Today America remembers the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on their 24-year anniversary. Like many events that are remembered for their horror, I think most of us remember where we were when we heard about the fall of the towers.

The first al-Qaeda suicide mission under Osama bin-Laden hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 A.M. The South Tower was hit at 9:03 A.M.

Within an hour and forty-two minutes, both collapsed killing thousands and injuring thousands more—in the air, in the towers and on the ground.

At the moment, I was on Long Island, putting my suitcase in the trunk of my sister’s car in preparation for flying from Islip L.I. airport to LaGuardia and homeward bound from there later that morning.

My sister called out her front door to say that she had just received a phone call.

“The World Trade Center towers have been hit. Come inside…I’m turning on the TV.”

Long story short. There would be no flights in US air space for at least 48 hours, and longer still in the New York area. I brought my suitcase inside, and  set my alarm for 3 AM in an attempt to rebook my cancelled flights.

Airline phone lines were busy day after day and night after night. I finally got through after 3 AM on Sept 15, and was able to book my return flights for a few days later.

At the time, I was living in NW Arkansas, teaching Art at a public elementary school. When I returned, I passed out 5×7″ sheets of paper along with 2 popsicle sticks to each of my students in art classes for a week. They used crayons to draw American flags and I hot-glued the sticks to their individual flags. After each class, we went outside and “planted” our flags side by side in the lawn until the school was surrounded with by a fence of flags to symbolize our country’s security—even though it had been broken that day.

God bless America.