If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
Its already 9/11 here.
The exact time the tragic events unfolded 10 years ago will start at just after 11pm, my time and the horror story that unfolded over the next few hours will run well into tomorrow morning for me. I know for most of you, its still at least a few hours away, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the day. I'd gone to bed at about 10:30pm as I usually do, and Joel was up late, as he usually was, watching TV. He woke me up before the 2nd tower was hit with a 'you have to come and see this!'. I objected- what stupid movie was worth waking me up for? Again, "you have to come see this, QUICK!" I dragged myself out of bed to see the frist foortage of the second plane hitting. I thought I was watching some sci-fi movie and was passingly impressed by the CGI but thought nothing more of it. It took a while before the horror of what was before my eyes actually sunk in. We watched, in silence, in horror, in shock. Once the plane had hit the Pentagon, I thought it was the start of WW3, that this was it, Armageddon had started. At 12:10am, on the 12th of September, 2001 (my time), I wrote to RPCA: I'm watching as the terror in your country unfolds. My heart is in my throat and I'm praying for you all. My thoughts are especially with our military folk, God bless you. My love Yowie Joel and I stared at the tv until about 3am, All the channels were showing the same scenes over and over, and we had to watch, over and over and over, because it was just to utterly surreal and unbeleivable to get it to sink in that it was actually happening, that it was *real* The next morning, I went to work late, because I had been watching the morning news. Nothing much more, info-wise, than the night before, but still had to watch it to make sure it wasn't jsut a nightmare. No work was done by anyone that day. Access was granted to international lines for those with family members overseas. The bosses looked the other way whilst people frantically tried to e-mail, phone and fax friends and loved ones. People wandered in and out of the conference room - with the big tv tuned to the only tv channel it receives - with the same footage still playing over and over. And the occasional new bit of information or previously unseen footage was digested with growing sense of horror, outrage and grief. People openly weeped, long term office feuds forgotten as people put there arms about each other. No words could adequately express our thoughts, but no words we needed to know that we all felt the same way. My mother was somewhere in Europe at the time. We had contact details of the husband of the friend she was with, but didn't know her hour to hour, day to day contact details. My mother has always been deathly afraid of flying, and regularly had a repeating nightmare of a plane exploding at a low altitude. She said the plane hitting the twin towers was close enough to a premonition coming true. She had to be severely sedated to fly back home the next week - we'd offered to somehow find the money to get her a ship home so she didn't have to get on a plane, but flying back to Australia from England is the only practical way of doing the trip. She didn't fly for years afterward. Another friend had left Sydney Australia on the 10th to fly back to Canada. She was 1 hour away from LAX when it happened. She spent an agonising 4 days trapped LA, with very little money (because what she did have in cash - remeber all cash machines and eftpos were down - went on a hotel room) and no way to contact her husband, or indeed, anyone, to let them know she was OK. She ate all the timtams and twisties she had in her bag that were gifts for homesick expats back in Canada. The cleaner here at work lost her cousin when one of the towers came down, he was a NY Firefighter. A month or so later, she chose to retire. Her reason for her resignation was that life was too darn short to work and save for a rainy day, and she was going to go out and enjoy life whilst she still could. I think her cousin's sudden and unexpected death because of 9/11 triggered that decision. And I remember, in the first weekend of October, there used to be a role-playing conevention in Sydney that Joel & I attended annually. Its located fairly close to the airport, and therefore the planes fly fairly low above it - something I am not at all used to in the sky. Up until 9/11, I always used to find the low flying planes -close enough to the airport to still see their landing gear out and their flaps down - utterly fascinating. That year, on seeing a plane that far down after 9/11 struck me with a pang of fear. A fear that has never quite gone away even after all this time. Every year on this date, I stop and observe a minute's silence (often in private, but I do). Peace, Pax, Shalom, Salaam, Rauha, Freden, Paz etc Yowie |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
"Yowie" wrote
