On September 11, Details Linger

When we recall the events of September 11, we often thing back to the magnitude of it all. But it is the small details that somehow linger in our minds.

How is it that 11 years later, I remember precisely the shirt I wore that day? It was an odd grey dress shirt, darker on the inside than the outside. It wasn’t ironed. I didn’t have time to bother that morning. 

Katie Couric first told us that it seemed like a small commuter plane had struck one of the buildings. It wasn’t a terrorist attack at that point, but just a bizarre accident of some kind. It was a clear, blue day. What happened?

Then the second plane hit.

I threw the shirt on, rolled up the sleeves, jumped into a pair of jeans and went out the door of my apartment in Silver Spring. I was two months into a new job at a newspaper in Washington, and whatever I thought I’d be doing that day was probably not important.

Sometime on my way down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, a plane hit the Pentagon. I rounded the bend onto New York Avenue and saw smoke in the sky. And then the voice on the radio told us that the first tower had collapsed.

There was incredulity in the woman’s voice.

Rumors abounded. The USA Today building in Rosslyn had been hit. There was a car bomb near the Capitol. Not true, we later learned.

When I finally got to work, everyone was gathered around these tiny television sets. I watched a building collapse, and believed it was simply a replay of the first one going down. No, that was the second. My knees buckled.

I got sent north, to BWI Airport. Check on the travel situation, my editor said. See if there are stranded travelers. I was relieved. I was getting out of the city.

The sign above the Parkway told us to avoid New York. “Major Problems,” it said.

Planes were landing at BWI from all over the place, resulting in hundreds of passengers who were stuck with no place to go and no idea what to do next.

Wearing that ugly grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up, I interviewed a pair of British girls who wanted to get back to New York so they could fly home.

“Are we in Washington?” they asked, bewildered.

“Sort of, but not really,” I replied.  

There was a burly, affable gentleman from Oklahoma sitting on a bench next to his son. He was a Vietnam War veteran, and had traveled to Washington to see the memorial for the first time. He told me that he drove past the burning Pentagon on the way to the airport. 

I got emails from friends and family asking me if I was OK. One of the emails—from my best friend’s girlfriend—simply said: “Please reply.”

There was another email from a woman who I had never met. Her daughter wanted to know if I was safe.

That woman would eventually become my mother-in-law.

I am not sure why, but when I think of this day, I think of that grey shirt. It was uncomfortable and ugly, and I don’t think I wore it again after that. I suppose I should be thankful that my memory focuses on something more trivial than tragic.

A lot has changed since that day 11 years ago. But we are reminded of it everyday. When we go through airport security. When we see a soldier with a prosthetic. When we hear about Afghanistan on the news. 

The magnitude of the day becomes a bit cloudier in our minds, but some details never fade.

Do you remember where you were on September 11?

Here are the stories of some other Patch editors:

• Anna Staver was a college student in New York City and witnessed the collapse of the towers.
•