What Did You Do When The Towers Came Down?

[Plaid Adder]

This is a repost from the GD forum, in case the lounge lizards haven't seen it over there...

This has been in my head for a while and I wrote it up hoping nostamj could use it for QuestionW. Anyone else who wants it is free to copy it, reproduce it, perform it, etc., such as it is. I have a tune for it in my head, but obviously cannot reproduce that here. Given my singing voice, that is probably for the best.

What follows is probably going to be pretty cheesy, although I have tried to do this from the heart. You have been warned.

WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN THE TOWERS CAME DOWN?

My mother was three when we won the world war,
And Kennedy died years before I was born.
I don't remember napalm or My Lai;
When the TV was on, my mom kept me away.
I never knew why people asked "Where were you...?"
Till I heard of the loss of the Challenger crew.
And now every September, we gather around,
And ask, "Where were you when the towers came down?
What did you do when the towers came down?"

"I went to work early--the 94th floor,
With my coffee in hand, and I knew I'd need more.
I hadn't been working for Cantor that long;
I was still terrified I would do something wrong.
Then the steel screamed in pain and the glass went to bits,
And I think I knew something below had been hit,
And the roaring of flame ate up all light and sound,
And I never knew when the towers came down.
I never knew when the towers came down."

"I jammed on my helmet and ran for the door;
And I thought, after all, I've survived it before,
We could not have known what we were running to meet
Till we jumped off the truck and we ran up the street
And saw jet fuel and steel burn and blacken the air,
And I only thought once, 'Christ, we're going in *there*?'
But we climbed toward the fire to beat the thing down--
And that's where we were when the towers came down.
That's what I did when the towers came down."

"There once was a place at the top of one tower
Where my husband washed dishes for eight bucks an hour.
When I heard, my throat closed till I thought I would choke,
And I ran out to fight through the panic and smoke.
I plastered up flyers, so people will know him,
And how, if they see him, to help him come home.
And I *knew* even then he would never be found--
But that's what I did when the towers came down.
And that's all I've done since the towers came down."

And the rest of us, who were not hurt very much,
Still woke the next day knowing we had been touched;
Still felt it unfair, as we learned of the toll,
That our lovers were safe, that our bodies were whole,
And from our helpless distances did what we could--
We gave to the funds or lined up to give blood,
And we wept as we stared at the wound in the ground,
And that's where we were when the towers came down.
That's what we did when the towers came down.

In September, in Texas, the sun still can scorch;
And while George clears the brush, and his wife sweeps the porch,
Maybe some afternoon all the Bush family
Will gather around in the shade of a tree,
And someone will mention that this was the day
That a bright morning sky brought disaster our way
And Jenna and Barbara will sit their dad down,
And ask, "Where were you when the towers came down?
What did you do when the towers came down?"

"I sat in a classroom and read to the kids,
Then I got on an airplane while Dick Cheney hid.
I preyed on their grief and I fanned people's fears,
And learned to brew oil from Americans' tears.
I stood up in the Capitol, armed with a lie,
And told grieving parents that more had to die.
And at nine every night I turned in and slept sound,
And that's what I did when the towers came down.
That's what I did when the towers came down."

For what it's worth,

The Plaid Adder

[WilliamPitt]

1. Drank half a bottle of scotch

and decided what to do with this brave new world.

[GalleryGod]

2. Called my kid-in College near Penn State-to Calm her fears!

They locked-down the Campus!
:nuke: She thought it was "Show Time":nuke:

[GalleryGod]

3. Hey, Sir Pitt!

:bounce: I recommend the DVD "Berkeley in the 60's" to you!:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[dolo amber]

4. Stayed up for three days

watching, listening, being numb...finally fell asleep on the third day and seriously thought I'd dreamed it all when I woke up.

[L.A.dweller]

5. Hung around in my college dorm

with my roomates. Then I walked to campus with the hope that classes would be canceled. And they were!
Most of us were nervous whenever we saw an airplane overhead. Kids on campus were confused as to what was going on.

[northzax]

6. sat on the roof

drank way too much, smoked way too much, watched the pillars of smoke from the Pentagon and counted the contrails of the fighters.

woke up the next morning stiff as hell.

[AlienGirl]

7. Called a wise and trusted friend

and asked if it was "Hey Rube!" time.

