Where were you when the world stopped turnin’?

I’m not the most patriotic person on the planet, and I don’t have a yellow ribbon on my car, and I didn’t put a “gone but not forgotten” thing in my front yard. I don’t plant flowers for the troops who have died, and I don’t even know anybody serving this country in the military. But, I will never ever forget, as long as I live, where I was on September 11, 2001.

I had gone to school early and was sitting in an FBLA meeting when another teacher at the high school came in and told us to turn on the news. She said it while she choked back tears, and we knew she meant business right away.

It took days for me to realize that I was watching (we watched all through school all week) something happen that would change this country forever. In fact, I remember my English teacher (R. Thompson woot! woot!) telling us that what we were seeing would be a big deal forever. She told us it was the “Pearl Harbor” of our generation, and I thought she had lost her mind. People wrote papers and did research projects about Pearl Harbor and the years following. Who in their right mind would want to research the year 2001?

Now that I’m older and wiser (just saying the word 'wise' makes you automatically old, so I’m even older now than I was before that sentence) I get that it won’t always be something that people remember. When I look back and remember the “gallons” going up faster than that “$$$” at the gas station, I realize that things have changed, just in the 5 short years since I graduated from high school, the world has changed dramatically. I suppose I’m starting to be able to imagine a time that my kids, (or grandkids) will think it’s crazy that I remember September 11 (the first one), they’ll interview me for the research papers and I’ll chuckle that I’m old enough to have lived through “history”. When I tell them the reason I’m chuckling they’ll look at me like I’m crazy for not recognizing that I’m ancient, just like I did to my grandparents. I’m starting to believe that somebody else may care about the things that happened during my childhood/teenage years, and that is a very strange feeling.

So, on this September 11th, I just want to say that I’m glad to live in this mixed up crazy country. I’m glad that we’re all free to express our stupid opinions and that sometimes those who have good opinions lead the rest of us along. Today, I’m proud to be an American. (‘where at least I know I’m free……’ remember when they used to play songs like that before the pledge in elementary school? We all thought it was cool to “staaaaannd UP!.........next to God”)