My mom used to tell me that everyone remembers where they were when they found out Kennedy had been shot. I thought that was sort of odd. You picture it happening all at the same time, as if it happened and everyone instantly knew, when actually people found out five minutes later in their cars, three hours after that at work, or a day or two later after coming back from a camping trip. But even as separated by time and distance, there was a sense of collective memory, as if everyone in the country suddenly stopped what they were doing, faced Dallas, and watched.
Of course I understood what she meant after September 11th. I remember where I was and who I was with. I also remember four years later, sitting in the Liberty Diner in Lewisville, North Carolina and listening to Josh complain about the tacky New York themed decor. There was a five foot tall Statue of Liberty outside, and the interior walls were covered with patriotic pop art, pictures of the city skyline with ghost-like towers, a flag or an eagle or both in the background. And he told me his part of the collective memory, his voice low and hard to hear over the sounds of dishes and silverware scraping, cash registers dinging, and waitresses howd'youdoing. He told me about watching it from the roof of a Manhattan building, hearing it, smelling it, and the way people in the city acted in the days and weeks following.
My memory is not interesting. Years from now, he will tell his story to our kids and then they will turn in awe and ask me where I was. I will shrug and say "In my dorm room in Boone," and they will be disappointed. When their teachers cover 9/11 in class, they will raise their hands and say their dad was there. Fifty years from now, his will be the kind of memory that is included in a long article in a news magazine. Mine will be the kind of memory that people think about after reading that article. It is their memory.
Like everyone else, I'm reliving it today. But I won't tell you about it, even though I can picture it in minute detail. I bet it's a lot like your memory. It was just a regular sort of day interrupted by something more terrible than any of us had ever imagined happening in our lifetimes. We all suddenly stopped what we were doing, faced New York, and watched.
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I was sorting mail at the post office. One of the other carriers had a radio on at his case. He told us shortly after 9 AM that a plane had crashed into the tower. At the time no one realized it was not an accident. Then the second one happened and everything changed. We found this out shortly before each of us got into our individual cars and went out to deliver mail. So I turned on the radio and listened to Dan Rather doing the audio part of the TV feed all day. The people I talked to on the route, some knew, some did not. The ones who did not probably turned on their TV sets after I told them. Then I went home and turned on the TV set. Not a very exciting memory to tell grandchildren. But I will remember it.
When Kennedy died, we were first married with a baby less than a year old. We did not even have a TV. We bought a TV immediately, a small black and white set. Everyone pretty much watched TV for 3 days, until after the funeral.
MOM
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