Remembering...

This is not about video games, food, or technology. If you read this blog for those themes only, you should probably stop here. At this sentence. Or this one.....are you still reading?

I don't really remember where I was at the exact time. I remember that I had been in Math class before the lunch period in eighth grade...I only know this because I wondered why they didn't turn on the television we had in there. I was at lunch, basically being an eighth grade girl, when my mom entered the cafeteria. She sat down at the table, hugged me, and told me that the of the Twin Towers had fallen. I didn't really know what she meant, I had no idea what the World Trade Center was, what it meant, and why they would just fall. She explained to the other girls at my table and I that two planes had flown into the buildings, and that I would be going home for the rest of the day.

On the car ride to her work, we listened to more reports of the Towers, the Pentagon, and the plane in Pennsylvania. Once there, I watched the news and saw for myself what had happened. I still distinctly remember seeing a man jump from the window of one of the buildings, and wondering why the hell they would show that on television. Until that day, I didn't really have any sense of Patriotism. Outside of Girl Scouts and the Pledge of Allegiance, I was pretty in the dark about country, loyalty, and community. My best friend at the time and I began a fundraiser for the Widows and Children of Lost Firefighters Fund at our school. We decorated a jar for students and teachers to put money in at the end of the lunch line, and raised over a hundred dollars. Sure, that may not sound like much, but the school only let us do it for two weeks, and I wouldn't say that's half bad for a couple of middle schoolers.

Everyone was connected for awhile. Everyone remembered the importance of helping each other, and that in the end we are all Americans. Freedom. Woohoo. But after a couple of years? It kind of died down. People didn't "forget" per se...but it seemed that they neglected to remember. I agree that Patriotism isn't something that should only be displayed once a year...but it is still something I think that people should make note of.