Its already 9/11 here. Wow, I knew you were almost a full day ahead of us in the USA, but I didn't think it was *three* days!! |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
Pat wrote:
"Yowie" wrote Its already 9/11 here. Wow, I knew you were almost a full day ahead of us in the USA, but I didn't think it was *three* days!! Rasfrassenfrassenrassen[1] stupid different date formats! Today is the 9th of September. Not thinking, I here 9/11 and thing '9th of the month'. I'm not paying any attention to the 11th part which would mean November in my date format. Rassenfrassenfrassenrassen. Oh well, the sentiments are there, they're just early! Yowie [1] the sound Mutley makes when he's "cussing". |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
"Yowie" wrote in message ... Its already 9/11 here. The exact time the tragic events unfolded 10 years ago will start at just after 11pm, my time and the horror story that unfolded over the next few hours will run well into tomorrow morning for me. I know for most of you, its still at least a few hours away, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the day. I'd gone to bed at about 10:30pm as I usually do, and Joel was up late, as he usually was, watching TV. He woke me up before the 2nd tower was hit with a 'you have to come and see this!'. I objected- what stupid movie was worth waking me up for? Again, "you have to come see this, QUICK!" I dragged myself out of bed to see the frist foortage of the second plane hitting. I thought I was watching some sci-fi movie and was passingly impressed by the CGI but thought nothing more of it. It took a while before the horror of what was before my eyes actually sunk in. We watched, in silence, in horror, in shock. Once the plane had hit the Pentagon, I thought it was the start of WW3, that this was it, Armageddon had started. At 12:10am, on the 12th of September, 2001 (my time), I wrote to RPCA: I'm watching as the terror in your country unfolds. My heart is in my throat and I'm praying for you all. My thoughts are especially with our military folk, God bless you. My love Yowie Joel and I stared at the tv until about 3am, All the channels were showing the same scenes over and over, and we had to watch, over and over and over, because it was just to utterly surreal and unbeleivable to get it to sink in that it was actually happening, that it was *real* The next morning, I went to work late, because I had been watching the morning news. Nothing much more, info-wise, than the night before, but still had to watch it to make sure it wasn't jsut a nightmare. No work was done by anyone that day. Access was granted to international lines for those with family members overseas. The bosses looked the other way whilst people frantically tried to e-mail, phone and fax friends and loved ones. People wandered in and out of the conference room - with the big tv tuned to the only tv channel it receives - with the same footage still playing over and over. And the occasional new bit of information or previously unseen footage was digested with growing sense of horror, outrage and grief. People openly weeped, long term office feuds forgotten as people put there arms about each other. No words could adequately express our thoughts, but no words we needed to know that we all felt the same way. My mother was somewhere in Europe at the time. We had contact details of the husband of the friend she was with, but didn't know her hour to hour, day to day contact details. My mother has always been deathly afraid of flying, and regularly had a repeating nightmare of a plane exploding at a low altitude. She said the plane hitting the twin towers was close enough to a premonition coming true. She had to be severely sedated to fly back home the next week - we'd offered to somehow find the money to get her a ship home so she didn't have to get on a plane, but flying back to Australia from England is the only practical way of doing the trip. She didn't fly for years afterward. Another friend had left Sydney Australia on the 10th to fly back to Canada. She was 1 hour away from LAX when it happened. She spent an agonising 4 days trapped LA, with very little money (because what she did have in cash - remeber all cash machines and eftpos were down - went on a hotel room) and no way to contact her husband, or indeed, anyone, to let them know she was OK. She ate all the timtams and twisties she had in her bag that were gifts for homesick expats back in Canada. The cleaner here at work lost her cousin when one of the towers came down, he was a NY Firefighter. A month or so later, she chose to retire. Her reason for her resignation was that life was too darn short to work and save for a rainy day, and she was going to go out and enjoy life whilst she still could. I think her cousin's sudden and unexpected death because of 9/11 triggered that decision. And I remember, in the first weekend of October, there used to be a role-playing conevention in