Twenty-Four Years Later

How the day that changed everything changed me forever, again

I woke up this morning, grabbed my iPad and started scrolling Twitter to discover that a lot of people were posting their recollections of where they were and what they were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. My memories of that day are compartmentalized, shoved into an unopened tin gathering dust, but the flood of images and stories I saw over the weekend forced me to take a trip back there. My personal 9/11 story may or may not be that interesting relative to so many others; regardless I submit it here to add to the collective retelling.

We were in our house in Bernal Heights in San Francisco, where we still live today. At around 6:30 AM, we were awoken from a deep sleep by the ring of the telephone. It was my dear friend Kurt, who was back then a close brother, fellow pot legalization activist and rainbow coalition flag-waving leftie from the Boston. Imagine this in Kurt’s thick south shore accent:

“Dude, I am freaking the fuck out.”

“Kurt, it’s 6:30 in the morning, what — ”

“ — oh, sorry, I forgot about the time difference. But trust me, you gotta turn the TV on.”

Kurt quickly tells me about the attack as I stumble over to the bedroom TV and turn on CNN.