I noticed this morning on my way to drop off my daughter at daycare that many of the Capital Metro buses are displaying “United We Stand” in addition to their route numbers/names. It’s a nice sentiment, but I feel like it’s much less true than it was in the weeks following the attacks.
Five years ago, I was dropping off my son at the very same daycare. My daughter wasn’t born yet. I was flipping between different radio stations and began hearing reports of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. It was early enough that no one was sure what was going on. There was speculation that it may have been an accident. Howard Stern was still on the air here that morning. I hopped between KUT, the Stern show and KLBJ. By the time I arrived at work, it was clear that it was no accident. I still work at the same tech company. We’d already had a round of layoffs that May. Since we’d chosen to target the airline industry as one of our primary areas of potential business, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks had a pronounced effect on our business. Another round of layoffs followed roughly a month after 9/11. I managed to avoid the axe once again that October.
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