So here I was listening to the horrible news while eating my Cheerios.

I was sitting at the kitchen table while mindlessly eating breakfast when listening to Morning Edition early one September day. Bob Edwards had just introduced Susan Standberg with an NPR piece she had produced. She started talking but suddenly was faded down and Bob Edwards came back on the air and said it seems that a commercial jet had just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Early speculation was a jetliner must had gone off course and collided with the trade center tower. This moment of mine was about 8:45 AM central time in Tulsa Oklahoma. I was hunch over our round glass top kitchen table eating whatever it was while listening to NPR. So, I turned up the volume and listen to the horrible event unfold. Thinking how could a jetliner veer off course that much as to hit a Manhattan tower. Then just moments later another jetliner hit the second WTC tower. Realizing this was more than just a coincidence but a planned plot to highjack jetliners and blow up the trade center. More than likely by terrorists. It was terrorists back when who had attempted once before to blow up one tower with a car bomb in a delivery van as it went into the underground parking garage. Creating minimal damage to the famed hundred-plus story skyscraper. But they were back again with death and destruction on their minds
At that point I new my brother in California, two hours behind us, needs to hear this incredible news and switch on his TV. So, I called him with the horrific news.
And you know the rest of the story. It was beyond tragic. It was like the bombing and sinking of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor or worse.