Sydney that Joel & I attended annually. Its located fairly close to the airport, and therefore the planes fly fairly low above it - something I am not at all used to in the sky. Up until 9/11, I always used to find the low flying planes -close enough to the airport to still see their landing gear out and their flaps down - utterly fascinating. That year, on seeing a plane that far down after 9/11 struck me with a pang of fear. A fear that has never quite gone away even after all this time. Every year on this date, I stop and observe a minute's silence (often in private, but I do). Peace, Pax, Shalom, Salaam, Rauha, Freden, Paz etc Yowie I worked for a company that had just been bought out Marsh & McClennan, an investment company whose offices occupied the 99th to 102nd floor of the North tower of the World Trade Center in NYC. A number of colleagues had transferred there from our Memphis office. When I heard about the first plane hitting the South tower I thought it was a fluke. A tragic accident, you know? Then another plane hit the North tower and it was clear this was no mishap. And someone said to me, "Aren't our headquarters in the north tower?" OH NO! While all this was going on a plane was taken down in Pennsylvania by brave passengers not willing to let terrorists take control of their lives. And the plane hit the Pentagon but it didn't do the damage they'd hoped for. I worked in IT and the folks in the office got very busy connecting all our large multi-media screens in the conference rooms to satellite hookups so we'd have coverage available everywhere. Everyone from programming and support were standing there, watching it live. I remember when the manager of the department, who was standing behind me said, "Shouldn't someone be manning the phones?" And I chuckled and said, "Do you really think anyone cares about our software right now?" Guess not, because we all kept standing there. We all watched as the first shudder went through the North tower after it had been hit. Someone commented, "It was built to withstand wind. Surely it won't fall." But fall it did. It shuddered again, and then it fell. It just went straight down. I was the scariest thing I've ever seen. The South tower fell moments afterwards. OMG. We lost 295 colleagues that day, 30 of whom I knew personally. I'll never forget that day. But they didn't get us down. America has an indomitable spirit G Jill |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
"Yowie" wrote in message ... Pat wrote: "Yowie" wrote Its already 9/11 here. Wow, I knew you were almost a full day ahead of us in the USA, but I didn't think it was *three* days!! Rasfrassenfrassenrassen[1] stupid different date formats! Today is the 9th of September. Not thinking, I here 9/11 and thing '9th of the month'. I'm not paying any attention to the 11th part which would mean November in my date format. Rassenfrassenfrassenrassen. Oh well, the sentiments are there, they're just early! Yowie [1] the sound Mutley makes when he's "cussing". Every year I spend a few minutes in tears for all those lost that day Every time I read this poem I shed more tears I can't believe it has been 10 years WELCOME AT RAINBOW BRIDGE (Adapted from the original) by Alexander Theodore, Bouvier, Fourth Year Resident On the morning of September 11, 2001, there was an unprecedented amount of activity at the Rainbow Bridge. Decisions had to be made. They had to be made quickly. And, they were. An issue, not often addressed here, is the fact that many residents really have no loved one for whom to wait. And, the ones who were abused. Who are they to wait for? We don't talk about that much up here. We share ones as they arrive, happy to do so. But we all know there is nothing like having your very own person who thinks you are the most special kitten in the Heavens. Last Tuesday morning a request rang out for kittens not waiting for specific persons to volunteer for special assignment.. An eager, curious crowd surged excitedly forward, each kitten wondering what the assignment would be. They were told by a solemn voice that unexpectedly, all at once, thousands of people died on Earth long before they were ready. All the kittens, as all kittens do, felt the humans' pain deep in their own hearts. Without hearing more, there was a clamoring among them - "May I have one to comfort?" "I'll take two, I have a big heart." "I have been saving tail-swishes forever." One after another they came forward begging for assignment. One cozy-looking fluffy kitten hesitantly asked, "Are there any children coming? I would be very comforting for a child 'cause I'm soft and squishy and I always wanted to be hugged." Little cats volunteered to do what they do best, cuddle and rub against legs. Cats who on Earth had never had a kind word or a pat on the head, stepped forward and said, "I will love any human who needs love." Then all the cats, wherever on Earth they originally came from, rushed to the Rainbow Bridge and stood waiting, overflowing with love to share. . |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
