I remember watching the Challenger blow up. I was standing next to Mimi McDonald, I think we were at her house in Key West… I’d just walked in to drop off something and she said something like, "Look, Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher, just took off on the Challenger and is flying into outer space." We watched in awe. Then it blew up. We stared at the TV for the longest time, trying to figure out where the Challenger really went.
On 9/11, I was at home on Key Haven when my next door neighbor and best friend, Penny, called and said, "Turn on CNN – a plane just flew into the World Trade Center." I turned it on and there it was. You think, "How could a plane go so wrong?" Then the second one… there aren’t words to describe the effect in your body, watching that. All I could think was that there were mothers and fathers up there, starting another day, having their morning coffee and one of those great NYC corn muffins. I couldn’t get that vision out of my head.
My mother’s last wedding was on the 107th floor in 1982. Unbeknownst to us, it was the night before the QE2 would take off for her maiden cruise after serving in the Falklands War. Right after the ceremony, after I sang "They Were You" from The Fantastiks (I sang at many of my mother’s weddings)(Ok, that’s a joke), fireworks exploded up from the QE2 into the sky, right outside the windows on the 107th floor. It was amazing.
But that Tuesday morning, I watched events unfold along with the rest of the world, speechless, stunned, trying to take it in. Does anybody say "let’s roll" anymore?
Apparently 42% of Americans believe there is more to the story than what The Decider and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. After seeing these videos, I join the doubters:
Loose Change
Controlled Demolitions of September 11, 2001
There aren’t words to describe how these films affect me, either. Or the questions they leave rolling around in my cute little fluffy blonde head.