I always got to school somewhat early so my friends and I could hang out a little before band (and get our chairs and stands out so we would be ready to start at the right time). When I went into the band hall, however, one of the band directors and a small group of people were standing in front of the tiny television. This being an unusual occurrence (that television was almost never used), I stopped to see what was going on.

I'm sure I asked what was happening and was quickly told, but the sight of that billowing smoke mostly spoke for itself.

I'm pretty sure we didn't play any music that day; I think we mostly sat around solemnly, perhaps whispering a little.

In one of my later classes (third period, I think), my history teacher had us write down our reactions, and we continued to watch the television. She told us this was a day of history, and so she didn't teach; we just listened to the news. In classes for the first half of the day, I think we watched television. I can't remember if we were dismissed finally--I think we might have been--but I feel like a teacher in at least one of my classes tried to teach.
I'm not sure where it is, but that history teacher got our "thought sheets" back to us (maybe mailing it a year later) at some point. I know in one of my psychology classes I read that people remember strong emotional events strongly--but that their memories often contain falsifications. Because of that, I guess I often sort of doubt my memories of 9/11, but I know that I'll always have that sheet of paper from my history teacher to look back to.

Years later, in a creative writing class, I read in Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual that " . . . some weeks after the [9/11] attack, . . . the rescue dogs at the World Trade Center got badly depressed because they couldn't find any living bodies in the rubble, so people hid in the ruins and let the dogs find them."

There is a poem about this by D. Nurske, found in that book and here , that I find really poignant:

-----------------------------------

Searchers
We gave our dogs a button to sniff,
or a tissue, and they bounded off
confident in their training,
in the power of their senses
to recreate the body,

but after eighteen hours in rubble
where even steel was pulverized
they curled on themselves
and stared up at us
and in their soft huge eyes
we saw mirrored the longing for death:

then we had to beg a stranger
to be a victim and crouch
behind a girder, and let the dogs
discover him and tug him
proudly, with suppressed yaps,
back to Command and the rows
of empty triage tables.

But who will hide from us?
Who will keep digging for us
here in the cloud of ashes?

-----------------------------------

Even now, I find that poem so incredibly sad. But bless the people who were willing to hide from the dogs--the people who waved the flags that Shallowford saw--the people who worked so hard to save those in the rubble--the families who lost loved ones--all those who died and all those who showed how much they cared. It's strange how the dark side of humanity can make the light side shine so much brighter.