In ng.com,
Matthew typed: snip Every year I spend a few minutes in tears for all those lost that day Every time I read this poem I shed more tears I can't believe it has been 10 years WELCOME AT RAINBOW BRIDGE (Adapted from the original) by Alexander Theodore, Bouvier, Fourth Year Resident On the morning of September 11, 2001, there was an unprecedented amount of activity at the Rainbow Bridge. Decisions had to be made. They had to be made quickly. And, they were. An issue, not often addressed here, is the fact that many residents really have no loved one for whom to wait. And, the ones who were abused. Who are they to wait for? We don't talk about that much up here. We share ones as they arrive, happy to do so. But we all know there is nothing like having your very own person who thinks you are the most special kitten in the Heavens. Last Tuesday morning a request rang out for kittens not waiting for specific persons to volunteer for special assignment.. An eager, curious crowd surged excitedly forward, each kitten wondering what the assignment would be. They were told by a solemn voice that unexpectedly, all at once, thousands of people died on Earth long before they were ready. All the kittens, as all kittens do, felt the humans' pain deep in their own hearts. Without hearing more, there was a clamoring among them - "May I have one to comfort?" "I'll take two, I have a big heart." "I have been saving tail-swishes forever." One after another they came forward begging for assignment. One cozy-looking fluffy kitten hesitantly asked, "Are there any children coming? I would be very comforting for a child 'cause I'm soft and squishy and I always wanted to be hugged." Little cats volunteered to do what they do best, cuddle and rub against legs. Cats who on Earth had never had a kind word or a pat on the head, stepped forward and said, "I will love any human who needs love." Then all the cats, wherever on Earth they originally came from, rushed to the Rainbow Bridge and stood waiting, overflowing with love to share. . The monitor has gone all misty again. That gets me every single time. Thanks for re-posting it. Yowie |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
"Yowie" wrote in message
... Its already 9/11 here. The exact time the tragic events unfolded 10 years ago will start at just after 11pm, my time and the horror story that unfolded over the next few hours will run well into tomorrow morning for me. I know for most of you, its still at least a few hours away, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the day. I'd gone to bed at about 10:30pm as I usually do, and Joel was up late, as he usually was, watching TV. He woke me up before the 2nd tower was hit with a 'you have to come and see this!'. I objected- what stupid movie was worth waking me up for? Again, "you have to come see this, QUICK!" I dragged myself out of bed to see the frist foortage of the second plane hitting. I thought I was watching some sci-fi movie and was passingly impressed by the CGI but thought nothing more of it. It took a while before the horror of what was before my eyes actually sunk in. We watched, in silence, in horror, in shock. Once the plane had hit the Pentagon, I thought it was the start of WW3, that this was it, Armageddon had started. At 12:10am, on the 12th of September, 2001 (my time), I wrote to RPCA: I'm watching as the terror in your country unfolds. My heart is in my throat and I'm praying for you all. My thoughts are especially with our military folk, God bless you. My love Yowie Joel and I stared at the tv until about 3am, All the channels were showing the same scenes over and over, and we had to watch, over and over and over, because it was just to utterly surreal and unbeleivable to get it to sink in that it was actually happening, that it was *real* The next morning, I went to work late, because I had been watching the morning news. Nothing much more, info-wise, than the night before, but still had to watch it to make sure it wasn't jsut a nightmare. No work was done by anyone that day. Access was granted to international lines for those with family members overseas. The bosses looked the other way whilst people frantically tried to e-mail, phone and fax friends and loved ones. People wandered in and out of the conference room - with the big tv tuned to the only tv channel it receives - with the same footage still playing over and over. And the occasional new bit of information or previously unseen footage was digested with growing sense of horror, outrage and grief. People openly weeped, long term office feuds forgotten as people put there arms about each other. No words could adequately express our thoughts, but no words we needed to know that we all felt the same way. My mother was somewhere in Europe at the time. We had contact details of the husband of the