here in the Mountain time zone, the early events in New York were really early in Utah). But the caller wasn't Lori, it was my mother-in-law asking if she was home. Barely awake, I mumbled "Mom? Irene?" and told her Lori was at work. She figured that, but was calling to make sure we weren't flying anyplace this week because two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center.
That woke me up. I turned on the news to begin watching the horrific events of the day unfold. I called Lori and my mom to see if she was watching what was going on. I watched the towers collapse. I listened as stunned newscasters started relaying reports that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.
All this before 9:30 a.m. Aside from the horror I was witnessing, I had an odd thought -- I better put gas in the car before prices spike in a panic. I drove to Sam's Club and did a little shopping. The few people in the store seemed as dazed as I was.
I returned home and watched the coverage for the rest of the day. I had Tuesdays off back then, and though I called in to see if the newspaper needed help, I got to keep my day off. I don't think I made it out of the apartment the rest of the day. Lori eventually came home early -- no one was doing business this day.
The Onion put it best in a headline in their first issue after the attacks (pardon the language): "Holy Fucking Shit!" At some point, I should have just turned off the TV and given myself a break. Maybe because I'm a journalist, and maybe simply because it was impossible to turn away that day no matter how shocking all of this was, I didn't.
Besides the obvious horrors I witnessed on my TV screen that day, this is what I remember from watching that day.
-- The news scroll, such a staple at the bottom of the screen on news and sports channels, inauspiciously made its debut on Sept. 11. Probably because you can't take copy editing out of the copy editor, I couldn't help but notice spelling mistakes in the scroll.
-- At some point mid-afternoon, ABC aired video some guy on a bike had taken and was interviewing him. He had ridden to the remnants of World Trade Center and shot some footage -- the first footage taken at the sight -- of the remaining standing frame from the towers. For some reason, Peter Jennings (rest in peace) wasn't understanding what he was watching and asking some odd questions, and the guy finally declared something to the effect: "This is it, this is all that's left of the World Trade Center." Looking back, the newscasters might have been as freaked out as the rest of us, because Peter Jennings wasn't getting it.
-- Speaking of newscasters, one thing I kept noticing that morning was that Katie Couric looked hot. She was sporting this summery look that was too cute. Before that day, I had never really formed an opinion on Katie Couric's attractiveness. Why that morning? I can only think that the brain does odd things to defend itself from mental assaults. Watching everything that morning, was my brain trying to lessen the impact by suddenly deciding about how she looked? (FYI, later on, Paula Zahn looked good, too.)
-- At about 10 p.m. MDT, CNN aired video from Battery Park of the second plane hitting the south tower. This was the insanely close-up shot of the plane going in, and you didn't see it much in the days after, with the major news organizations realizing it was just too intense (just like videos of the jumpers never are aired or come after a warning). I think that's when I finally turned off Aaron Brown and CNN.
I crawled into bed and turned on the radio, hoping some sports talk would help me fall asleep, help me not think about everything I'd watched that day. But the only thing on sports radio was talk of terrorist attack. There was no place to escape. I don't remember specifically what I dreamed about that night, but I know the images of Sept. 11 crept into my mind after midnight, Sept. 12.
I was numb the rest of the week. Work was odd -- so many sporting events were canceled that there wasn't really much to do. I got to leave work early that Saturday night because no college football was played that day, and our usual 70-column Sunday section had been dropped to fewer than 30. No sports were being televised either, but ESPN did make me smile that Saturday night. The network, without anything else to televise, aired the NBA specials recapping the 1997 and 1998 NBA championships, in which the Bulls defeated the Jazz. Watching Michael Jordan play through the flu in one game and shoot over Bryon Russell to win the '98 title cheered me up, especially in an office full of Jazz fans.
I left work that Saturday and met Lori and some of her friends at Port O' Call, a bar in downtown Salt Lake City. It was a little crowded, but not overflowing. I drank a few beers, and we met a guy who also moved to Utah from Madison and talked with him for a while. For about 25 minutes -- for the first 25 minutes all week -- I had not thought about what had transpired the Tuesday before. My brain, filled with images of smoke, the CNN logo, debris, planes, misspelled news scrolls, explosions and sadness, finally took a break.
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