Sept. 2001. DirtWeek. Check-In.

September 11, 2001.
Most know of that date, many reading this weren't born yet and some remember it like it was yesterday.

We'd been planning DirtWeek for over a year when September 11 happened. Obviously, my first thought was to cancel; it sure didn't feel like the time to be putting on an event like this. We didn't know if more attacks were coming, so many lives had just been lost, gas shortages, you name it. It was a very bad and uncertain time. So I left it to the members, we voted. Go or no go.

This was the result of that vote 21 years ago:

dw01_poster_low_res.jpg


Lot's of mixed emotions, especially when the National Anthem played over the park's PA every morning. One attitude was dominant that entire week: THEY DID NOT WIN.

This group, at this place, at that time made me incredibly proud and feeling very blessed to have these friends and family. All these years later we've lost some of the souls in this picture. They may be gone, but they are certainly never forgotten.

Here is the thread from 9-11 as it happened. 9-11 : World Trade Center - The Thread
 

RM_guy

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Damn Yankees
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Nov 21, 2000
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One of my biggest regrets in life will be not attending a Dirt Week event. Luckily I have gotten to ride with a bunch of DRNers on the East coast in big group rides but noting like Dirt Week.

...and 9/11, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Tuesday and I just got out of the shower. My wife and I were on vacation at VA Beach and she said someone flew a plane into the world trade center building. We just sat in front of the TV all day and I don't remember even eating that day. It was somewhat comforting every 15 minutes when 2 fighter jets flew overhead from the navel airbase. They flew night and day. Never had more respect for our military. When we did finally make it out to the beach it was deserted except for one guy that was playing bagpipes. It was so haunting. On the drive home we saw so many pickups with big flags waving in the back and just about every overpass had a flag hanging off of it. That attack on us had the opposite effect than what they thought. It brought us together in a way that we couldn't seem to do ourselves. God Bless all of those that lost their life.
 

Okiewan

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Dec 31, 1969
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...and 9/11, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Tuesday and I just got out of the shower.
My morning started the same. She said, "something hit one of the twin towers." I hurried to get in front of a TV. When I first saw the hole in the building, I immediately felt like it wasn't an accident, I mean, that was a center-punch. You'd think if a pilot was trying to avoid the building, it wouldn't have been such a "perfect", dead-center hit.

Some whack-job pilot trying to go-out with a bang? Bad deal. We had no idea how "bad".

When the second plane hit... well, that's when the world changed. Then the Pentagon. Then the plane in Pennsylvania, which apparently vaporized, leaving zero debris on the ground. It all seemed way too big and organized to be the work of a rag-tag band of extremists.

As we sat in front of the TV for basically the next 2 days straight, they were reporting all kinds of crazy, untrue & sensationalized crap, demonstrating again the media's desire to get viewers is more important than fact. More important than the fear they were spreading.
It was somewhat comforting every 15 minutes when 2 fighter jets flew overhead
At one point, when they were grounding all the planes over the US airspace, a "disturbance" was reported on a flight that was on approach to land at O'Hare. Two of the F16's from Great Lakes Naval Air Station (if I recall correctly) that were providing cover for the Chicago area, went after burners to intercept the plane. Of course, no one knew this (issue with this flight) was going on in real time, so when the resulting sonic boom shook the northern suburbs, we feared that another attack of some kind had happened. Talk about "on edge".

Sounds crazy now, but in those times, we had no idea what was going on and like I said the media made it even worse, as they usually do, as they still do. Some things never change.

If you want a "realtime" snap-shot of what was going through people's minds during the attacks and days that followed, take a look at this thread: 9-11 : World Trade Center - The Thread . There's a lot of insight into who we are in those posts and how we react to attacks on our way of life. It's a riveting and telling read.
 

RM_guy

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Damn Yankees
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Nov 21, 2000
7,045
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North East USA
I was in disbelief for sure. I had no idea how large the twin towers were and at first thought it must have just been a small Cessna or something. Like you said, it just got worse from there. And yeah, the media didn't help much.
 
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