Where were you?

          I remember the announcement at Stratford Junior High in Arlington, Virginia that November day in 1963 and walking home through the leaves with my friends Sheila and Anne.
Later, my family sat in front of the television day after day, watching the sad events unfold on television. The blood-stained widow, the empty saddle with the boots turned backward, the little boy saluting.

          I remember sitting in an empty classroom in September, 2001 during a break from teaching at the High School of Commerce in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was a room where students checked in if they had arrived late to school and a television turned to the news played on the wall. I sat and watched unbelieving as one plane, then another, crashed into the side of a building. The horror only increased as the buildings began to crumble and figures could be seen leaping into the empty air.

Today, like every morning, I went out and walked Mamie around in the crisp autumn air. Like every morning I came back in, poured myself some orange juice, turned on National Public Radio, and started a cup of tea in the microwave. The news began, and brought with it the shock and apprehension for our country that I had felt on those other black days. I can’t imagine that the next four years will be filled with anything other than ugliness and disaster.

Today America’s future was altered as irredeemably as it was in 1963 and 2001.