Prior to OJ there was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre and the Oklahoma City bombing (Timothy McVeigh). Before Gonzales there was the Branch Davidian Waco siege. Those events were huge news to follow.
I think people often regard the period before they were 17 or so as a more innocent time, when it’s just the fact they didn’t follow the news when they were younger that makes it seem innocent.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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The six part Nat Geo doc on Disney is good. Lots of video and first hand accounts. Some of the interviews go a little long but they keep the story moving.
Last edited by Cecil Terwilliger; 09-12-2021 at 03:17 PM.
I went to NY the week before for a job interview on Long Island. I just graduated university. I looked back at some of my emails just before 9/11 and I was mostly lamenting over the fact that I went to a Letterman taping and it sucked and I was upset about missing Bjork and David Schwimmer who were both guests the next day, and how boring going to a live taping actually is. That was the last time I was able to travel to the states with only my driver's license. I had some crappy photos taken from the plane as we left JFK of the twin towers. I remember I didn't go there because I said the ticket to go up to Empire State building was $9, and that it was probably more expensive to go to the WTC and I didn't feel like walking there.
I felt like I was in a bit of a fog, laying on my bed in my room on that morning and hearing the TV coverage about what was going on. For some reason it sounded like some attack in Toronto. Eventually I got up and watched the TV until about noon and then went out to lunch with my dad and his friends. I was a minor celebrity at our lunch table because I had just gotten back from there, but I didn't really have anything to contribute besides that NY was big and lots of landmarks everywhere you go, and that it was really busy, but vibrant, and if you stood anywhere for too long you'd be bowled over by New Yorkers trying to get somewhere.
A day that will forever be engrained in our memories, I think it'll be one of those rare days where we all remember exactly what we were doing when it unfolded.
Its definitely the first world changing event that I went through as a child.
If anyone has Disney+ I highly recommend the 9/11 Documentary they have on it. The first episode hit me like a ton of bricks - grab a box of kleenex.
Just started episode 2. Incredible doc so far. Absolutely heart-wrenching stuff, but well worth the watch.
The six part Nat Geo doc on Disney is good. Lots of video and first hand accounts. Some of the interviews go a little long but they keep the story moving.
I’m on part 3. It’s the best kind of documentary. No narration, ham-fisted polemic, or intrusive graphics. Just a story told through images and interviews. It looks seamless, but must have taken painstaking work to pull together all of that footage and edit it so effectively.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I was working at Canadian Tire the morning of 9/11 and we were in the middle of merchandising for the winter season, so a small crew of us would start work at 6am. Store opened at 8am but the service center opened at 7am. Shortly before 7am one of the service writers came down to me to see if I could get the TV working for him. He said something interesting was happening in New York.
I couldn't fathom the severity of what I was seeing as I turned on the TV. At that moment, it was "Oh, some stupid pilot it a small 2 person craft probably lost control". I watched for a minute. They were talking about some plane hitting the building and then just as I was about to walk away to get back to work, the 2nd plane hit. I watched for maybe 5 minutes, then my manager paged me. He was up in the office with the other manager of our two departments
This is approximately how our conversation went:
Him: "Where are you?
Me: "In the A/V section, the service writers needed the TVs turned on... The USA is under an attack".
Him: "Oh, yeah, sure. Whatever, Buff"
Other Manager: "What's Buff doing now?"
Him: "He said USA is under attack"
Other Manager: "Tell him to get more sleep at night"
Me: "No, seriously. Come down and watch the TV. RIGHT NOW!"
He sensed the seriousness in my voice so they came down, still not really believing me... I have quite a reputation as a practical joker. He was was like. "OK, what was... this... about... USA.... holy $#*!"
Not much work was done that day. The store opened as usual. There wasn't many customers that day. They were all at home watching TV too. Due to starting early I got to go home mid afternoon and just watch and process. Just freshly engaged, I was even wondering if there was going to be a world around for us to get married the next summer. I knew the world had just changed. I just didn't know how. I couldn't think of how.
