Remember 9/11

[ASTalumna06]

I remember how mad everyone was with my high school in the weeks following 9/11.

I was sitting in my 4th period, chemistry class, in my senior year, waiting for class to start. Other students were walking in, and then all of a sudden, one student came bolting in, and started saying a bunch of stuff about how bombs and planes had hit the WTC, the white house, the Sears Tower... everything. He made it sound like the world was coming to an end, and everyone just kind of looked at him like he was crazy. But we all sat through class wondering what was happening. We were clueless.

After that class, out in the hallways, everyone was talking about what happened... but no one knew any details, or even what had been hit. The administrators didn't want any tvs or radios on, and for what reason, no one knows. We were high school students, and they treated us as if we were first graders.

Everyone was also nervous, because growing up in Nashua, NH, we had the FAA Center, controlling most of the planes in the northeast, right down the street from us. And when everyone started to hear that the planes came out of Logan Airport, things started getting crazy. Students had parents taking flights that morning, and I knew of one student whose dad worked at the FAA Center.

I then went to my last class of the day, for two periods, still not knowing exactly what happened. It was my Aerospace class, and needless to say, the professor was glued to the tv. I hadn't looked at one all day.

At one point, while we were all watching, a younger adult (don't know who he was) came in and told Dr. Price to turn off the tv. He turned around and said, "make me". The guy left the room and didn't come back.

Following that, new rules and guidelines were created at the school to direct administrators in how they should handle events such as this.

Also, tours at the FAA Center are no longer allowed, as it is believed that some of the terrorists had visited there. And any signs for the FAA Center were taken down. Large green signs on the highway are half blank now because they used to indicate the exit where the Center was located. And the plane that used to sit outside the building, next to the highway, was removed, so that there is nothing to indicate the location of the Center.

It's amazing how much I can remember that day and afterward, but it's hard to remember the time of pre-9/11 when things seemed simpler.