September 11th 2001

My experience, like many, is very unique. I had my own encounter with the tragic catastrophe of the attack on American Soil by terrorists on two beacons of American prosperity. The World Trade Centers.

As an 11 year old, I was too old for preschool, and too young to access early entry into the school parking lot. My Mom hustling to work and my Dad trekking through traffic, I was left alone to wait for school to start. I sat in the vestibule of the school chapel, where I studied, read, and kind of avoided the presence that I knew was just next door.

September 11th dawned a new day, and once again I was in a quiet place for people to pray. At about 8:00 a flood of people poured into the chapel, and as I watched the influx of participation, almost as a ticket taker, I could not imagine what was going on.

As I walk into the parking lot of classmates to wait for the ring of the bell for school to start, each student exits the car exclaiming "did you hear what happened???"

While I usually avoided the conversations of cable television, being without the pleasure of the ability to coalesce about the most recent Spongebob episode, I kind of disassociated from the conversation, not knowing the impact of what had just occurred.

"The Arabs hit the twin towers"

I thought this was a local thing, because the city of Portland has two identical towers that cover the convention center. I was thinking these were the two that were hit by some errant mishap, and that glass would be everywhere.

I entered the St. Cecilia classroom, and we held moments of silence and prayer, and seek for news and understanding at what happened that day.

Our history teacher, Mr. C, who I remember still used an overhead projector, tried to coalesce his students from the absolute tragedy. We watched for a period of time on the television, that had 3 fuzzy channels, the correspondence and confusion over the disaster that was overwhelming New York City. Finally turning the TV off, he looked begotten, and tried to answer questions... but there was no real explanation.

I had football practice that day, that was surely an effort to distract the young boys from the perils that would transcend American society. I can remember one teammate that was waiting for confirmation that a family member was okay. It was an outlet... but it was like all of us were going through the motions, wondering what is going on???

Knowing little, and being little, I just remember my Dad saying "were gonna get them back for this."

After years of futile attempts to establish order, the United States of America remains in distortion on how to handle the chaos of The Middle East.

24 years and a week does not wash away memories. If I am gonna come clean, this turbulent time is like the Orville brothers trying to land a soap box in a Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby. But everyone's hands are dirty. And if we don't use Purell, we will continue the sick. And then theres global warming.