Where Were You 25 Years Ago Today?

It’s hard to believe it has already been 25 years.

There are certain moments in history when you remember exactly where you were—not because you planned to remember them, but because the world shifted beneath your feet and left a permanent little pin in your memory.

I remember being in kindergarten during the Kent State shooting. Our teacher, Miss Sirin, pulled down the shades and told us that something had happened far away, but it had made her very sad. We were going to have nap time so everybody could give Miss Sirin a little time to pull herself together.

I was five years old. I remember it anyway.

I remember when the Space Challenger exploded. I was in college and had just finished teaching a class while my instructor was out on the road. Don’t ask; it’s a long story. I was walking down the hallway when students came running through, shouting that it had exploded.

Meanwhile, a very attractive Middle Eastern man from my class had asked whether I might be interested in ducking into the bathroom with him for a little private entertainment.

There I was, caught between a breaking-news disaster and a blowjob opportunity. I declined. History, apparently, won that round.

And then there was 25 years ago today.

I was living in Chicago and woke up with my throat on fire. I knew immediately it was strep. By that point in my life, I’d had it so many times that I could usually identify it long before any lab test got around to confirming what I already knew.

When I get strep, I feel feverish, woozy, and slightly detached from reality. I had probably waited a day too long to deal with it. I tried salt-water gargles. They did absolutely nothing except make me feel like a sick Victorian orphan with a cup of seawater.

Eventually, I taxi'd myself to a hospital maybe 12 blocks away. They checked me in and triaged me into one of those enormous waiting rooms divided by curtains, a different patient tucked into each little square of misery. There was nothing to look at. Nothing to do. I lay there trying not to swallow.

Then I heard screaming from the main waiting room.

People were watching something unfold live on television. There were gasps, cries of “Oh my God,” and “I can’t believe this is happening.” Through my fever haze, I honestly wasn’t sure whether I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

About 15 minutes later, there was another wave of screaming.

I was so sick and out of it that I thought I might be having a fever dream. Surely my brain was making this up. Surely the world outside could not possibly be as strange as it sounded behind those curtains.

The doctor eventually came in, confirmed that yes, I had strep—duh—and wrote me a prescription. I filled it downstairs and walked out into a different city.

Unbeknownst to me, rumors had begun racing through Chicago that tall buildings might be next. Traffic had frozen into gridlock. People were abandoning cars in the middle of the street and heading for the subways on foot. I couldn’t catch a cab, so I started walking back toward my apartment.

There were people running. Cars were scattered everywhere. Sirens. Confusion. A city that had been moving at full speed that morning had suddenly become unrecognizable.

And still, the logical part of my sick little brain kept insisting that I was dreaming. My body knew how to get me home, even if my mind could not make sense of what it was seeing.

I got back to my 15th-floor apartment, crawled into bed, and slept from pure exhaustion.

When I woke up, there were messages everywhere. My throat was swollen shut, and I could barely speak. I turned on the television, only to discover that every channel seemed to be playing the same terrible disaster movie.

Why would every network be showing a 1970s disaster film? And why would they all be showing it at once?

My brain simply could not comprehend what was happening.

I went back to sleep and woke up about 12 hours later. My poor parents had been trying frantically to reach me. When I finally called them back, I was irritated and groggy.

“What is so important?”

They asked, “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

I explained that I was sick, I had been asleep, and I had no idea what they were talking about. That was when they told me what had happened. They just wanted to know that I was safe.

I looked out the window. From 15 stories up, I could still see abandoned cars scattered along the streets below. The world had stopped. Then, slowly, the pieces began to fit together.

I wasn’t afraid exactly. But I knew something had changed.

Of course, work was out of the question for the next few days while I recovered. When I finally went back, most of the cars had found their way home—or to tow lots. I don’t remember much about the office itself, but I remember American flags. They were everywhere: held in hands, hanging from windows, fluttering from cars.

For someone who has never been terribly patriotic, I found it unexpectedly moving.

The world changed in a thousand ways after that morning. Some changes were immediate. Others crept in slowly. But here we are, a quarter-century later, still carrying the memory of where we were when the ordinary day stopped being ordinary.

So tell me in the comments: where were you 25 years ago today?