The Orion Editors' Blog

Seven years ago, I was taking the bus to school and a kid whom I had played baseball with stepped on and told the bus driver and me that the Twin Towers fell down. My first reaction was, “Huh, that’s weird.” I think that’s what the kid and bus driver were thinking, as neither seemed very shocked.

I had seen and heard about the towers before, but didn’t know what they were for or that they were the World Trade Center. It didn’t occur to me that there were so many people in the buildings because I assumed it happened before work hours.

Then, everyone at school was talking about it, but no one really knew what was going on. There was talk of bombs, war and hijackings, but no one had a radio, TV or newspaper so we just pieced together the little bits of information we collectively had.

In my third period English class, my teacher had us arrange our chairs in a circle and he explained what had happened and introduced us to the words “jihad” and “Islamic extremist.” The atmosphere grew dark, even though none of us knew what he was talking about.

By lunchtime, a few friends were certain that the country was going to war. By the time I got home, the name Osama bin Laden had started popping up, and my visiting grandparents were watching the news and told me the estimate of deaths. My grandmother, whom I had previously experienced only as a sweet old lady, began angrily telling me how much she hoped someone would kill bin Laden. The atmosphere was now very disturbing, and the rest of the day was a bit surreal.