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on my car (window decal) and my license plate frames are red white and blue with a patriotic message, in my living room window (smaller 8×11), large one on the inside back wall of my garage, (so the entire neighborhood can see it when garage is open), currently I have three (smaller flags) in my front yard flower beds (with a large bell shaped candle holder with candle burning); dogs have red/white/blue collars and before I retired last year my entire cubbie was covered in flags and patriotic decorations
like these porcelain and steel eagles with the flag and red/white/blue streamers since that day (and before). 
I was listening to the radio that morning when the local talk show host happened to have the tv on and mentioned a plane had hit the tower. I thought it had to be a pilot stricken with a heart attack or something so I rushed to turn on the tv. I then saw the second plane hit live and instantly knew we were under attack.
That day was like the Twilight Zone for me. I was in the grocery store and they were playing a live feed from the national news, talking about planes heading for the Pentagon and White House. Watching people jump to their deaths was horrifying. It was all so surrealistic and an experience I can never accurately describe.to have an angiogram so from 9:45 on, I was either lying in the pre-op room, waiting for the proceedure or in the recovery room, waiting to go home so I had lots of time to spend watching TV. That is the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen (and probably ever will) in my entire life.
There are only three public things I can remember where I was when it happened, JFK’s assassination, Princess Diana’s accident, and 9/11.
I was at home with my dad, I had just gotten up and he was watching it on tv. I started watching it all unfold. I was just diagnosed just a few months earlier too.
I always had a radio on tuned to news/talk at my desk, since our division was first line support to the first line emergency responders for earthquakes, floods, fires and other California emergencies we would a lot of times find out faster initial information on the radio/tv. Plus I’m a news junkie after 28 years of that kind of stuff. It was what ? 7:05 a.m. California time when the first plane hit – and hell on earth started for those poor Americans.
I put a call out over the intercom and via Email to all our department (about 120 people). The equipment manager, brought the t.v. in from the conference room into our main office and we all watched in horror and dismay. The next couple of hours we didn’t get much work done, (in spite of what they say about state employees – we always worked our tails off) but this was three thousand miles away and we couldn’t do anything unless the govenor called. I called my supervisor as he was in San Diego at a meeting. He said they were all trying to fly home, but they had to get a car and drive. Normally, I would have been with him at the meeting but I had a doctor’s appointment I couldn’t get out of, if I’d been there with my supervisor, it would have made me bonkers, being over 500 miles from home. All I wanted and I think every body wanted was to be home. Like Dorothy says "there’s no place like home" – especially in stressful times.
My ex was a helicopter pilot and when the FCC and TSB grounded all aircraft, he had to find a vehicle to drive four hours home, so he borrowed a friends car. The funny thing, (not funny "ha-ha but funny – weird) is that he was in New York City, just three days before 9/11 attending a fellow pilot and friends funeral who had crashed the week before in Montana. That crash hit home with me very much, as my ex (who wasn’t my ex then) was flying up on those Yellowstone fires too and I couldn’t get in touch with him until he called me after I’d called everybody and their brother. I found out about the crash watching Fox News t.v. and ran to the kitchen to grab the phone and was frantically dialing numbers…I can’t imagine how the poor families watched t.v. on 9/11 knowing their loved ones were in those buildings or the first responders families knowing that their loved ones were running into those buildings.
I like you Bonbon can remember those things like Kennedy being shot, although, I was living in France at the time, my dad heard it on the Armed Forces Radio. He thought it was a play as they’d had the week before a play about Lincoln’s assasination, but when they kept reporting the same thing. And with the time difference in France – (it was late at night), he got his uniform on and went to the base. I’m sure people who were alive remember Pearl Harbor like that too.
It’s etched in our collective memories. I just pray to God that we will not have to go through anything like that again, but I’m afraid in "these interesting times that we live in" (to paraphrase an ancient Chinese curse 寧為太平犬，不做亂世人 ), we unfortunately will.
At one point, we decided to view a video of one of our office presentations, so I turned on the TV to load the VCR and ABC was showing the first tower on fire. The first plane hit at about 8:45 Eastern time and we had started our meeting at 9:00. As soon as they said what had happened, my fellow worker ran from the conference room to her office to make a phone call. She was yelling to us that her cousin worked in the first tower and would be at work at this time. It took a couple of hours for her to find out from a family member that her cousin had been in the building on a lower floor when the plane hit and had been told to leave. Then, a few minutes after that, word came around to them that it was okay to go back into the building but she decided not to take that chance. She walked down the street to the docks and boarded a tugboat to get back across the the river to where she lived. It was a very edgy couple of hours that gave us a very small idea of what the families in NY were going through not knowing where their loved ones were. I cry every time I watch a show about that event.
I was working in home care in a north suburb of Chicago. My cousin called to tell me a plane hit one of the towers and my initial thought was an accident. We kept talking and he said it was intentional and I looked to my right and could see the Downtown Chicago with the Sears Tower and John Hancock building and got so shook up.
When I got to work they’d brought a TV into the reception area and everyone was crowded around watching. The president of the company called a meeting and all elective home visits were canceled and all but 2-3 customer service reps and a couple delivery techs were sent home with pay but we were told to keep our phones on in case we were needed in an emergency. There was a fear Chicago was one of the next major cities to be targeted.
On the 1 year anniversary the president of the company called another meeting and had a moment of silence then those that had to stay in the office or see patients on 2/11/01 were given the day off with pay.
I worked in a lab and was inside the lab when the first plane hit. I had come out to the office area for something and everyone was talking about it. I stayed out for a few minutes to make sure that no one was joking. then I started thinking about my oldest sister and brother-in-law who both worked in Manhattan. Neither worked close to ground zero, but I was still crazed trying to get in touch with them. Took most of the day, but finally found out that they were fine.
The other thing I remember from 9/11 and the next few days, was how quiet the night was when I went to walk the dog. Since there were no plane flights, it was eeriely quiet at night. Even though we lived near a naval air staition, it was still quiet, the only air sounds being the occassional transport plane.
Another sight that I will never forget was in the spring when they transported the surviving WTC steel "trees" from a storage area back to the steel mill where they were forged. I was picking my younger daughter up from pre-school and the procession of trucks went past us. It was the most powerful experience seeing the 40 flagdraped flatbed semis each carring the twisted metal. I wish I had brought my camera with me, as words can’t describe the scene:people pulling to the side of the road, cross traffic stopped, everyone honking horns and waving to the drivers. I still get chocked up thinking about it now.
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