Sometime between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I seemingly "developed" a knack for waking up right before the dorm fire alarm went off. This was after a year of sleeping through them, without fail, and not finding out that it went off until lunch. Maybe that's what triggered it -- my brain processed its seeming lack of regard for my own safety and adjusted accordingly to make sure I was aware that something bad might be happening. When it changed and I started waking up right before the alarms went off, it also happened without fail. Of course, that ability, like many feats the human body is physiologically capable of during college, soon vanished, and vanished quickly.
So I suppose, in a roundabout way, it makes perfect sense that I was asleep when the first planes hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago. And it also makes perfect sense that I woke up right before my dad called me from work to tell me what happened.
It was just after noon. He didn't actually tell me right away... he told me to turn on the TV first, as if I wouldn't believe him if he'd just said it himself. I stared at the screen in utter disbelief. I was barely coherent, fumbling for the remote while babbling. At the time, Dad was working at the Navy base in Patuxent River, Md., as a fuel tester. They closed up shop as soon as the second plane hit the north tower, and he was already back at the trailer he stayed in down there during the week.
I'd gotten myself together enough to have both the TV and my computer on just to keep up with everything. A couple hours into it, I get an IM from my friend Rob in Texas: "Er... damn." I'm sure my response was something equally light on keystrokes. He was relieved to know that I was all right, and we chatted for about half an hour.
The most incongruent moment of the day (and, given the circumstances, possibly of the entire year) was the UPS guy arriving that afternoon to drop off the computer my dad bought. I don't remember what, if anything, I said to him, if we talked at all about what was happening or what. Fortunately, that and the AIM conversation with Rob sort of snapped me back into reality. A reality in which I had to go to work.
I got a particularly telling sign as I left the house. Our neighborhood then had a lot of families with a lot of young kids. It's after 4 o'clock at this point, and usually you saw and heard them playing outside or riding their bikes or whatever. Today? Nothing. The only thing I saw other than myself was a sprinkler running on the lawn across the street.
I pretty much knew that we in Sports weren't going to be doing anything. The only reason I was heading down there is because I figured the news desk might need us to pitch in in some fashion, with the deluge of stories that was sure to be coming in. Driving down Route 206, and especially after getting on the Atlantic City Expressway, brought on the one thing that I'll never forget from 9/11.
The silence.
The roads were empty. And I don't mean the emptiness that you see when it's late at night and there's no traffic. I mean the roads were completely empty. I don't remember seeing anyone else on the expressway during the trip down or the trip back. Remember what a beautiful and peaceful day it actually was in the Mid-Atlantic before 9 a.m.! I had EZPass; I didn't even stop at the toll booth.
I got to work just as Seven collapsed and found out I was right. Sports was relegated to three pages at the back of the Region section. I just read a couple of national stories, helped gather all the information on the high school events being postponed, and went back home. Again, nothing but silence outside.
I got home and didn't turn the TV back on. I'd taken in too much. I mean... who processes this? Instead I went back up to my room and put this song on loop.
It ended up being my informal Song of the Year for 2001. It might have been anyway, but...
Many people will remember the shock of seeing the images of the planes crashing, the Twin Towers burning.
Me? I'll never forget the eerie silence.
God willing, the world will never be that quiet again.
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