Where I Was

Nine years ago it was a beautiful Tuesday morning much like any other, except that I was rushing around to get ready for a job fair. It was my senior year of college, and if I had learned anything since freshman year, it was that you don't wait until the last hour of a job fair to show up. In a market where there are plenty of good applicants, companies tend to close shop well before a job fair is officially over.

And so I was hurrying to get there early. After I had eaten a small breakfast, showered, shaved, and gotten into my best suit, it was time to start studying the companies again. I looked at the job fair's booth map and scouted where I wanted to visit. Time was slipping away from me as I double-checked to make sure that I had enough resumes and rehearsed in my head how to answer standard questions: "Why do you want to work for our company?" "What experience would you bring to this job?" "What has been your favorite college class?"

Finally I was off. Probably a little later than I wanted, but I was out the door and making my way across Lincoln Avenue onto Green Street. It was the same intersection where a few weeks later I would stand frozen and watch a black SUV turning left, only to have the minivan in front of it unexpectedly slow down. What for most cars would have been a simple case of applying the breaks hard and steering clear of the minivan turned into the SUV losing control, jumping the median, and rolling over a few times across oncoming traffic before landing next to a tree in the green grass. Fortunately the driver had his seat belt on and walked away fromt the accident. Nobody was injured. Although, I have wondered how it would have been different if I had been 50 feet farther up the sidewalk. My choice would have been to either "Run Forrest! Run!" or let that big black bowling ball pick up the spare.

But there was no crash today. At least not on Green Street. I kept walking and prepping in my mind. "Are you willing to relocate out of state?" "Where do you see yourself in five years?" "What do you like to do in your spare time?"

When I reached my destination, the Illini Union which is at the heart of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's campus, I marched up the steps with determination. My only goal was to come out of this fair with as many 2nd job interviews as possible. This, I figured, would give me the best chance at getting on the road to landing that all-so-coveted job upon graduation.

As I reached the top steps, I heard many voices plus one voice that seemed to trump the others. I entered the doors and saw hundreds of people gathered. This actually annoyed me. Is there some type of political speaker here? If so, I was in no mood for it. I weaved my way through the crowd, trying to get to the ballrooms where the job fair would be. But along the way I noticed that there was no speaker. Instead, there was a huge projector TV set up with some type of breaking news story on CNN. Okay, maybe I have a few seconds for this. I stepped closer and crowded in with everyone else.

A plane crashed into the World Trade Center? No, more than one. And the Pentagon? What's going on here? Now there's a plane down in Pennsylvania?

Information was coming fast and furious from the TV, but it was still hard to know exactly what was happening. It felt as though I were watching a movie. Was this really happening? And would planes be dropping out of the sky all day?

In that Illini Union crowd, I actually encountered a friend. As we spoke about these current events, which were yet to be labeled simply as "9/11," I knew in the back of my mind that this would be the first of many conversations about this day.

My memory of September 11, 2001, isn't perfect. I don't remember all of the details. I do know that I eventually pulled myself away from the TV coverage in order to visit the job fair. And I wasn't the only one. While the conversations at the booths were different from what I had been used to at other fairs (people were obviously talking about the attacks), the foot traffic was about the same. Students still wanted jobs, and companies still wanted to collect resumes.

Once I got back to my apartment after the fair, the magnitude of this morning's crimes against humanity started to sink in. The rumors of al Qaeda's involvement were confirmed, and that started to bring things into focus. Still crazy, but more focused. There were prayer vigils on campus, American flags started going up everywhere, and some fear still hung in the air. One rumor had September 22 as being the next attack because of the symmetry. Get it? 9/11 and then 9/22? That didn't make any sense to me, but I didn't completely rule it out until 9/23 came without incident. Fear didn't rule the day, though. People came together and showed bravery, kindness, and love. From the first responders to the people waiting in long lines to donate blood, Americans showed great unity on 9/11 and the weeks that followed.

The news coverage of 9/11 was literally 24/7. And it was on more than just your standard world news outlets. It was covered by all news outlets. I recall going on espn.com shortly after 9/11 (maybe a day or two later) and every story on the front page was related to 9/11. Seriously, I couldn't find a non-9/11 story on espn.com. 

That's all history now. I got a few 2nd interviews from that fair nine years ago, but no job ever came of it. And yet I still remember walking across campus to the fair that morning, wondering how in a few months my life might change. Little did I know that it already had.