9/11/2001

In elementary school, I was one of three kids selected to be in a higher math class than everyone else. In fourth grade, eventually the other two kids had to drop back down to the fourth grade class. I was the only one left.

In fifth grade, I had to attend sixth grade classes at Lycoming Vally Middle School. A bus driver had to employed to drive me back to elementary school. It didn't really seem economical to me, but it wasn't my place to question the school's budget.

When I first realized there was something wrong, I was walking through the hallways of Hepburn Elementary with my backpack wheeling on the ground behind me. The sound of the wheels echoing through the halls seemed to be louder than usual. I passed by Mr. Guild, my old math teacher from fourth grade. There was no one in his room, so that meant he was watching the news and drinking coffee by his desk. But something was different. He was standing three feet away from the screen today. It looked like something you would only see in the movies. Only it was happening in the news.

There's not much I can remember from that day. Just the sight of two airplanes disappearing into a skyscraper, the sound of the announcer's voice, and the plume of dust that engulfed New York City. I just remember that the day a girl named Katie was struck and killed on impact by a car was more devastating to those kids than saddest day in U.S. history.

Because of this, however, I can't help but remember the most chilling quote that's always stuck with me by a man named Joseph Stalin.

"One death is a tragedy, A million deaths is a statistic."

Until that day, I didn't even know what the World Trade Center was. I didn't even know the U.S. government was in the middle of a quarrel with these people. Hell I didn't even know who these people were or why they would do such a thing. On 9/11/2001, we were just kids. We couldn't possibly comprehend the complexity of what was happening that day. But we would as time moved on. Because that was the day we were forced to accept the reality of the real world. Life wasn't always going to be worrying about next week's spelling test. Real life was the tragedy we were forced to watch on that TV screen.