9/11: A Day Like Any Other, Until

DW Dalrymple

DW is an ex-mountaineer now residing in the Palmetto State, a former political hack/public servant, aspiring beach bum and alleged rock-n-roll savant. Forever a student of the School of Life. You can find him on Twitter @BIG_DWD

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13 Responses

  1. Brent F says:

    Something I had known previously but forgotten was that the day itself was specifically chosen to change associations of the date in the Islamic world. September 11 1683 being the day of the Battle of Vienna and marked the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe. This being seen in certain Islamic circles as the beginning of the long decline against Christianity.Report

  2. Jaybird says:

    The Friday after it happened, we went over to a friend’s house and they had just had a baby in June. We sat and talked about how uncertain we were as we passed the baby between us, talking in low soothing tones to him and to each other.

    “Shhh shhh shhh shhh… it’s okay… shhh shhh shhh shhh.”

    Kid went back to college a few weeks ago.Report

  3. fillyjonk says:

    honestly glad the anniversary falls on a Saturday this year, not sure how I’d deal with my v. young college students asking me about it or what I remember. This year the anniversary has hit harder when I look around and realize there were days last year we were losing a 9/11 worth of people to COVID and that there are now people talking about “armed rebellion” in re: anti-pandemic measures like masks and vaccines. (I know that’s an extremely fringe minority but still).Report

  4. North says:

    I was in university myself. They hauled TV’s into the cafeteria and classrooms to show it. Then we had hundreds of stranded travelers staying in the dorms. Real hassle and unhappy, not to mention I’d just met my husband to be a year or two earlier in the US and flew from time to time to visit each summer+. The travel before 9/11 was just *sighs*.

    I remember seeing an editorial cartoon about it I thought was quite clever. Two frames. Left was a Clinton sun blithely shining over people frolicking saying “the cold war is over, we won!” with dollars flying everywhere, then people creeping between a gate of the two towers to a bleak landscape overseen by W’s moon with the people pondering “why do they hate us?” Stuck with me all these years though I can’t seem to find it.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to North says:

      I was driving to work when I first heard about it on the radio, starting about when the plane hit the second tower. Part of me said, “Yeah, Orson Wells.” In those days I was sourcing IP video/audio multicasts from time to time so put one of the cable news channels up when I got in. People were watching coverage in the little window in the corner of their computer screens all day.

      The news multicast led to all sorts of complications. Several people from headquarters were in the building that afternoon and were unhappy that they didn’t have multicast news on their computer all day. IT support told them, “No multicast. We grandfathered in an except for Cain in one location because of industry-recognized research work.” At some point the C-suite people were feuding over it.Report

      • North in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Hah, yeah I remember when all the streaming access got shut off at corporate computers here in Corporate Drone world. A lot of looooong faces round the office.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to North says:

          The *ONLY* websites we were allowed to visit at the time were stuff like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC (oh, and Drudge, of course).

          But those websites kept being too hammered to provide information.

          So people in the office discovered such websites as Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.Report

  5. Rufus F. says:

    The day was over. Life had changed forever. We just couldn’t fathom how much.

    Not for years. I think some of us will probably need another 20 at least.Report

    • fillyjonk in reply to Rufus F. says:

      frankly I think my life and my attitudes have been changed to a much larger degree by the pandemic than they were by 9/11. Because a lot of the “bad acting” in the pandemic has been on the part of some of my fellow citizens, people I was told I could trust – and who I DID trust, until the middle of 2020. And I’m not sure I will ever heal from that loss of trust or comfort in the world that I have now.

      Honestly I don’t think a lot about 9/11 except as the anniversary draws near. I haven’t flown in years (I never do travel much or far). I am not a New Yorker; I knew one person killed in the attacks (and him only slightly – someone from my class in high school who worked for one of the financial companies) but I have known three people who died of COVID including a cousin, a number more who have had long-term effects of it, and others who have suffered other consequences of it.Report

      • Rufus F. in reply to fillyjonk says:

        I think you’re probably right, but it’s still soon to tell just how much will change. There’s a narrative that the generation that lived through the first world war went off and created Modernism in art and literature, but that was not evident for a few years, at least, after the war. At the time, everyone was exhausted; then, many of them decided they would not go “back to normal.”Report