...To the hills of Tennessee...

I looked at my blog today and I noticed that someone asked what Alien Night was. If there is anyone reading this who participated in Alien Night, shout out. Alien Night was a youth event in 2001 or so, where the theme was emphasizing that as Christians, we are not of this world. I was in SIL (Student Impact Leadership) at the time, and was therefore heavily involved with the preparation of the event. We built a spaceship, and several of us dressed up as aliens. Two things were remarkable about our costumes: 1) Dominique made the gloves, and 2) She didn’t make enough, so we painted Marisa’s arms green. WITH LATEX PAINT. It was hot, it was uncomfortable, and it was forgettable. Along with many of the theme nights we had. Pig Fest, on the other hand, was amazing.

I told of my quest to loose weight. On Sunday, one of the teenagers told me that I had lost weight. Score. I shall continue to run, and drink a percentage of diet sodas.

September 11th is coming up in a couple days. I watched a documentary on the myths and conspiracies surrounding that day. I also watched United 93 last night. It’s hard to believe that it’s been seven years already. I remember everything about that day so clearly. The thing that really resonates in my mind if the absolute fear that gripped the entire nation. We had no idea what was going on. I remember one of my friends who called me that afternoon. He didn’t want to go to class because he was afraid that someone would attack his school. While I understand the apprehension that Americans had that day, I wasn’t very supportive of his fear. “Chach,” I said, “I doubt that anyone will attack El Paso Community College. I think there might be bigger targets out there.”

The truth is- we had no idea. In an instant, the world changed. We had no idea when or if the attacks would stop; we didn’t know if we would ever be safe again. I remember taking a shower that morning, and as I prayed for the people trapped in those towers, I realized, “America is now different.” The world I grew up will be a different one than the one my children will know. This was the defining moment for my generation. My parents had JFK’s assassination; my grandparents had Pearl Harbor. We have September 11th. This is the thing that our children will ask us where we were. Everyone knows what they were doing, and where they were when they heard the news. I saw the live shot of the second tower being hit. I saw the live shot of the towers collapsing. Those images are burned into my mind. Not the endless repeats from later on, but the actual occurrence. Those are the instances you tell your children. I have heard my mom’s story of where she was when Kennedy was shot. I will tell my children where I was when the world changed.

A couple weeks ago, the staff went to an office building downtown that has a public lobby on the 40th floor. My roommate from Nigeria and I were talking about what it would be like to fall from that height. Suddenly I remembered seeing the people jump from the Trade towers. He had not seen any of the footage. That was a moment that altered my young perception. I used to think that nothing was bad enough to cause you to kill yourself. But as I saw those people plummeting toward the ground, I thought, “How bad is it up there that the better option is to jump from 80 or 90 stories up?”

I have the El Paso Times from September 12th. It is full of speculation and theories. It’s further proof of how little we knew.

It’s a little weird to hear about our kids learning about the 11th in history and social studies. To think that this is the only world they will know, unless, something else comes along and changes it again, which inevitably it will. To only know a post 9/11 world? It saddens me. There are those older than me who would say the same to me, but I grew up in a small window of relative domestic peace. The Cold War was over and The Gulf War was fairly brief. I remember having a parade in my school, and singing “God Bless the USA” the day the war ended. The 90’s were prosperous though scandal filled. Then came the first year of the new millennium, and that all changed. No longer were our biggest concerns a puny southeastern European country, Executive unfaithfulness, legal ights of Cuban castaways, and hanging chads. All of that no longer mattered. In my childhood, the largest media circus was the OJ trial. Today’s teens had months of 9/11 reports.

Unimportant sidenote: The Album, “Satellite” by P.O.D. came out on 9/11.

We will all blink, and we will be honoring the 30th anniversary of 9/11. Life moves so quickly, and soon there will be children who will not learn of the attacks until they get to late elementary school. The Trade Center will be rebuilt, and finally New York will be able to move on. The war will end, and we will be so far removed from 9/11, that it will only be mentioned in yearly anniversary specials. That is if they still do them. We are already nearly there. One of my teens told me about one of his 8th grade history classes.

“James, I’m going to do something that my history teacher did in class. See if you get it right. Tell me if there is any incorrect information in this statement. ‘In 2001, a plane carrying Aalyiah was flying toward Los Angeles. Aalyiah decided that she wanted to go to New York instead, and she got into a fight with the pilot, and the plane crashed into the World Trade Center.’” I cleared up the statement, and I asked what happened in his class.

“Only me and three others said that there was incorrect information.”