Math class interrupted

By Patrick Hogan: On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, I was 17-years-old and sitting in math class at Chaminade High School in Mineola, N.Y., about 30 miles outside of New York City.

When the school president, Father James, came on the P.A. system sometime during third period, I thought he was going to give us permission to take off our jackets and ties. Chaminade is an all-boys Catholic school with a strict dress code, and it was quite hot that day.

Instead, he told us that there had been a terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, but that we should continue through the normal school day.

No one in the class seemed to know how to react. None of us knew the horrifying scope of the attacks yet. We recalled the last time the World Trade Center had been attacked in 1993. Many people died, but the buildings didn't sustain any long-term damage. Had something along those lines happened?

Thank God for Mr. Toner. I remember him calmly and firmly telling us that the people who launched this attack wanted us to be afraid and panic, and the best thing we could do was to continue the class. His confident and fearless demeanor probably helped a lot of us get through that first hour.

The teacher didn't show up at my next period. We couldn't help but notice some students missing as well -- students that had been present during our other morning classes.

The period devolved into an hourlong rumor mill. Some students had cellphones, while others had been using computers during their morning classes, and they doled out tidbits of information. Not all of it turned out to be true, but things began to crystallize. The picture of two large airplanes flying into the Twin Towers was nigh-universal. The stories of jet fighters dogfighting over Manhattan, less so.

The rumor swapping continued throughout the rest of the school day, while the amount of empty seats in the classroom multiplied. Most of them were students whose parents pulled them out of class to be safe, but we later learned that several had family and relatives in the towers.

It wasn't until I got home at 3:30 p.m. that I learned that I did as well.

One of my uncles who lived in Charlotte, N.C., had been at the Twin Towers that day for a business trip. Because I was in class most of the day, I missed the drama that gripped my family as they desperately tried to ascertain whether he had survived the attack. By the time I got home, he was safely out of the city.

My father ended up stranded on the other side of the Atlantic. He also was on a business trip that day, to London. He was preparing to fly home when all flights to the U.S. were grounded or diverted. We weren't sure when we would get to see him again, and that uncertainty held for a few days until he was allowed back into the country.

As the day came to close, it became apparent that no one I knew directly ended up losing their loved ones on Sept. 11. But I was extremely lucky. Thousands of people were dead, and the world had changed.

The weeks following that are a blur when I run them through my head.

I remember attending three memorial services for members of my church and school who had perished in the towers.

Friends of mine who had been planning to go to college talked of enlisting in the military.

I learned about al-Qaidai, as well as the lyrics to "God Bless America," a song I don't recall hearing prior to that day.

I heard what my neighborhood sounds like with no planes flying overhead on their way to JFK and LaGuardia airports.

I stood in front of a wall at Penn Station in New York that was covered in photographs of men and women who were still missing.

I watched Mike Piazza hit a home run to win the first baseball game back in New York following the attack.

It was after that game that I learned just how much things had changed. It was late, and my father and I were driving home from Shea Stadium through the back streets of Queens. Another car pulled up next to us at a red light, and the man driving the other vehicle reached over and began tapping on our window.

My father rolled down the window a little bit, and the man slid a piece of paper through the crack. Best case scenario, I figured it must be an advertisement or a menu for a local restaurant.

But when I unfolded it, it turned out to be a color printout of an American flag. Nothing more, nothing less.

I looked up, but all I saw was the license plate of the man's car as he drove away. He never said a word.

Editor's note: Patrick is an education reporter for The Gazette.