The song is so popular, Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?
Back track 6 years earlier... I was at Logan Elementary School in Altoona, Pa in Ms. Susan Richardella's 5th grade class when O.J. Simpson was found " Not Guilty". I remember her telling us this would likely be one of the most high profile cases we would have in our lifetimes and we would always remember where we were on that day when the verdict came in on Oct 3td, 1995. She was right. I still remember having the current event discussions with her. I remember the school bus ride home, with bus driver Leo, and ALL the talk on the bus even for us elementary school kids was whether we agreed with that verdict. Little would I have ever imagined the magnitude of a much more life changing event to follow 6 years later that the O.J. Simpson high profile case would have NO comparison to.
I was in my 2nd, maybe 3rd but I still remember it as week 2 at E.C. Glass High School after transferring from a pretty horrible school. It was a normal day.
I was in 2nd period work study class. It had a longer name that year, but the following year the name changed. However it is the class I got double credits in for having a job plus attending the class. It was taught by the Home Ec teacher, Renee Stephens. We had tvs in each class room. An announcement came over the speaker to turn the tvs on.
Mrs. Stephens allowed us to watch the scenes playing on the tv as they were occurring live. I remember thinking it had some connection to maybe the rapture (Christian reference to like the world's end). I was in a small class of about 13 fellow students. Several were already parents or would become parents that year. I am still facebook friends with one of the classmates I had in that class. It was a Tuesday.
The following day was a Wednesday and like most days in my 11th and 12th grade years of school, after school I went straight to work at Pizza Hut. The same occurred that day. We were allowed to wear patriotic shirts that day, and several days there after. My RGM (boss) Renee', affectionately called Ne-Ne but her employees allowed us to participate in the one minute of silence. I don't know the exact time it was, but this was basically "fast food". All the employees went outside (as was part of this moment of silence, the afternoon/evening after the attacks) in our flag, eagle, patriotic shirts ignoring the ringing phones of orders being made, ignoring the make board where we had pizzas needing made but most suprising ignoring the conveyor oven that continues to move the pizzas out awaiting an employee to catch and cut them before they hit the floor. Amazingly none of the pizzas hit the floor during that 90 seconds of silence. It was deffinitely backed up and took two employees to catch it back up instead of the typical one, but I was impressed to be allowed to participate in that moment and I remember it as clearly as the footage on the tv the day before.
Luckily, I was rather non-affected by this tragedy. Sure it has crushed in our safety guard feeling and allowed us to see we are not safe. But I did not loose a loved one. I am sorry for their pain and tremendous loss. I can't begin to imagine!
