remembering 9/11

so it may be a little after 9/11 right now, but i still thought i'd blog this. this is a story that many people i know already know, because i've said it in the past few years. but it's one of those things, i think everyone remembers where they were on Sept. 11, 2001. so this is how i remember that tuesday in september back in 2001.

so at the time, i was the assistant news editor at the valley morning star in harlingen. i was a recent college dropout (yet again). i had broken days off at the time (mondays and wednesday), because i was going to go back to college, but then changed my mind, and i hadn't had time to rearrange the schedule to give myself consecutive days off, but that week i had switched days with my co-worker/friend veronica so i could have monday and tuesday off and she would have wednesday and thursday off. anyway. i woke up early, around 8 a.m., that tuesday because i had a 9:30 doctor's appointment. when i got out of the shower, i heard my phone ringing. i didn't answer it because i thought it was just a solicitor or something to that effect. after i got dressed, i saw that my answering machine was blinking. i pressed the button to hear the message. it was my editor in chief, george: "mando, the country's being attacked. turn on your tv. come in after you see that."

i thought it was a joke. i'd known george for a while, and while morbid humor was more up my alley, i thought maybe i had finally rubbed off on him. i was wrong. i turned on my tv in my couchless living room, and i remember dropping my coffee mug while i gripped my remote. needless to say, after seeing the disturbing images on the television, i went straight to work. i couldn't really comprehend what was happening. the only thing i could think was that my friend elvia worked rather close to the pentagon, and i'd known her since i was 12, and she's the friend i've kept for the longest time, and i was wondering if she was dead or alive.

i arrived at work, with the newsroom in chaos. for some reason, i got the responsibility of trying to spearhead our coverage. we were putting out a special issue that needed to go to print by noon. i was assigning wires to people to check. i was giving orders to my superiors, which at the time didn't seem odd to me at all. i mean, i was trying to coordinate an emergency special issue that needed to be done in three hours. the phones were ringing nonstop. sports people were covering news. features people were covering news. people that didn't normally smoke were smoking. i was calling copy editors to come in as soon as they could, but had little luck because most weren't up that early in the morning. it was stressful. and my gallows humor wasn't going over very well.

every chance i got, i was calling my friend elvia. i kept on getting her voicemail. it was freaking me out even more. all the TVs in the newsroom were showing the same images. everything was depressing. my gallows humor wasn't even working on me.

i think i smoked three packs of cigs that day. i lost count after the second pack. there was just too much going on. i tried my best to just focus on my work, and it worked for the most part. before i knew it, it was 9 p.m., and i had already been at work since 8:30 a.m., put out a special issue, and was well into getting the rest of the next day's issue done. but the wires were still slow. all that was coming over was death. i didn't leave work that day until midnight. and i called in sick for the next day, because i was.

at 1 a.m., i finally got a call from elvia. she was fine. she heard what was going on, and went to volunteer in the relief effort. i was relieved, but still couldn't sleep well that night.

so that's my rememberance of that day. the week didn't go any better. late that friday night/saturday morning (sept. 14/15), a ship hit the queen isabella causeway heading to south padre island, taking out a portion of the bridge and sending many to their deaths. back in june, we, as an editorial board at the paper, decided to run a 13-part series on "death and dying," to start running in july. our sunday, sept. 16, edition, was the most depressing issue we had ever put out. i mean, the stories were about sept. 11, the bridge tragedy, and the death and dying series. that was also the weekend i decided i was going to quit and move away to go back to school. and the whole experience of that week is still etched deeply and vibrantly in my head.