September 8, 1664 New Amsterdam becomes New York
September 8, 1974 Ford pardons Nixon
September 9, 1776 Congress renames the nation to United States of America
September 9, 1850 California becomes 31st state...
September 10, 1833 Andrew Jackson closes Second Bank of the United States
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks on US soil...
September 12, 1940 Lascaux cave paintings discovered...
September 13, 1814 Key pens Star Bangled Banner
I began this entry the way I usually end my other ones. Why? It is because I am going to concentrate this post on one of the above historical events. It is one of those events that come around for each generation where we can reflect on it while it occurrs and know this will be remembered forever. It was like Pearl Harbor and the JFK assassination.
On September 11, 2001 I was student teaching at Havana High School in Havana, Illinois (not Cuba). One of my students asked me if I heard about the plane that hit the World Trade Center in New York, which I hadn't. It was just ten minutes later that the principal got on the PA and informed the school about what had happened in New York and that there was another plane that had just hit the second tower. We kept on hearing updates throughout the day and tried to grasp our minds onto the tragic events of the day and what it would mean in our small Central Illinois community. A girl asked me tha question and I really couldn't answer it until I saw her waiting in a long line for gas along with what seemed like the whole community as the price of gas spiked to almost $2 a gallon (wow have times changed).
That night we had a football game in Beardstown tht all that day we assumed it would be cancelled but it wasn't so after the gas station I had to go to Beardstown. We won the game and then I headed home alone as the rest of the team and the coaches rode the bus I drove to my home in Mason City to my son and wife who was pregnant. The drive home was surreal. The radio was filled with sowhmber reflections, there was very little lighting on the roads only the porch lights of the few farm houses until I got closer to home.
In the days that followed planes were grounded, games were cancelled and the country had come together as it does during times of crisis. Church attendence skyrocketed, People wondered if there would be more attacks. When you looked into the sky you saw no jet trails only clouds and blue sky. One funny thing that happened about three weeks after 9-11 to me on a Saturday as I was driving to a football game when I saw a plane come out of the sky and begin its ascent I pulled off the road and was about to jump into a ditch when the plane began to dust the crops. I probably have seen dozens of crop dusters in my life but this one I irrationally thought was some kind of terrorist attack.
Now we are coming on the 14th anniversary of that terrible day when we lost our trust in mankind for awhile. Until next week God bless you and goodbye...
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