after bush's speech, i found myself today looking back on some of the web sites involving 9-11. how sad. and yet no answers. to some degree those fools won.

I was in my AP English class, doing a speed essay on "Murder in the Cathedral". I was almost finished when our teacher walked in, told us the news, and then told us to finish the essays. I learned the towers collapsed in my Driver's Ed class. My friend and I walked in for our practicals, and the instructor pointed to a picture of the NY skyline and said, "See that? They're not there anymore."

What's really scary is what happened to a good friend of mine. Her father works for a military insurance group, and he has Pentagon clearance. In fact, he was going to go there that day, but realized that there was way too much work at his desk that had to be done. Got lucky.

Here is part of an e-mail I received:

After Sept. 11th, one company invited the remaining members of other companies who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share their available office space. At a morning meeting, the head of security told stories of why these people were alive . . . and all the stories were just:

The "L I T T L E" things.

As you might know, the head of the company got in late that day because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts. One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time. One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident. One of them missed his bus. One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change. One's car wouldn't start. One went back to answer the telephone. One had a child that dawdled and didn't get ready as soon as he should have. One couldn't get a taxi. The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today.

Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone . . . all the little things that annoy me, I think to myself, this is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment.

Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated; God is at work watching over you.

May God continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose.

It was the second day of classes and I was sitting in my Canadian Theatre class (which I later dropped) when a girl, still holding a piece of toast, showed up saying that she heard about a plane hitting the one of the towers. I dismissed it, thinking that it was some small thing. After all, she just said "plane". The prof came in. We still didn't know much, and I started getting into a heated debate with the prof over something I forgot, and stomped out of class. I returned to my room to log onto my student account to drop and add another course when I saw that someone had left me a message on my phone. It was my mom, saying that two planes had hit New York, and that Dad was ok (he works there). She wasn't sure about my cousin though (she eventually called and is ok). I turned on the radio to hear the news, and kept it there all day and went into Yahoo! to check out the headlines every few minutes. Elsewhere on campus, many kids didn't bother going to class, and preferred to huddle in front of the TV, watching CNN or CBC Newsworld or some other all-news channel. One of the campus pubs was completely packed, with people doing nothing but staring at the TV. My radio was on the CBC for weeks after that.

I was at my Intro to University class. I didn't hear about the attacks until I have worked out in the gym and saw the story on the screen in the workout room.

I was getting ready for work and I had the news on. At first, I thought it was an accident. Then, I saw the other plane hit the WTC and I was frozen. Then I think, "This is not an accident"

I went to work that day and attempted to act like things were normal when I entered my class of 8th graders. I didn't know what was going on and I had no clue how to explain what had happened. I felt helpless.

I was living in the sorority house at the time. My roommate used to annoy me because she had class early and I didn't. I guess it made her mad that I got to sleep late because she always tried to wake me up every morning. Sometimes she's tell me to look at what's on TV...my excuse was always that I couldn't see it anyway so why roll over and look (I wear contacts/glasses and can't see without them).

So that morning I thought was no different...our phone rang and I could hear my roommate say, "What? ok, I'll turn it on, bye" (she's always REAL short on the phone) So she turned it on and was like "Ginger LOOK!" So same as always I was like "What, I can't see it anyway"

And she told me a plane had hot the WTC and I got up and got 2 inces away from the TV and watched for a minute. She got annoyed with me because I was so lose to the TV that she couldn't see. So I fumbled around & found my glasses. I went downstairs where everyone else was eating breakfast & kind of announced the news. Everyone ran up to my room and started watching it on TV. So there were like all these people in our room watching it for a while. I had 2 tests the next day that were cancelled...which is a good thing because I couldn't quit watching the coverage. There's no way I couldn've concentrated


Not really an interesting story, I know...sorry I took up so much space.

I was in Spain, in a small tourist town on the north coast. I was sick that day, and taking a nap. My friend came upstairs and told be to wake up and come watch the news. Everyone in the hotel sat and watched the TV in the lobby for hours. All the Americans were trying to call their family at home, but the lines were blocked.

I was at work that morning. I first heard about it from my mom. My mom worked at the same place I did and she was on the phone with a customer in NY. My mom came over to me and said that the person she was on the phone with said something about a plane crashing into the WTC and then the women hung up. My mom and I went into the lunch room where a lot of our co-workers were already and watched the tv all day. I was watching tv when the second plane hit. At first I thought it was the news channel showing footage from the first plane, but then I realized that both the towers were hit. There wasn't much work that got done that day. On my way home, I have to drive by the airport in STL and it was very eerie driving by Lambert and not seeing any activity going on on the runway.