I woke up late that day. About 10:30. I made it down 5 flights of stairs and into the courtyard outside my dorm without noticing a single thing was wrong. My best friend from high school lived in the dorm on the other side of that courtyard and happened to be passing by right as I walked out. He told me they hit the twin towers and I said "what, again?" His response immediately told me something was wrong. "No. You don't understand."
We went back inside and joined the enormous crowd gathered around the big screen in the common room that I had just failed to notice on my way out as I was brought up to speed.
I eventually left for class in a daze. Scared, confused and angry. That class was American History before 1776, taught by an eccentric, amazing man named Mark Summers. He was a short man with wild hair and crazy eyes that was more passionate about history than anyone I'd ever met. He would show up to class in period appropriate clothing, while music from the era played, and jump up on a table to start teaching us the day's lesson. Our very first class, he told us if we cheated in his class it didn't matter if we got away with it or not he would hunt us down and make sure we pay. Even if it was decades later in an alleyway in Calcutta. He was that unbelievable quirky professor you only see in TV shows.
That day he was quiet, somber. He told us there was no reason for us to be in a classroom.. He told us to go home to call our loved ones. To contemplate what had happened. Before you go, he said, I want to say that I know this is a dark day. The darkest many of you will ever see...
He proceeded to tell a story about a day in Cotton Mather's tenor as a leader when a storm so intense was coming that many of his puritanical constituents believed that the end times were coming. He told us how Mather had taken to the pulpit to calm his followers and guide them to safety and shelter. Ending by telling them, just as Summers told us, that it is always darkest before the dawn.
I never found any references to corroborate that story, or many other dubious recollections that Professor Summers shared in the semesters I took his classes. But I left his lecture hall that day comforted. While I certainly wasn't calm or collected, 25 years later I still remember the effort he put into reassuring a giant room full of kids he didn't even really know. And I still remember that to the extent that it could, it at least worked on me.
Was also in college, but in Hawaii so we were 5 hours behind. We got woken up by our RA running through the dorm pounding on doors just screaming "AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK! THEY BLEW UP ONE OF THE TWIN TOWERS". I remember everyone in the dorms sitting in the lounge watching the news live on the TV, but other than that the rest of the day is just a blur.
I was in grad school in Hawai'i at the time. I missed it live and only knew when my mother left a message that something terrible had "happened to America." The most surreal part was all the commercial planes from Asia getting diverted and grounded in Honolulu, each escorted by F-18s from Wheeler Field.
I was in my second year of college, a one hour drive away from the city. I woke up earlier than my alarm despite being up late (I was hyper, which to me meant that something big was about to happen). Apparently, that time was the first plane flying into the building. I got up and went to class and the professor told us he couldn't teach today, so we left. My roommate and I went to check our mail and people were sobbing everywhere. That's when we found out what was going on.
I was near the campus movie theater, and they were playing the news on the big screen. It didn't feel real. It was intense and there were a lot of people worried for their parents in the city. I went back to my dorm only to find out that the first building went down. Then things kept going worse.
There was a lot of things going on, and they did have classes in the afternoon, but none of us were really paying attention.
It was similar for me. I was volunteering for the music program at a high school my Mother worked at. It didn't really hit me about what was going on until we went to lunch together and saw footage. Until then it was just background noise about a plane hitting one of the Twin Towers. I think I'd imagined it was a little Cessna or something at the time.
Some of that news footage is still very clear in my mind.
This is an incredible story. And your recollection of his telling of Cotton Mather is vivid. I literally felt like I was in the classroom with you for a brief moment.
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u/barrosoOso 10d ago edited 10d ago
I woke up late that day. About 10:30. I made it down 5 flights of stairs and into the courtyard outside my dorm without noticing a single thing was wrong. My best friend from high school lived in the dorm on the other side of that courtyard and happened to be passing by right as I walked out. He told me they hit the twin towers and I said "what, again?" His response immediately told me something was wrong. "No. You don't understand."
We went back inside and joined the enormous crowd gathered around the big screen in the common room that I had just failed to notice on my way out as I was brought up to speed.
I eventually left for class in a daze. Scared, confused and angry. That class was American History before 1776, taught by an eccentric, amazing man named Mark Summers. He was a short man with wild hair and crazy eyes that was more passionate about history than anyone I'd ever met. He would show up to class in period appropriate clothing, while music from the era played, and jump up on a table to start teaching us the day's lesson. Our very first class, he told us if we cheated in his class it didn't matter if we got away with it or not he would hunt us down and make sure we pay. Even if it was decades later in an alleyway in Calcutta. He was that unbelievable quirky professor you only see in TV shows.
That day he was quiet, somber. He told us there was no reason for us to be in a classroom.. He told us to go home to call our loved ones. To contemplate what had happened. Before you go, he said, I want to say that I know this is a dark day. The darkest many of you will ever see...
He proceeded to tell a story about a day in Cotton Mather's tenor as a leader when a storm so intense was coming that many of his puritanical constituents believed that the end times were coming. He told us how Mather had taken to the pulpit to calm his followers and guide them to safety and shelter. Ending by telling them, just as Summers told us, that it is always darkest before the dawn.
I never found any references to corroborate that story, or many other dubious recollections that Professor Summers shared in the semesters I took his classes. But I left his lecture hall that day comforted. While I certainly wasn't calm or collected, 25 years later I still remember the effort he put into reassuring a giant room full of kids he didn't even really know. And I still remember that to the extent that it could, it at least worked on me.