9/11. Where were you in that moment you learned the horrific news?

[Rhythm]

75. Working in a factory in Virginia... just about to go on break...

Lyric and i were a still-pretty-new couple, and I was a temp-to-perm worker in a cabinetry factory on the I-81 corridor of Virginia... had only been working there for a couple of months, but was excited for the chance to get hired on permanently. I was a co-operator of a machine which produced small decorative wooden trim-strips which were used elsewhere in the factory. Boring, but a decent job.

My department's usual first-break time was 9am, and about 10 minutes before that, someone returning to the production floor from the breakroom stopped to talk with my cohort on the machine... the noise was too much for me to overhear, but then as the other guy continued on to his department, my partner turned to me an out-of-hand mentioned that "some plane hit a building in New York City". He didn't know anything more than that... not what kind of plane, or what building or anything. I figured we'd get the details when we went into the breakroom, because the big-screen TV always had CNN on.

The folks from our section (150 or so of us) tromped into the breakroom, grabbed snacks, and found places to sit where we could catch the news... my heart caught in my throat when i saw it was the WTC... smoke bellowing out of the side of the North Tower. The sound was off, so i was paying more attention to trying to read the closed-caption scrolls than to the conversation around me.

And then the second plane hit the South Tower.

The room fell completely silent.

I ran outside the doors of the breakroom, to the payphone just outside, and called Lyric, who was home with then-toddler LyricLad. Told her that i didn't know what the hell was happening, but that she should get online and find out as much as she could, and that i would call her back at lunchtime.

I have ~never~ been so glad to get home at the end of a day...

Epilogue: The permanent job i thought i'd be getting never happened, and in fact a few weeks later, the factory laid-off two full shifts of workers. Remember, in the aftermath the markets hit the brakes, including new-housing construction... and that's what we made there -- cabinet systems for new houses and major remodels.