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A couple of things, when 9/11 happened. I was a dozen years out of the Military, but the questions started echoing through my brain. If things go to crap, am I still able to be recalled? What's the response going to be?
I got a call from a friend that was still in at the time, he eventually went over to Afghanistan a couple of times, and he classed his time there as a absolute nightmare.
I got calls from friends and family members that were freaked out in the days that followed. What did I think the American response would be, who was responsible. I laid it out, I doubted that there would be a monstrous and immediate response. People were worried that the Americans would drop a nuke on Iran if they were implicated in or Iraq, or even Afghanistan.
A lot of people thought we were in the end of days. Its weird, I know. But I knew that American response would be heavy.
Watching over the days and weeks after 9/11 we saw a lot of different things. American's came together especially in New York. At the same time we saw the worst of things. A lot of angry Americans targeting Muslims. But we later saw cracks forming in the great American Empire, and they widened over the next 20 years until we have a fractured America today.
I remember a after 9/11 and the firefighters were leaving. Their trucks were covered in trucks. The Firefighters looked exhausted and disheartened and shattered. But people stood on the sidewalk and cheered them. And I'll be the first to admit that I cried and cried hard.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Partly due to a fear of flying I had never been on a plane in my entire life. In my early 20s I thought this is stupid and booked a flight to Vancouver...Sept 12th 2001 was the date of that flight lol. Needless to say I didn't get on a plane until 2006.
I may have posted this before, but it always amazes me just how big the WTC towers were compared to calgary skyscrapers. I remember this was going around via email in the months after 9 11
Partly due to a fear of flying I had never been on a plane in my entire life. In my early 20s I thought this is stupid and booked a flight to Vancouver...Sept 12th 2001 was the date of that flight lol. Needless to say I didn't get on a plane until 2006.
I fly often these days though
I flew to Hawaii in 1987. Family spent Christmas in Hawaii... I didn't get on a plan again, mostly due to opportunities, until 2004. My wife and I went to Hawaii. We flew home on September 11. Nobody was on that flight. They told us we had enough empty seats that each passenger could claim a row to lay down and sleep if we wanted.
I've been to Hawaii another time since then, and I've been to Vegas nearly a dozen times. I've flown a lot between Lethbridge and Edmonton for meetings. No flight was as odd as being on a flight on the 3rd anniversary of 9/11. I thought nothing of it when we booked the flight. Not until I got on the flight and saw how empty it was did I think about it. Even started to second guess... did we miss some news when we were on the beach? I really was wondering if other people who weren't on that flight were scared or knew something I didn't. I was still confident it was just people being scared of retaliation on the same day, and, well, I'm here on the 20th anniversary, regaling my stories on the internet.
The amount of empty office space in downtown Calgary today is equal to the entire floor area of the old Word Trade Centre Complex (13.5 million square feet).
Our entire office spent about 4hrs watching the unfolding sequence of events from the main-floor eatery in downtown Calgary. It was definitely surreal and felt like I was watching a bad slow movie that day.
A friend and his wife were supposed to go up the WTC on that day. They bailed early morning on account of visiting friends and other stuff came up and then as they were leaving to go there... things started happening. So if they had stuck to their schedule they woulda been there, at the top of the building that collapsed, at that time. Still blows my mind.
A friend was supposed to fly back to YYC from California that day. Took him several days just to find a car rental so him and a couple co-workers could drive home since there were zero flights for a while.
In reality, security and life in north america hasn't been the same since.
One of the strangest memories I have of 9-11 was being in junior high school and a big fan of the band Slayer. I never listened to their album "God Hates us All" that day but I believe I bought it within a week or 2. The timing of these lyrics from the song Disciple was impeccable, given that the album was also released on September 11, 2001.
"Pessimist, terrorist targeting the next mark
Global chaos feeding on hysteria"
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Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.