Tucker

[underpants]

8. My best friend had left a message for me (I was at work)

He and his wife and son watched it live. Another old friend and I both thought of the plane that hit the Empire State building back in the 30's (?) but this had a very different outcome.

I just went home and silently watched the TV.

[anti_shrub]

10. I woke up to a frantic phone call

I'm a sleep-till-noon kind of guy and I was woke up at about 10:30 by my girlfriend who was anxious because they were evacuating downtown Pittsburgh, and her best friend's mother worked by the Pentagon.

After I was awake, I sat in bed for a few hours staring at the TV in shock.

I remember how surreal it was for every channel on the dial to be carrying network news.

[Karenina]

9. I pedaled my bike over to Charlie's flat

We watched a replay, turned and looked at each other in horror and uttered, "CIA" in unison. Comic relief.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. I stood and watched them come down

said a prayer for the people in them. I bought cigarettes and bottled water, then walked home, numb, and desperately trying to get hold of anyone on the cell phone to let them know I was alive. Took me almost two hours to get through to anyone.


on edit: that poem is fantastic! First I thought it was one of those sacchariney icky things, but the last verse really drives it home!

[Plaid Adder]

12. Yes, the sticky hand of sap hovers threateningly in the distance...

...but it's all about the punch line.

For the record, what I actually did:

I was still in bed when my much harder-working partner called to tell me that a plane had been flown into one of the towers. She and I were both thinking at that point that it was kind of a small plane. She was on the train to work and didn't have a TV or radio.

I turned on the radio and was listening to NPR when I heard about the other planes, and about the towers collapsing. I got on line to ask all my electronic buddies to check in and say they were OK (one of my online friends works in the Washington Navy Yard, and I had several in and around NYC). I was able to make email contact with my brother, who worked at the time for UBS Warburg. I wasn't clear on exactly how close his building was to the towers. He said they couldn't see it but they were watching it on TV and it was "unreal." Of our family, I think he felt it the most. His industry really got hit hard, and he was the only one who personally knew someone who had been killed.

My sister was taking classes at Columbia, so I figured she was probably OK (I knew it was at the other end of town). My father was also in Manhattan at the time, but fortunately I didn't know that till my mother told me he was safe. It was forever before we could get anyone on the phone. Liza came home from Chicago--nobody knew at that point how many more of these things were in store for us--and we watched TV, for a long, long time.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

13. i was in school

I remember I didn't hear about it until about 10. People knew but they didn't let us out of class. I cried and cried and cried some more, there were so many TVs on. Nobody understood why I was crying. People didn't understand. From the cafeteria, from the auditorium, from the 7th grade cluster we watched those TVs. They made us go back to afternoon classes but I couldn't think. Stared out the window and cried more. Couldn't eat a thing, felt sick, practice got canceled, everything canceled. Just to go home and watch more TV.

that is a great poem.

[demsrule4life]

14. Drank a bottle of wild turkey

and cried and hoped that the military would call me back in.

[slackmaster]

15. Fired up a doobie, opened a cold beer, and hugged my cats

I didn't bother calling in sick at work because I was sure they were going to close the office for the day. And they did.

[jus_the_facts]

16. thank you for sharing that.......

...and reposting it in here....I'd have missed it...that's really deep and well written...impressive is an understatement!

Peace :loveya:

[geniph]

17. Went to work

pretty normal day at work. I avoided media coverage of the whole thing, knowing the media loves to focus on anything particularly grisly or tear-jerking. I dislike being manipulated with imagery. I waited for more in-depth coverage from magazines.

Went to several memorials, one in my neighborhood - just a little candle ceremony for our block, and one big memorial at Seattle Center (we filled the International Fountain with flowers). The memorials were very helpful in working through the grief and anger.

I actually never watched any of the TV coverage until the first anniversary. So I avoided the TV-burnout that so many people suffered.

[Bake]

18. Cried in disbelief

Then began frantically trying to reach my daughter who was/is in college in NYC, south of midtown. Freaked out when I couldn't reach her by land line or cell phone. Finally got her by Instant Messenger that afternoon! I told her to stay in her dorm and stay off the streets for immediate purposes; didn't know if there would be more stuff, like maybe terrorists just opening up with Uzis on the streets. Asked her if she wanted to come home; she didn't. She watched people covered with dust and ash marching slowy out of lower Manhattan, past her dorm window. Her window faced the Towers; she saw people jumping off. She had nightmares for a long time. But she's OK now, thank God.

