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The Death of Innocence

by Nancy McDaniel

September 11, 2001 started out for me, as it did for most, as just an ordinary September day. Just an ordinary Tuesday. Oddly enough, it was the 15th anniversary of my father’s death. It was the morning after the opening night of a wonderful new play I attended. It was the day before I was to fly to Los Angeles for a walk on role on the hit TV show CSI. The day started off expectantly hopeful. It changed dramatically.

“Do You Remember where you were when….JFK Was Shot? RFK Was Shot? Oklahoma City Happened…?”

Yes. I was walking to English Class junior year at Punahou High School, Honolulu.

Yes. I was on a “study date” (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) at an apartment the week before finals, junior year, Northwestern University.

Yes. I was lying on my mom’s couch recovering from foot surgery, about to indulge myself by watching Court TV coverage of the OJ Simpson Trial.

And, yes of course, to the as yet unasked but will-always-be-there question. I was sitting at my computer, on the Internet, when I saw the headlines that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Like most, I thought “what a terrible accident” and immediately turned the TV on to the Today Show and began my marathon TV watching.

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What Was Now Is Not

by Joyce Kohl

September 11, 2001, 6:55 am I punched the on button of my kitchen television. The channel? I don’t remember. It was part of my morning ritual as I sat at my kitchen bar drinking coffee. At first I was aware of only words “airplane” and “crashed” and then realized I was watching breaking news. At 6:45 am MST [8:45 am EST], American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. As I sat mesmerized by horrifying scenes and nightmarish thoughts I couldn’t organize or assimilate, I watched another big jet heading for the towers. My God! It hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. It was now 7:03 am MST [9:03 am EST]. The plane was United Airlines Flight 175. Both towers were in flames; smoke billowing from them. What was going on?

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Project Liberty & The Deaf Community

As a Deaf woman, the first thing that came to my mind when the Twin Towers collapsed was, “Who is going to communicate with the Deaf New Yorkers? How will we know exactly what happened and what will happen next?”

Wireless Communication
Thanks to text pagers, Deaf people communicated with each other and kept each other informed. Whatever was happening, the Deaf stayed in touch on a one-to-one basis and they updated each other as to the missing and the injured. They told each other, with fingers flying on tiny keyboards, how many firefighters were missing and how the Police were handling the street level crises arising from the terrorist strike. Many of my Deaf friends told me their Hearing families and friends outside of New York would page them and ask where they were when it happened and if they were OK.

For the literate Deaf who know how to spell and who can type on an American keyboard, that sort of instant text communication was fine, but what about the Deaf from other countries who did not know how to spell in English? New York City has a huge immigrant Deaf population and many of them have no language whatsoever. What about the illiterate Deaf and the Deaf who are developmentally disabled or mentally ill or are so poor they cannot afford a text pager? How would these disenfranchised Deaf ever get a feeling of knowledge and safety?

Project Liberty
I found the answer in Project Liberty. Project Liberty is a program sponsored by the State of New York that helps anyone and everyone who is having a hard time coping. Project Liberty paid me, as a Deafness professional, to travel to Deaf people’s homes and talk to them one-on-one and in groups about what happened on September 11th.

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Celebrate the Dead, Mourn the Living

During July 2001, my wife and I were searching for a new apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey. After 14 years of living in New York City: Manhattan in Morningside Heights near Columbia University and Saint John the Divine; Alphabet City; the Bronx’s Co-Op City, we decided it was time for a change. We wanted more room for less money. We found a great real estate Broker named Gertrude who, in turn, found us a beautiful new place to live.

October 1999.

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Reflections on an American Tragedy

Every once in awhile I find myself thinking of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, specifically towards the end of the piece. I often then get a sort of flashback, a brief image in my mind of a plane flying into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

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