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I managed to get off of the Brown Line el at the Merchandise Mart stop and made it to work on time.
I went into the the kitchen, got my coffee, and grabbed a stack of work to take to my desk and enter.
I cut on my computer terminal, got my radio, put in my headphones and was ready for work, thinking that it would be such a lovely day to set up our computer terminals up on the roof.
(Truthfully, other than that thing that I’m going to talk about, it’s why I remember September 11, 2001 so well; the weather was so perfect.)
I cut it on one of several news/talk radio stations that Chicago has (probably WLS) and there was a special bulletin that a plane had hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center in New York City.
It was assumed at the time that it was an accident; I remember the news bulletin talking about another plane that had hit The Empire State Building once, so I kept listening to the news bulletin as I started working and began entering dental insurance terminations into the computer system, the coffee taking effect, I was moving toward getting into my “zone.”
About 20 minutes later, the news reported that yet another plane had flown into yet another tower at the World Trade Center in New York City.
Oh, shit, who ever is doing this is doing it on purpose.
All of my coworkers stopped working, more or less, taking it all in and we were listening to the news; I think that my boss cut on her radio so that everyone in my work area could hear.
I put my headphones back on and then it was being reported that a threat was called in about a plane headed toward the Sears Tower.
I had a large back cubicle with a view and looked outside my window which had a great view of the John Hancock Building.
Oh, shit the Hancock Building is much closer to the water than the Sears Tower. Who ever is doing this is going to hit that first.
And for the next five or so minutes turned away from the window and looked again, turned away from the window and looked again, turned away from the window and looked again. And again and again and again.
For about five minutes.
Finally, one of the bosses came in and said that a TV was on in the conference room where we could keep up to date while the higher-ups were making a decision whether to send us home.
It was on that TV that I saw one (or maybe both?) of the World Trade Center towers come crashing down.
I went back down to my desk. No one was working, everyone was frightened and we were all awaiting word; finally, about 20 minutes later we were told to go home. It was recommended that we not take public transportation and that we should find a ride. I don’t remember whether or not we couldn’t use public transportation because the CTA decided to shut down as a caution.
One of my co-workers lived not to far from me and she offered me a ride to within a block of my home. Traffic going north on Lake Shore Drive had slowed to a crawl so my co-worker rolled down the top of her car and managed to find a music station that was actually playing music.
She blasted that music. And she wasn’t the only driver on LSD that was blasting music with the car top down. At that time, it just seemed...eerie.
Finally, my co-worker dropped me off at home and I flipped channels and I noticed that the BBC was on WTTW so I sat there and watched the BBC non-stop trying to get the latest word on...something; maybe I mostly just stared.
Finally, after all that staring and watching, I felt the urge to do something, so I got on the el and went down to my school and did some school work, Talked to a few people, but mostly stayed quiet.
And then I went home and stared at the BBC again until I somehow, someway, fell asleep.
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Highlighted by Crashing Vor:
This observation by mnkh in Mark Sumner’s front page post on Trump’s ever-widening array of ever-more-nasty scandals.
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