Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "September 11: Bearing Witness to History" Stories Submitted Online Description An account of the resource Visitors to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History's, "Bearing Witness to History" online exhibition submitted these reflections beginning in 2002. NMAH Story NMAH Story: Story How did you witness history on September 11th? Share your experience. I lived in Brooklyn, New York with my family on the 11th of last year. We heard the 2nd explosion and felt our house tremble. Bits of paper and debris landed in our yard, a good 2 or 3 miles from the site. We lost members of our community, a close-knit one of cops and firefighters. My son, who had just started school the week before, had a boy in his class whose father died; he was one of 10 kids. We felt helpless. We donated socks, t-shirts, sweatpants, boots, underwear and food to our local firehouse, which lost a captain. We smelled smoke and our eyes stung whenever the wind shifted in our direction. At times we couldn't leave our house because of the smoke. We tried to lead normal lives for our children but we wondered if there would be a tomorrow, if war would break out and if we'd live to see our children grown. We PRAYED for the families and cried over posters and pictures plastered all over downtown, at a hospital even a month later. But one of my worst experiences of the day was when I realized that a young man who was trapped in Tower 2, but who had managed to call one of the television stations to get word to his family, did not survive, could not have survived as the Tower fell just minutes after his plea for help. I searched for his name among the missing, finally seeing it in the New York Times. I felt such pain for this man's family, a man I had never met or even seen, but who I felt such a connection to. His voice haunts me still. NMAH Story: Life Changed Has your life changed because of September 11, 2001? If so, tell us how. We were in the process of selling our Brooklyn home and were, somewhat selfishly, worried if everything would move ahead. We had no idea where our buyers worked -- our lawyer was trapped overseas on vacation. We thought briefly of backing out of both selling and buying a house in upstate New York, but decided we had chosen to move for the good of our children. We have since moved and are dealing with different issues -- much more mundane ones. NMAH Story: Remembered What do you think should be remembered about September 11th? That New York is an amazing place, attracting amazing people to it. And that New York is ever evolving and growing and that this too shall pass. NMAH Story: Flag Did you fly an American flag after the events of September 11th? Have your feelings about the American flag changed as a result of September 11th? I didn't own a flag until we moved out of Brooklyn. I bought one soon after we moved into our new house and put it on the front porch. Flags are ubiquitous in upstate New York, but it makes me feel part of my new community to fly it. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource nmah4293.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 24.189.248.70 Notes Notes about this item. > From: "Pam W. Eigo" <pjaeigo@earthlink.net> > Date: Thu Sep 12, 2002 07:46:02 AM US/Eastern > To: The September 11 Digital Archive <info@911digitalarchive.org> > Subject: Re: Thank you for contributing thanks for your email. jamey went to school as usual, as did agnes and everything was "normal". we really did nothing to commemorate the day. i wanted to be a part of something but couldn't muster the energy or courage to leave the house. i was in manhattan/brooklyn on sunday and it was more than enough. i go back and forth often enough and see ground zero constantly, or at least the constructin site that was the trade centers. it's too depressing and makes me sad every time i drive by. so... we did nothing. i also didn't want to make too big a deal of it because of the kids. i didn't want jamey to have to think about it all over again. they did a brief ceremony at school and that was plenty. there'll be many years to come to commemorate the day. he likes his new teacher a lot. she sounds very nice. i haven't met her, but will next week at open house. i think i told you i'm his soccer coach. it's not going all that well. i don't know a great deal about the game and i think i hate 6-7 year old boys, AND jamey thinks he deserves special treatment because he's the coach's son. it was not a good practice today as i made him sit out the practice game because of his attitude. yuch. i don't know how to handle these situations very well, but i told him he embarrassed me and himself by behaving so poorly and i guess he learned a lesson by sitting out when he wanted to play. we'll see. i won't be volunteering to coach again, not even for agnes, who is much easier about sharing me with people, but i certainly don't want him thinking i'm playing favorites with her which he already does -- in spades. she's not the easiest kid, but compared to him she's a princess. i try hard not to show favoritism but he's just such a pain in the butt! i love him dearly and wish he could understand that. sounds like your service was something special. glad you attended for us. much love, pam