My 9/11

It's difficult to fathom that 15 years have gone by since the 9/11 attacks. It was a moment of shock and chaos in what had been a quiet life until then. It was also a time of understanding and an end of innocence for the Generation X and Y crowds and predating the millenials, but not without changing their world.

While growing up I recall the multitude of people who would say that they remembered exactly where they were when president Kennedy was assassinated. My grandparents remembering where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Such memory was an interesting concept to me. Historical events happened all the time, so why would you remember where you were when these events happened. September 11, 2001 changed that perspective. You recall such events because they change who you are and who we are as a people. They become times to unite and to get remember that we are of the "land of the free and the home of the brave". That is we are free and we are brave and what we stand for, regardless of political side of the fence, is worth defending at all costs.

So what does this have to do with this silly quasi-workout blog? Well, I had just moved to California to attend graduate school, was freshly married and was just starting to settle into what would be my life for the next 4 to 7 years. It was the first moment I had to myself to try and establish a new fitness routine.

Still slightly on Minnesota time I was able to wake up early. I decided to go for a run. This predated the .mp3 player and my non-skip CD player was broken so I chose to listen to the radio for my jog. As I set out I tried to dial in the local rock station, but everything sounded like talk radio. It took a moment to hear what was going on. I remember continuing on my jog taking in the details, taking in the shock. I arrived home to the townhome and the "CNN-shock" took over. We had become used to fast responses, fast answers, but they never came. It was the likely beginning of the prevalence of FoxNews and MSNBC "comfort news". Regardless, it took a long while for things to get back to normal.

As I started the rigors of the graduate physics program things finally settled into the new routine. But it was clear that things would be different with more vigilance and eventually more divisiveness in the country. Resulting actions facilitated renewed chaos in the middle east. So now I wonder for my kids, what will their 9/11, Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, Lusitania, Alamo, civil war, Lexington/Concord be?