friend she was with, but didn't know her hour to hour, day to day contact details. My mother has always been deathly afraid of flying, and regularly had a repeating nightmare of a plane exploding at a low altitude. She said the plane hitting the twin towers was close enough to a premonition coming true. She had to be severely sedated to fly back home the next week - we'd offered to somehow find the money to get her a ship home so she didn't have to get on a plane, but flying back to Australia from England is the only practical way of doing the trip. She didn't fly for years afterward. Another friend had left Sydney Australia on the 10th to fly back to Canada. She was 1 hour away from LAX when it happened. She spent an agonising 4 days trapped LA, with very little money (because what she did have in cash - remeber all cash machines and eftpos were down - went on a hotel room) and no way to contact her husband, or indeed, anyone, to let them know she was OK. She ate all the timtams and twisties she had in her bag that were gifts for homesick expats back in Canada. The cleaner here at work lost her cousin when one of the towers came down, he was a NY Firefighter. A month or so later, she chose to retire. Her reason for her resignation was that life was too darn short to work and save for a rainy day, and she was going to go out and enjoy life whilst she still could. I think her cousin's sudden and unexpected death because of 9/11 triggered that decision. And I remember, in the first weekend of October, there used to be a role-playing conevention in Sydney that Joel & I attended annually. Its located fairly close to the airport, and therefore the planes fly fairly low above it - something I am not at all used to in the sky. Up until 9/11, I always used to find the low flying planes -close enough to the airport to still see their landing gear out and their flaps down - utterly fascinating. That year, on seeing a plane that far down after 9/11 struck me with a pang of fear. A fear that has never quite gone away even after all this time. Every year on this date, I stop and observe a minute's silence (often in private, but I do). Peace, Pax, Shalom, Salaam, Rauha, Freden, Paz etc Yowie Thank you for this, Yowie, not only for the sentiments but for the information it contains. I didn't know it had made such a big impact in Australia. While you first heard the news late in the evening, I woke up to it. The news of the first plane was on my clock radio as it turned on. As soon as I could, I went to the living room and turned on the TV, where I, too, watched the same horrific scenes over and over for hours. I learned later that a member of my Toastmasters club had been in New York visiting relatives, and was scheduled to fly home later that day. Obviously, he remained in New York much longer than he had planned. The news of the Pennsylvania plane filled me with pride and admiration, as well as grief, and I knew that no American airplane will be hijacked again. When airline service resumed, and I heard of people who were afraid to fly because of the horrific events of 9-11, I thought about the real goal of terrorism. Sure, they want to kill people they consider the enemy, but mainly they want to terrify all those they didn't kill. I made up my mind then and there that I wasn't going to live in fear. I immediately started making plans to visit a newsgroup friend I hadn't previously met. She lived about 2/3 of the way across the country from me. Three or four weeks after 9-11, I flew to visit her. Joy |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
I was about ready to start a new job, and planned to get together with
an old friend first - but put that off because my uncle died and I needed to attend his funeral. So she came to pick me up early on the morning of Sept. 11, and urged me to get in the car quick; a plane had hit a building in New York. We listened to the radio while she drove home, and I thought it must have been an accident. Then came the news of the second plane, and we knew my friend was right; it was no accident. We watched the rest of the story unfold on her TV. We didn't know then that thousands of people from all over the world were landing in our own province. Most of them hadn't learned about the tragedy until after they landed in a strange part of a strange country with nothing. Of course, it wasn't even possible at first for them to get through to their friends and families with the news that they were safe. My city was big enough to take in the extra people easily, but another airport that took in a lot of the US-bound planes, the one in Gander, is in a much more rural area. Local people from small communties in the entire area did everything they could to provide everyone with food, a place to sleep and, as soon as possible, communication with the outside world. It's like the Kennedy assassination, for those who were alive then. People remember where they were and what they were doing. -- Cheryl |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
