My 9/11 Story

I am totally stealing this from Sean (even the title). I highly recommend reading his version. Mine is not nearly as exciting, but this is my way of thinking about the day.

I was in my first semester at Penn State. For those that do not know (or remember), I went to Gannon for a year and a half, then transferred to Penn State. I was walking to class that morning and cut through the HUB (I usually grabbed a paper so I could do the crossword during my break). I had my headphones on and noticed people standing around the big screen TV and it looked like there was a big story. I stopped my music (I should mention that in those days, I had a discman, not an mp3 player yet) and asked someone what was going on. They told me that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. 

As I watched for a second, that was when the second one hit. At first it seemed like they were just showing footage, but then it became apparent that another plane hit. I remember someone yelling that we are being attacked. It was freaky to see and I decided to head to my class. It was my Bio Anthropology class and the professor came in and made an announcement: “I know everyone is freaking out and wants to know what is going on, but there is nothing any of us can do at the moment, and we do have a ton of material to cover before midterms, so we need to keep to it.”

Kids who had cellphones, especially the ones who were from NYC, excused themselves and left the class. It was a weird class. He was teaching, but people were just staring in a daze. Or some folks were just having whispered conversations to each other. You could hear people saying stuff like “I have an aunt that lives in New York, I hope she is okay.” Like I said, anyone from there had already left the class.

As soon as the class ended, I left and decided to head back to the HUB for my break. At that point, I think they announced that classes were canceled for the rest of the day. I caught the bus back to State College Park and immediately turned on the news (every channel was showing news…I remember flipping to MTV and they had one of the news feeds) and I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day.

My roommates Joe and Mark came home a little bit later and we talked about what was happening. The amount of misinformation that was out there that day was incredible. Planes being unaccounted for and stories of the Air Force shooting down planes. This was not stuff that was confined to the internet, actual news organizations were just saying any rumor they heard without confirmation. It was insanity. 

I cannot remember how long Penn State canceled classes, maybe the rest of the week? I am not sure. I know that things went back to normal for us fairly fast. I probably went to work that weekend at the bar (the Moshannon Park Inn). The first football game was on the 22nd and there was a fear from many students that a place like Beaver Stadium would be an easy target for terrorists. 

Another oddity is that Shanksville was like two hours away from State College. It did not feel like it was THAT close. Now though, living in Johnstown and hearing so many stories from people in this area who saw Flight 93 that day or could actually hear/feel the crash…scary and sad.