I wasn't sure that I wanted to do this weeks assignment
from John over at By The
Way. But, here I
am.....
Weekend
Assignment #128: Share your thoughts about 9/11.
You can remember back on what you were doing on the day or
give some thought to how we think about it today. Thoughts personal,
political or philosophical are all up for consideration. Tell us all
what you think about when you think about September 11,
2001.
No extra credit this week; thinking about 9/11 should be
enough to keep us all occupied. Write it up in your Journal or Blog,
and then come back here and leave a link, so we can all share our
thoughts together.
Five years ago I was in my second year
of my first tour with the circus. Those of us on the pre-set up crew
had pulled in the day before and set up all of the animal areas. Some
of my animals traveled over the road with me instead of on the train,
so I had already gotten them tucked in to their tent the night before.
For some reason the load-in had been a long one, and we were all tired
that night when we headed off to the hotels to get a little sleep
before the arrival of the train the next day with the rest of the
animals and all of the other
people.
The animal walk had been scheduled as
an early morning walk on the 11th and the plan was to stick as
close to our time frame as possible since we were to take a detour up
thru downtown Memphis stopping at a park for a little PR that had been
set up. For some reason G and I did not turn on the TV that morning
before heading over to the parking lot of the Pyramid. Normally we
would have had the TV on for noise and a quick check of the weather.
Maybe it was because we had been really tired the night before, but we
got up just a few minutes before we needed to walk out the
door.
Arriving at the lot, I didn't notice
anything unusual, and as G went off to check and make sure the train
was still on schedule, I wandered over to the tent where I already had
my zebras and Freisians installed. Opening up the flap I was greeted
with the normal sounds of an early morning barn anywhere..... Animals
asking to be fed.. NOW!
Quickly handing out
breakfast rations, I wondered at G not returning to tell me if the
train was on time or late.... Late was often the norm, and I was
considering a trip to a nearby McD or other facsimile thereof for
breakfast for myself...
How quickly a normal
routine can be completely disrupted... entering the elephant tent I was
greeted with the news of the first plane hitting the towers.... we were
still digesting this and considering how the pilot could have made such
a tragic error when the supervisor, whose trailer was on the lot, came
back out the door and told us of the second plane.... and that it was
now being considered an attack.
We stood around
wondering what to do.... and possibly a little selfishly... how it
would affect us and getting our animals off of the train and into their
more normal accomodations. The rest of the day is a little of a blur.
The animal walk went from a
triumphant entry and parade thru the streets with children in a park
laughing and clapping to a quick walk the shortest way we could find to
get to the lot. The people 
running the pyramid where worried because, as you can
see from the photo here, this building would be easily recognizable
from the air. We were told that we could not load in the rest of our
show that day as planned, and they weren't sure if we would be allowed
to do the shows at all.... there was talk of breaking down tents and
moving them farther away from the building... and whether we would be a
good (read high profile) target for a terrorist group
ourselves. No one knew for sure what was happening and there was fear
of other attacks....
After getting all of
the animals settled in, we found ourselves without the normal load-in
we were expecting.... and slowly we all trickled back to the train and
TV sets where we all tuned in to local channels and watched the crash
over and over again. Phone calls made to be sure people we knew on
other shows were o.k.... One person had left that morning to
fly out to FL, but thankfully, her flight was cancelled before
she got on it and she returned to the lot, shaken but at least
not stranded somewhere! I phoned my brother (who's in the
Navy) and we talked about if he could be called up for this...Some
people gathered outside the train with TVs brought
outside and connected to sattelite TV set ups that people
had (DISH, DirectTV?? I don't remember) so we could
watch CNN and other news channels. Ultimately it just seemed
surrealistic. Everyone just seemed stunned by the whole thing.
Many of the people with us weren't U.S. citizens, and some time was
spent explaining to them and trying to translate news.
But, life did go on... They allowed us in the
building early the next day and we were able to get inside and with a
lot of hard work have the show ready for the first scheduled show of
the stand.... But, nothing would ever be the
same.
So, that's where I was the day we were
attacked..... and, I'm sure I'll never forget how sad, angry, upset,
confused and lost I felt that day. I remember my mother's generation
always knowing exactly what they were doing the day JFK was shot, my
grandmother's was Pearl Harbor... this will be one of those moments for
our generation.
note: I wrote this in one sitting...
just typing. when I went back and reread it, I
realized that it is a little jumbled... but that is how I remember that
day.. Jumbled and confused. I thought about going back and clarifying
and cleaning it up, but then it wouldn't be as I remember, would
it?