On Sep 9, 11:34*am, Cheryl wrote:
I was at work and doing a late shift, which meant about 2pm I had gone down to the canteen for lunch and I just sat down, opened my sandwich and my paper when someone ran in shouting "Put the telly on!" Everyone looked up and at first people were saying "What a terrible accident!" we all assumed it was a private plane like a Cessna had hit I don't think our brains could quite process the idea that it was a passenger jet then the commentator almost screamed "There's a second one!" and everyone stood there open-mouthed as we watched the second tower get hit about this time someone in the canteen said "They're passenger jets!" We all watched silently as the first tower started to fall then I went back upstairs and told the staff what was happening and someone got a news feed on the PC's and seconds later Jeff my manager called us all over with a yell of "The second tower is coming down!" I called Dave who in those days used to keep the news on just for something to watch and said "What do you make of the news?" and he said "What news? I haven't got the telly on, nothing in the news this morning" so I told him "Just switch it on now- you're missing something major" and he did and all I heard was him muttering "Oh my God......." We didn't get a lot of work done that afternoon, everyone was walking about in shock, people all over the building were huddled by PC's watching the news feeds coming in- we didn't hear about the Pentagon or the other plane until a bit later and a lot of what we got in the UK was coming through confused and in bits so we'd here a story reported as "unconfirmed sources say" then moments later "We've just heard that's incorrect" then "It might be true". Walking back from work the streets were deserted- every shop, every pub, everywhere people were huddled together in groups staring at the telly, the Hi Fi shop had about 100 odd people outside staring at the televisions in the window, there was hardly anyone on the bus. I got home, Dave was staring at the telly, I didn't say a word, just sat down and joined him , I don't think we spoke for about an hour and even then it was only to comment on it, we sat there until about 2am Lesley Slave of the Fabulous Furballs |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
9/11 - 10 years on
"Cheryl" wrote in message ... I was about ready to start a new job, and planned to get together with an old friend first - but put that off because my uncle died and I needed to attend his funeral. So she came to pick me up early on the morning of Sept. 11, and urged me to get in the car quick; a plane had hit a building in New York. We listened to the radio while she drove home, and I thought it must have been an accident. Then came the news of the second plane, and we knew my friend was right; it was no accident. We watched the rest of the story unfold on her TV. We didn't know then that thousands of people from all over the world were landing in our own province. Most of them hadn't learned about the tragedy until after they landed in a strange part of a strange country with nothing. Of course, it wasn't even possible at first for them to get through to their friends and families with the news that they were safe. My city was big enough to take in the extra people easily, but another airport that took in a lot of the US-bound planes, the one in Gander, is in a much more rural area. Local people from small communties in the entire area did everything they could to provide everyone with food, a place to sleep and, as soon as possible, communication with the outside world. It's like the Kennedy assassination, for those who were alive then. People remember where they were and what they were doing. -- Cheryl ********************** Yes, you never forget those moments. I was only 3 years old when John F. Kennedy was shot but I remember it as clearly as if I'd been 23 or 43. I was in the basement, the "TV room" of our house, and my mother came down the stairs crying. I'd never seen my mother cry before. Naturally I was alarmed by this. She turned on the television. Television coverage wasn't the same in 1963 as it is now, but they still took over the airwaves to report about the President being shot. (We lived in Virginia at the time; my father was stationed at Quantico right outside of Washington. I don't remember seeing him for a couple of days.) Then, of course, was the funeral and the lighting of the eternal flame. All those images are still in my head. And I was only 3 years old. I was 41 when the twin towers fell. I'll never forget that day, either. Jill |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
8 years on | Yowie | Cat anecdotes | 25 | September 13th 09 03:46 AM |
45 years ago | Victor Martinez[_2_] | Cat anecdotes | 6 | August 30th 08 07:25 PM |
Well it's taken four years | Lesley | Cat anecdotes | 3 | June 4th 07 04:57 PM |