On Independence Day...a look back at 9/11/2001 and a painting 17 years later.

Yesterday, I was reading this post by @tarazkp about doing some digital painting. I was curious as to the software, I said I'd monkeyed around with Krita once, asked what he used, and he responded that it was also Krita.

I like Krita, it's powerful, and free! But, it's a little intimidating to novices like me. (If anyone has any other software options, I'd love to hear.)

Anyway, I got to thinking about the one-and-only painting I've done on Krita. And, since today is the Fourth of July--a celebration of independence and freedom here in the United States--I figured it might be worth telling the story behind the painting.

9/11/2001

I was teaching high school in Florida then. Anyone who remembers that day remembers that it started out as a regular day. It was a Tuesday...about as regular of a day as they come.

Between 2nd and 3rd period classes, students in the hallways passing from class to class. There was only one boy in class with me at the time. Back then, we started our 3rd period class with announcements run through the school's closed-circuit TV system. I turned on the TV, it was already on CNN. Something close to the image below came on.

And then the boy and I watched as second of the four planes came into the screen and hit the second tower.

The boy said to me something like, "Did that just happen?" It seems stupid to me now, but I still didn't know what had happened. Did I just see what I think I just saw? I wondered. Very quickly, by the time the other students had filed in, it was clear. Yes, we had just seen what we thought we'd just seen.

The fires kept burning. The reports said there were other planes in the air hijacked. Rumors started, it was confusing, everyone wondered would something else happen next? Then the Pentagon was hit by the third plane.

Were there more planes still? By then, everyone knew the attacks were real. Cell phone calls (which were still pretty new--I did not have one then) were made to passengers in the fourth plane. Family members told the passengers their hijacked plane was going to crash and they needed to try something. The route (below in blue) showed it probably was aiming for Washington D.C. Heroic passengers, led by Todd Beamer and his "Let's roll!" call, tried to take back the plane. It went down in Pennsylania, but those heroes successfully saved the White House or Capitol.

And then, my classes and I watched on TV as the twin towers fell.

It was surreal to watch these things play out in real time. Each of these events occurred, in succession, with roughly 30 minutes in between.

Air Force One

This post is about a painting I did. So, there's one more piece of this puzzle to add.

That day, President George W. Bush was in Sarasota, Florida. He'd spent the night out on Longboat Key at the Colony Beach Resort...no longer there... :( He was to do a read-along at a local school, Booker Elementary. That school is about 7 seven miles from the school I was teaching in.

Bush started the day reading to the children. Then he was informed of the second attack...this was when everyone realized for certain this was a real attack, not some kind of an accident.

Along with all the rumors that were quickly spinning, there were rumors of threats against President Bush. The Secret Service was eager to get President Bush onto Air Force One, into the air, and to a secret location. The article "We're the only plane in the sky" is terrific...it reads like a novel.

They loaded Air Force One, then took off.

By this time, the TV channels had switched over to showing Air Force One taxiing along the ramp, then taking off. My classes and I watched it on TV. As soon as the wheels were off the ground, it occurred to me to say my class something like, "Okay, we study history every day in class, we read about about it, talk about it. Today we're going to actually see it. Let's go outside."

The Sarasota-Bradenton Airport is very, very close to my school. And, the runway and flight lines go pretty much over the school and out over the Gulf of Mexico. I knew we'd see it. My students and I hustled out of the class and into the open courtyard and looked to the west.

And then, there it was!

Air Force One popped out from behind the building. It was beautiful. I mean, really beautiful. The sky was perfectly clear and blue, and the plane was gorgeous...white with light blue coloring and the sun was glimmering off of the metal brightly. And it was low, unusually low (I think the pilot) was taking a different tack for safety. We all could read "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" as plain as day on the side of the plane. At home, my wife went outside, saw it as well, and can back me up on this!

I can still picture that image in my mind. I know it sounds silly, but I thought of President Bush looking out of one of those windows down at us.

Then, another thought struck me...it seemed to me very vulnerable at that moment. I understand it has some type of defenses, but while we looked at it in that moment, it was right there over us. It seemed vulnerable. A sudden sense of Uh oh! came to me. If something happens right now, all of my students, whom I just brought outside, will see something terrible. With all the terrible things we'd just seen, the thought was not unthinkable.

The principal ran outside just then...I think he'd been watching the jet take off too. He looked out at us wondering why all of these students were outside and which nitwit teacher had given the okay. He saw me. I told my students we'd better go back in. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the principal came over the intercom system, "Teachers, with everything going on, please keep your students inside the classrooms." Oops.

9/11/2018

I've told this story every year since then to my students. One thing has been interesting...although I remember that day like it was yesterday, the students' have different views.

The first couple of years after, the students remembered, of course. After about ten years, around 2011, I realized that the students had only been about six years old when it happened. What did they remember? Was it accurate? They said they recalled, but talking to them indicated to me that their "memories" were a mix of actual memory and things they'd picked up along the way. Around about 2015, I realized that the students would not remember anything firsthand...they were only about three years old. Nowadays, the students had not been born when it happened.

Still teaching in 2018, I recounted what happened on the original 9/11. A few students asked if I thought it was real.

The question stunned me a bit, I told them, yes. "How do you know?", they pressed. "Because I watched it play out." Most understood it was real and I think the questioners were just playing devil's advocate. They come from an age where you don't believe what you see (images, videos, etc. all can be faked). Maybe that skepticism is good (?). So, I told them about seeing Air Force One with my own eyes...no TV...standing right outside the classroom door.

And to kind of prove it, I told them I'd draw or paint what I saw. In psychology there's a term called "flashbulb memory." It's a memory that happens, usually in a dramatic or emotional moment, that gets emblazoned into one's memory. Yep, that's right.

I fired up Krita at home and painted the image below from memory.

A wrap up

This was supposed to be about painting! I didn't intend for this to be a recount of 9/11 (but I'm okay that it turned out that way). Today is the Fourth of July...a celebration. Sometimes you've got to remember why we're celebrating what we're celebrating. Freedom and independence and prices paid for those things.

I think I was the only teacher at my school smart/dumb enough to take a class outside then. I've taught a lot of years, and thinking back, that day and the decision to see that bit of history might be one of my career highlights (despite the principal giving me "the look").