For example, I remember when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was 11 and in school. We lived in Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
The first step Neil Armstrong took on the moon? I was sick. Let's see, I think I was a high school freshman. I do know we were stationed on Okinawa.
The riots around the country after the Rodney King beating? My mother and I were vacationing in Japan when we watched it on TV.
Kurt Cobain's suicide? We were in the car on our way to Charleston, S.C., listening on the radio.
9/11. I was on jury duty that week. I reported as usual, and I was picked for a jury. So I went up to the courtroom and sat around waiting with the other jurors.
Someone came and said we needed to go back downstairs to the jury pool room because the case was decided out of court.
We trooped back downstairs. Debbie King, our publisher's assistant, was also in the jury pool that week. From across the room, she called my name.
She asked if I'd been watching the news. I told her that I'd been upstairs and there wasn't a TV, much less a radio.
Debbie said, "Sit down and watch this."
The TV was on and people were bunched around watching.
I asked Debbie if that was a scene from a movie.
No, she said. Two planes had hit the World Trade Center, another hit he Pentagon and a third crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Why?
Debbie said everyone was just speculating.
By that time, we were all dismissed.
I had parked in the parking garage near our building then walked to the Government Center. Debbie drove me back to the newspaper. But as we left the Government Center, we noticed that there were barricades all around the building. And security was very noticeable.
Once back at the paper, the newsroom was very busy with everyone running around, stopping to watch the TV sets around the different departments, then resume running around.
I sat down and starting calling my friends living in New York. I couldn't get through to anyone.
It was a very strange day.
All the reporters tried to find people who were affected by the events of the day. I found my friend Bill Rich stranded at an airport, I think in Indianapolis. He found the last rental car at the airport and began the long drive home.
I wrote that up.
That night, I got home and spent practically the whole night watching ABC. I just couldn't stop watching. I think everyone was the same way.
It took a couple of days, but I spoke to all my friends in New York. Everyone was fine.
But Mark Evans, who starred in several plays at the Springer Opera House, worked in the financial center in the World Trade Center complex.
He told me a harrowing tale of leaving the area. He said the company he worked for, Deloitte and Touche, had an emergency evacuation plan. And they practiced on a regular basis.
When the first plane hit, he was sitting around before starting work, drinking coffee and chatting with colleagues. He said the noise was tremendous.
Almost immediately, security came around and told everyone to grab their belongings and go home. Mark said they were told to leave immediately. Not to loiter. Just go home.
He and one of his co-workers left the office and when they got outside on the plaza, he said they did what people do in that kind of situation. They stopped and looked up at the burning building.
And then Mark saw something that haunts him to this day. People were jumping from the building. At first, he said he couldn't believe what he was seeing. And when he realized the falling objects were people, he grabbed his friend's hand and ran.
They caught the last ferry to New Jersey, where both live. From the middle of the ride over, they watched the first tower fall.
When he finally got home, his roommate was hysterical because he couldn't get through to him.
The events of that day still affects him, like so many people.
Then I found out that my friend Roy Williams lost his oldest brother at the Pentagon. Roy idolized his big brother.
For a while, I was in charge of the intern program, and I found Roy, who was a student at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. I hired him as an intern that summer and I made a friend for life. He lived with Dwayne and his family that summer.
When he graduated, he was hired full-time. After a couple of years, he went to Birmingham to work at the News, where he's a business writer.
Roy wrote a wonderful column that he sent me last week. I gave it to Dusty Nix, who ran it in Sunday's editorial page.
Roy and his family are in Washington, D.C., for the dedication of the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. I hope he found a little bit of peace today.
Every year, I still watch the specials. And I still get teary. I bet a lot of people do the same thing.
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