By: Dean Johnson, Follow South Jersey Editor-in-Chief
There are stories families tell again and again.
It’s an oral tradition that keeps the past alive so that it may be a cherished memory or serve as a cautionary tale. One story I’ve been telling my children for the past 23 years is what happened on September 11, 2001.
At that time, only three of my five children were born. Two were in elementary and one was not quite a year old, so have scant memories of the tragic events. And so I tell them.
I was teaching in Camden when rumor came around that a plan had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. Before any of use had seen the images, we thought perhaps a small plane, like the one that nearly hit the White House in Washington D.C. in September, 2014. Internet access was not as reliable then as it is today nor were our cell phones, so we couldn’t just pull up news feeds.
Within an hour of that first mention of a plane hitting the World Trade Center building, something odd began happening. One by one, students were called from class because they were being picked up early by their parents. So many students were being picked up that classes were being emptied. It got to the point where there were so few students left that we were all called to the cafeteria. That’s when we discovered what was really happening. It’s amazing how classroom teaching can be so isolated from the outside world.
We heard what had happened, that there were in fact two planes that hit the buildings. We also heard speculation that there were other intended targets including the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.
My first instinct was to call my wife. So, I took out my flip phone and dialed. However, I was not able to get through. A recorded message telling me that my call could not be completed as dialed only stoked the fears and uncertainty that were already present. I wondered what if the roads are closed. I told myself that I would walk the railroad tracks from Camden to Pitman if it came to that. I knew that I just needed to get home with my family.
Since the majority of students had already left school, a decision was made to have an early dismissal.
When I arrived home early, my wife was in the living room watching the news. That’s when I first saw those awful images. The live coverage was horrifying. I was absurd, something out of a movie. But this was very real.
We received a message for our children’s elementary school that they would have a full day, and that the children were not told of the evets that were unfolding.
My wife and I walked to the school at dismissal to pick up our kids. The first thing they said to me when they saw me was, “What are you doing here?” It was rare that I was home to pick them up.
As we walked home together, we told them what had happened. We also assured them that they were safe.
That evening my family went to church, a fully packed church and prayed for those souls lost and for our country. Later we sat on the front porch. It was eerily quiet. We live in an active flight path area, so there is rarely a minute when a plane is not visible somewhere in the sky. This evening, the sky was clear with the exception of an occasional fighter jet and a military cargo plane.
As our children got older, I would add to the story, facts about the who, the what, and they why of September 11. It’s a story I tell them every year.
Telling the stories, your stories, our stories, will ensure that the events of September 11, 2001, will be more impactful, more meaningful than pictures and a few paragraphs in a history book for generations to come.
That is how we will never forget.
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