9.11.11


I did remember.
I just didn’t blog about it yet. Twas waiting for the pictures….so now I will tell you that at 12:01 on 9.11.11 two friends and I flew y’all some flags over the Embassy. It was dark, quiet, cool and breezy and that cool breeze stood the hairs up on my arms each time the flag hit the top of the pole and service members surrounding us saluted.

10 years ago I was sitting in Dr. MacManus’s state and local politics class at USF. It was a 9AM class, so by 8:50 when I was trekking across campus, I had no idea what had happened. As class wrapped, I checked my cell phone to 4 or 5 missed calls from friends who were panicking for their family who worked in the Twin towers.

We grouped at my Holly Apt and glued to the TV waiting and watching the glaring imagines of the plane strikes in NYC, and the 2nd town crumbling to the ground. And I remembered my mom had scheduled a Washington DC field trip that day! As the news of plane crash in PA rolled across the tv screen, I thought of my sister in Lancaster, and we sat in shock. We listened to DMB, just waiting until the phone lines cleared enough to reach our parents and relatives and get the confirmation that everything was ok.

My friend Alison was in panic mode longer than anyone, when her cousin was called in to the ER hours later. Two men had been found face down, one wallet between them. One was dead, one was in critical condition and her cousin was called into identify her husband. Thankfully, her husband turned out to be the man in critical condition and he survived, the man lying next to him, a stranger, dead.

Later that afternoon we met other sorority sisters in front of Cooper Hall where news reporters where now camped interviewing students because of Professor Al-Arian, a USF religious studies staff member who was charged with training the terrorists how to fly--in Tampa.

The rest of the afternoon we took cover in a friend’s off-campus apartment, wondering if MacDill AFB would be another target.


As we flew the flags, my friends and I exchanged stories of where we were, and who we were with. Mike, the muscles in the flag flying operation is a New Yorker, he was the solemnest of our group, but it was touching to share the anniversary with a friend so closely affected.

And then the day went on, without any IDF, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I stayed with T, just to be with a friend, and while there was no IDF, I returned to my room to find that the sewage system had exploded overnight. Thank the good Lord I was not in my room for that!!!

I can happily report that I lived another 9.11 unscathed. I love you all for your thoughts, encouragement and prayers.