Schooled: Balloons and Laughter to a Burning New York City

Right before I went to class, I saw my “baby” brother walking the halls with birthday balloons. He turned 16, which as we know is old enough to drive. I remember smiling thinking how happy he looked. I was in AP Government with Mr. Hoffman, one of the stellar history teachers at C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge. Our class had finished a little early and, being that school had just started, The Hoff was indulging us with some SNL political shorts.

I don’t know if they still do, but PWCS televisions used to default to a news station. Going from Will Ferrell to “New York is burning” was certainly emotional whiplash. I remember yelling at the television along with my classmates somehow thinking we could stop that second plane. Class change came and we walked like zombies to our next class. I remember the first (and only) time I saw a fellow student use the F-word with an administrator and not get punished. They were told to put their cell phone away – their father worked in the Pentagon.

As a senior in high school, I was on the cusp of being released into the “real world”, which suddenly looked nothing like what I thought it was. We were vulnerable, fragile, and targeted. I knew that people didn’t like Americans. I refused to wear sneakers on my exchange to Paris the year before because I was convinced someone would spit at me. But this, this was unthinkable.

My brother threw his balloons away. Friends left school weeping in their parents arms, not for the loss of a specific person, but for a loss of their paradigm. Things changed that day, but looking at the pictures on anniversary editions of every paper and magazine in the country, I can’t help but wonder if they’ve changed enough that my own children will never have to suffer a national loss of innocence the way we did that day ten years ago.

I hope they have.