The Old Folks Home

[dsqard]

OOOPS . . . office should have clarified who they were. . .. or is that not allowed any more? Hyppa and all that.

Arielle, I think the girl on the other end of the line didn't know what to say at the time and DH hung up right after the second attempt. It was when I was leaving after my appointment the next day that I figured it out. The girl behind the counter asked me how to say my name and I told her. I also told her that most people call me by my nickname and she put that into the computer. It dawned on me then and I asked her if she had been the one to call the evening before. She said yes and I apologized and explained why he did that. I felt bad for the poor girl and DH stopped doing it.

 

[dsqard]

Whoever put "Dr Love" in my head, thank you. It has finally been usurped today, but only because somehow "It's a Small World" has attached itself to what is left of my mind and sanity.

SCG here's something to wipe that out of your head. 8 7 6 5 3 0 9

 

[Arielle]

Now it is stuck in MY head!! I'm gonna hear that one all day . . . . [push button] next selection . . .

 

[Bunnylady]

I'm not sure, is 8675309/Jenny worse than Michael Jackson and I Want You Back?

 

[Arielle]

Haahaa, now I'm hearing BBBBenny and the jetsssss. .. .. by Elton JOhn.

 

[Arielle]

Today is Sept 11 --9/11

My boys were asking me about it as it came up in class yesterday. How to explain a JFK day to young kids; the life long impact; like the Challenger. A stressful day, my BIL flew out of BOston earlier that morning and arrived at work in D.C. Very stressful not knowing his whereabouts or his status. Fortunately he evacuated the building with everyone.

Today, my thought are with the families and those impacted by the 9/11 events.

 

[dsqard]

Arielle, I agree. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the Challenger exploded and on 9/11. As a civilian contractor working on a Naval base, we were sent home on 9/11. I remember going home and not moving from the couch much watching the news. I remember how quiet the skies were for those days after when nothing was flying. Our house was on the approach path for another Naval outlying field and the pilots that were just learning to fly flew over our house often. We would also see commercial aircraft coming in on approach for the airport in Pensacola. It was so odd to not see anything in the air for those few days. Surreal just doesn't cover it. My aunt was in charge of emergency services for the state of Massachusetts at the time and her daughter was supposed to be at the WTC that day. To this day she is more distraught about the fact that she was so busy she didn't remember her daughter was actually out of the country and not in New York. She was so frantically worried about her and so absolutely busy with handling the situation that it slipped her mind. It wasn't until she got home late that night that she remembered and was relieved.

 

[Bunnylady]

A few years ago, I met a mother with a boy that was just a little younger than my then-elementary-school-aged son. As we chatted, I learned that she had lived across the river from NYC; that skyline was a part of their everyday existence. On the morning of 9/11, she and another mother were driving their boys to preschool, when the tragedy unfolded. The preschool director decided that things were too chaotic, and decided to cancel school, so they turned around and took the boys home. Her son watched as the two towers fell, the first from the backseat of his mother's car, the second from his bedroom window. That evening, she got a call from the preschool director. "I've still got kids here," she said. "What do I do?" She wound up feeding them, and bedding them down, and over the next 24 hours relatives came and collected them. These children did have at least one surviving parent, they had just gotten so caught up in the disaster they hadn't been able to get to their homes and children. She told me they had someone who stayed at their apartment for a while because they couldn't get home, either. Over the next few weeks, she said, they went to so many funerals that they just became numb.

Partly to escape the trauma of what they had witnessed, they had moved away, but of course, you can't just forget. One day while in a kindergarten classroom, her son had built an elaborate construction of blocks. "Do you know what that is?" he asked his teacher. "No, how about you tell me," she said. "That's the twin towers, do you know what happened? Somebody flew a plane into them like this. BOOM!" and he scattered the blocks with his hand.

The teacher sent him to the principal's office for being unacceptably loud and rowdy in class. Not surprisingly, his mother was upset. After she told me this, all I could do was stare at that mother in shock. "She didn't understand. She really did not understand."

 

[mickey328]

I'll never forget either. I was on my way to work and reports started to come in on the radio...I thought it was a hoax at first...if only it had been!

 

[Wisher1000]

After she told me this, all I could do was stare at that mother is shock. "She didn't understand. She really did not understand."

I guess we all have our 9/11 stories to tell.

I was speaking to a 7th grade class that morning. I had given a worksheet and had slipped out to the teachers' lounge to get a bottle of water. As I passed the library, I was pulled in to watch on the TV, just as the second plane hit. The first thing out of my mouth was a whispered "We're going to war."

I returned to the classroom and the first student that saw my face asked what was wrong. They knew nothing and all I said was that I had seen on the news that a plane had hit a high rise building in NY and there were likely alot of people dead. There was a young lady in the first row who said, "You act like you're not going to get paid this week, or something." My head snapped around to her and I stared. I stared for a long time. I stared long enough to make her very uncomfortable and the whole class was keenly aware that I was angry at her comment and I think worried as to what action I was about to take.

Actually, it insensed me instantly, but thinking it through, I realized that she had not seen what I had just seen, she was too young to grasp the situation even if she had seen it, and that she was just trying to be funny, without understanding the severity of the event and how her comment would affect me.

I managed not to address her, which is the best I could do at the moment. I told the teacher I would stay with the class until the bell rang and that she should go to the office and see what they're going to do. The teacher, who was confused by my reaction to the student, didn't question it at all. Having no idea what had happened, she left the room (her students) and I continued with my presentation. I returned to that school the next day. The same girl found me in the hallway and apoligized. She said, with watery eyes, "I'm sorry, I just didn't understand." I hugged her and said, "I know, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you." She said that it had scared her a little, and grinned.