Nine-Eleven

♥

I’m the sort of person whose been avoiding the coverage of the anniversary of 9/11, which has been very easy to do because I no longer have a TV in my room. I get all my news from my laptop, so I have an easier job of controlling what I see.

I had no intention of writing this blog post but after reading Maureen Johnson’s blog post about the day, I reconsidered blogging about it. And read a few of the news articles I had been skipping in my Twitter feed.

I do not have a spectacular story to tell. All I have are bits and pieces of memories of the day, not vivid and fresh, but still unforgettable. Everyone remembers where they were that day. It’s weird to think that it’s been ten years, that there are now so many young people who now only know of the post 9/11 world.

Back in September of 2001 I was in grade seven. It was after the dinner/lunch break when we got the news. I was in my homeroom classroom. As I recall, it was rather sunny, but due to the time of day/the way the windows in the classroom faced, the room was rather dark and dim. It was our homeroom/English teacher who shared with us the news. I cannot remember what exactly he said to us, something about a disaster in one of the major cities in America. All I knew was that something was wrong. It struck me that a cousin of mine was living in the states and it bugged me that I could not remember what city she was currently in (she was in fact in California at the time).

Looking back on it, I should have known something really bad had happened. Teachers did not make it a habit of announcing events like that to us in class. This of course was back in the day, before everyone had a cell phone. I think we still had dial up internet at the school. Information was not moving as fast as it does now.

I did not take the bus home that afternoon because this was during the bus strike. It was my mom who came to pick me and some other students up. When we got home my mom and I stood in “my office” with the TV on, watching CTV News Net (now CTV New Channel). As I write this, I am once again watching, or rather listening to CTV News Channel, as a woman and a teenager read out some of names of those lost.

I also recall where other people were that day. My mom was still teaching at the time. There had been a flood in the school (in one of the bathrooms I believe), so everyone got out of school early. She had gone home at about noon, turning on the news to learn about the towers.

There were also some friends of my family who were out in boat that day fishing, the food fishery was happening then. (What I mean by food fishery is that ordinary people are aloud to go out and fish a certain number of cod.) Because of where Newfoundland is located we get a fair bit of air traffic, but on this day they were surprised by the number of planes flying very low overhead.

Because of what was happening in New York, planes were being diverted elsewhere. 38 planes carrying 6600 passengers were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland (pictured above). This is a fair number of people, especially when considering that this is nearly equal to the population of Gander, which is about 10 thousand. The people of Gander not only gave what was needed but opened up their homes to those who needed a place to stay.

Later that night I remember being in the kitchen with mom and dad, going through the cupboards and filling up a box with food that was later brought to Gander.

On this anniversary, a gift has been given to Gander, a piece of the World Trade Centre, to be put in the aviation museum in Gander.

For more on that you can watch this video by Rex Murphey for CBC:
VIDEO: Rex Murphy: A gift for Gander - Nfld. & Labrador - CBC News

And today there was a special ceremony in Gander that U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson attended, full broadcast can be found here:
Gander on 9/11 told 'you were the best of us' - Nfld. & Labrador - CBC News

Stay Spooky,