September 11^th 2001

It fell upon a Tuesday, Tuesdays began early; 830 AM, to beexact. I was already well on my way to being late for class. This meant movingfaster; and as I still was under mom and dad’s watchful eye, the reassuringstatements were promptly issued upon half-conscious ears. While getting inmotion, mom said “dad’s on the phone!”; I thought “Great now I’m going to hearabout being late twice”. He asked me ifI could do something or the other when I got home, I agreed and then he added “Ohbtw, something has happened in New York, listen to the radio…Something about aplane”. Oh…

Back to making sure I was running on time. Forget the quickshower, brush your teeth, and wash your face! This was easy; done correctly you could move quite fast and bam! Youjust need pants , socks- preferably fresh, and a shirt. The phone rang again; mom said “Dad’s on thephone, grab it quick I got to head to work!” rush down the stairs… grab thephone, pop tart, napkin and back pack. “Hey dad what’s up?”

“It’s definitely aplane son! They’re reporting there may be another!”

“Fuck…”

“It may be a terrorist attack! There is something happening,just be careful”

Here’s where I add that I’m in Vancouver, Canada – Far, far,far, away from New York city. But atthat moment it felt for a moment as though no matter where you were; if you hada western ideological stand point of some sort, you felt as though you wereunder attack. New York, the Mecca of our democratic capitalist society, wasunder attack. Our way of life was being ridiculed and we were being hated,humiliated, and murdered.

I grabbed my washroom radio; moved the dial from Rock toReality, and left the house. It wasn’t a long walk to school, but it was adecent climb up a formidable trail up a taunting hill. NEWS flowing in, in alarming fashion; stillchaos adhered to its nature and lambasted on like never before.

This was my secondweek in higher education; and the most unexpected event that would define ageneration just broke out. Sociology 101: Sociological Theories; Durkheim,Marx, Hegel, and many more old men’s theories. They were smaller classes, under 40 people; this gave the class the feelslightly bigger than high school, and a level of a seminar – conversation feel. Yet, the lively man that got yourthoughts moving fast was somber and quiet. This wasn’t like the intro week; little didanyone of us know at that point but the discussion in that class would definethe entire decade. Polarized; us andthem, with us against us; everything had changed.

The next years of University were permanently tainted withthis polarization; not until recent years as the idea of depolarizing even beenconsidered. This one heinous act, put us in a decade of despair, depression anddecline.

The day before, I was a 17 year old in a bright happy sunshinny world. That night I went to sleep thinking how awesome last week’ssociology class was, and what promises awaited…