Bake

[Khephra]

19. I moderated BN then

And was online when it happened. I wasn't offline again until 3 days later. BN was a freeperfest and only those people who were moderating then really know how seriously we were under attack during those first three days.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

20. was at work in a hospital very near there

spent the day preparing for the flood of casualties that never came. Did not think of my own losses for a couple of days.
Extensive losses, I assure you.
I have not yet been able to go to ground zero itself. I tried one day about a year ago, but could not get south of canal street, no matter how hard I tried.

[ornotna]

21. Had the day off

My wife and I sat in stunned silence and just watched on tv.

[mitchum]

22. Said, "this will be the day that network broadcast tv violates...

the "fuck" taboo. And i was right. Heard CBS broadcast the phrase "holy fucking Jesus" at 3:30pm

[Redleg]

23. I was teaching class when I heard about the first plane crash.

Then we heard about the second one and that pretty much put a damper on the class session. I left for home after the next class was over and then saw the towers coming down.

I remember that it was a beautiful sunny day on the way to work.

[LosinIt]

24. Was working in Morristown, NJ at the time, commuting from Central NY

on a weekly basis. Morristown in about 1/2 hour from NYC. Went into work, logged into my computer, had CNN as my home page, logged into my Yahoo Messenger to check things on the homefront. Checked back at CNN a little while later and the headline said Plane hits WTC. I told my husband to turn on CNN TV. Checked with other people in the office to see what they knew. My husband IM'ed me back, "two planes, two towers".

Everybody was pretty freaked but we couldn't get a lot of info. You couldn't refresh any of the websites because there was so much traffic. Couldn't get a land line or a cell signal. Luckily we still had the IM connection going. Had a few radios in the office. My mother, my older son, and my daughter at high school were panicked because they couldn't get through to me at my office. My husband was fielding calls from the house and relaying info via IM.


After we heard about the Pentagon and the towers fell, I was outta there. I just wanted to be home to make sure that my kids and husband were safe. Made what was usually a 4.5 hour drive in about 3hours and 45 minutes, no cops on the road at all. I didn't go back to NJ until the next week. It was hard to leave home again after that.

[Pert_UK]

25. Left my office in London and spent the day trying to ring New York...

One of my best friends was working right near the Towers and I didn't know whether he was alive or dead....his wife was working in NY too, and then I had friends in DC as well and didn't know where they worked...

Spent the day and a lot of the evening drinking a full bottle of Jack Daniels and hitting re-dial on the phone until I got through to them.

Beautiful poem, by the way...it actually has me crying again.

P.

[Gringo]

26. I was in shock, then incensed

when a female co-worker said to everybody "Thank God George Bush is President instead of Bill Clinton or Al Gore."

This was only minutes after they fell, and I was so in shock, and it seemed so inappropriate a time to start a political debate that I kept quiet, but I never did forgive that freeper wench for saying that. Funny, she seems so nice otherwise. I finally laid into her on the day Bush started murdering Iraq for fun and profit. We argued, and eventually agreed to disagree, but I can't stand her. There are several other repukes in my office, but her assumption that everybody thinks like her, and that nobody would mind their candidate being insulted that way, just bugged me no end.

Anyway, after the first tower fell, I called the wife and told her to turn on the TV - typical story, I guess.

I hate Bush so much for LIHOPping or MIHOPping those towers and people out of existence, and pissing on their graves daily with his strutting bravado and fearmongering.

[rppper]

27. i was lurking and posting here.......

.....when i got a call from my then girlfriend to turn on cnn. i ran next door to my mothers apartment(she lived in the garage apartment portion of the house) and watched in utter horror as the second plane hit the second tower. i looked at her and said "they finally got them, mother, they finally got them..." in reference to a book i had read about the 93' bombing....i called my kids at their mom's in hawaii to tell them we were ok, then we both started sobbing... christ, i am choked up now.....there is a special place in hell reserved for ALL of the participants involved in 911......

[nemo137]

28. i was in world history class, and as worried sick about

my cousins, because they're half-persian, their dad's from iran, and they look middle eastern, and i was worried about revenge and interment camps, because it was already assumed that it was muslims.