Remembering a September Morning Twenty Years Ago

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in college during my seventy-three years of riding around the sun on Planet Earth.   In fact, in my first fifty-two years I managed to accumulate five college degrees, with the two least of those being Bachelor's degrees, two Master's, and one Specialist degree.   Twice I enrolled in PhD programs, but due to a lot of factors, never finished either time.

Twenty years ago today I was enrolled in my very last semester of college. I had just finished a Masters in Social Work at the University of Missouri while on a paid leave from my child protection job with the state, and I had enrolled in a new program at MU, one that would grant a PhD in Social Work.  The paid leave was over, and I was having to take a day-and-a-half off of work each week - unpaid - to travel two-hundred-and-seventy miles - each way - to attend a Tuesday morning class at the University of Missouri in Columbia.  It involved a drive every Monday afternoon, a motel stay one night in Columbia, and then a drive home on Tuesday afternoon.  

It was on one of those very early Tuesday mornings when I was sitting in the classroom on one of the top floors of Clark Hall - seven, eight, or nine, I honestly don't remember - when a fellow student rushed in and told us that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center.   Not long after we learned that another plane had flown into the other Tower - and not long after that one of the professors set up a television out in the hallway and everyone drifted out of the classrooms and gathered to watch the continuing news updates.

As the morning wore on we heard about the two other crashes - at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field - and the day became more and more surreal.  I found myself staring out of the classroom window - a grand view that took in much of the MU main campus as well as some of the neighboring area of Columbia, Missouri.    On other mornings small planes, and even hot air balloons, could be seen in the skies around the campus, but there was no flight activity that day.

Later that afternoon one of the professors invited our small group of PhD students to lunch.  The place she chose was a new Middle Eastern restaurant a couple of blocks from the campus.  It was called "Osama's." That too, was surreal.  I don't remember what I ate, but I do remember that the staff appeared to be steeped in shock - just as we were.

I called my boss in McDonald County just as I was preparing to leave Columbia that afternoon for the long drive home.  She said that there were long lines trying to get gas in our rural community, and that gas prices were going up while people waited in line.     She told me that if I saw any gas stations that were open to get in line and fill my tank while I still could.  I found a station and convenience store near Lake Ozark that only took about ten minutes to get to the pump, so I filled the tank, grabbed a sandwich and a drink, and headed home.  

I have no idea what I paid for gas that day, but I was thankful to get it!

It had been a very hard and emotional day - the kind of day that I hope to never experience again.