Indelibly

Twenty years ago this morning, I was already hard at work at the Proex Central Lab in Edina.  Those were the days when I would get up at the butt crack of dawn to make it to work for a 7am start time.  That's probably not early for a lot of people, but for a night owl like me, it was brutal.

Back then, we were still processing tons and tons of film and pictures for the masses.  By a quarter to 8, the workday was in full swing.  Many machines were humming away, spitting out 35mm, APS, and 110 film, along with stack after stack of pictures.

I remember someone coming over from another area and said that they heard on the radio that a plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers in NY.  I remember thinking, how could an accident like this happen?  How horrible!  A short time later, someone said a SECOND airplane hit the other tower.  What?  What was going on??  Now I was completely confused.  How could two airplanes accidentally hit a skyscraper in NYC?  I walked over to where the radio was tuned into KQRS and I remember hearing Tom Bernard talking about terrorists.  My heart sank into my shoes. 

If that wasn't horrible enough, two more planes crashed - one into the Pentagon and one into a field in PA.  And also hearing about both towers of the World Trade Center collapsing.  At this point, all I could think about was what was going to happen next?  But there were no more crashes that day.  Everyone was reeling from the news.  All planes were grounded for a couple of days.  It was really eerie while the planes were grounded.  My husband and I were living in an apartment at the time and daily airplane traffic noise was the norm.  Now the skies were silent.  I felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding like something else bad would surely happen. 

What I wanted most was a flag to fly.  An American flag should be easy to find, right?  Wrong!  Flags just weren't all that popular or readily available in 2001.  It boggles the mind.  I went to store after store and came up empty.  It was very frustrating!  Finally, in desperation, I went to the Mall of America to search for a flag.  The ONLY flag I could find was the one featured in today's blog - a Mall of America t-shirt.  I didn't care about MOA, but I wanted that flag.  I started wearing that t-shirt everywhere.  Perfect strangers would smile and give me a thumbs-up for the flag.  

The unitedness of everyone in the weeks that followed was awesome.  It didn't matter who you were or what you believed, we were all united as one nation and terrorists be damned.

I took today's image this evening as I still have the t-shirt.  I don't wear it anymore and as you can tell, it has seen a lot of use.  I keep it tucked away in my dresser.   To never forget.