Senior year of high school. In Mr. Wong's calculus class.

Another male math teacher who was Wong's friend and apparently off that period popped his head in and told Wong that a plane had hit the WTS. He thought it was a Cessna and we all kind of shrugged it off.

This was before many people were texting and no one had the internet on their phones.

Class lets out and the halls are abuzz with chatter about it, and although no one has much detail, word is it was bigger than a Cessna.

The next period was home room. My home room class looked it up on the internet and we saw that it was a big arse jet and a bad fire. Teacher freaked out.

We turn on the classroom TV (which was a CRT - this was before flat screens!) and I shite you not, two freakin minutes into watching the live broadcast we watched the second plane hit LIVE.

The was THE craziest moment of my life. The chill that went throughout my body was so intense. Pandemonium broke out in that class. Girls screaming, guys openly yelling "holy shite!" and "oh frick!" with no repercussion because the teacher (who was normally strict) was utterly floored. People ran out into the halls. It's hard to relate to people now, because it doesn't seem like a rational reaction, but we thought it was an all out attack and there would be waves and waves of it. Kids left school in the middle of the day thinking they'd attack the schools next. Clearly, they weren't going to attack a high school in Texas, but at the time we really thought it was possible.

What a crazy day. Seared in my memory.