9/11/01- Ten Years Later.

9/11 is one of those days in our lives that we will never forget.

10 years ago I was sitting in Mrs. Groninger's 2nd period social studies class.  She got a phone call from her husband.  I remember her saying that she would never answer her phone in class, and the first time her phone rang, she looked at who was calling but didn't answer it.  Then it rang again, and she picked up because she figured if her husband was calling then it must be an emergency because he knew that she would be teaching.  She took the call in the hallway, and then came back into the classroom and put on the TV.  Her husband was a truck driver and had heard the news on the radio as soon as the first plane hit.  He wasn't sure how the school was going to handle the news, but wanted to make sure that she knew what was going on.  Mrs. Groninger told us that there was an emergency in NYC.  We watched as the second plane hit the second tower.  Towards the end of the period there was a school-wide announcement asking the teachers not to put the televisions on.  Mrs. Groninger kept the TV on for the rest of our class anyway, but shut the door and told us not to tell any of the other teachers that we were watching the news.  Third period I had English.  That teacher refused to put the TV on because of the principal's announcement.  He talked a little bit about what had happened but tried to run a normal class otherwise.  I remember being especially scared because my dad had gone into NYC for work that day.  That was the first thing I thought of when I heard the news.  I didn't know where in the city he was, just that he was there and I didn't know if he was even alive at that point.  Later in the day I called my mom and found out that my dad was a few blocks away from the World Trade Center but that he was fine.  When I got home from school I watched news coverage of the attacks for the rest of the afternoon.  My mom didn't want me to watch it, until I told her that I had already seen the news in school.  I think she was more bothered by the coverage that day than I was.  I just needed to watch it to process what had happened.  My dad couldn't get home that night or the night after, since all of the tunnels out of NYC were blocked.  He stayed at my aunt and uncle's house in the city and came home the next day.  Even though I talked to him on the phone, until I actually saw him, I didn't believe that he was okay.  I slept with one of his polo shirts for the two nights he wasn't home, and kept it with me for days after he came home.